By John Morton

There is some evidence that companies, both multinational and African, operating from motivations that can be very broadly labelled “Corporate Social Responsibility”, can make contributions to pastoral development – or at the very least that useful development dialogues can be held with them. But three case studies, from Uganda, Ethiopia and Senegal, suggest that companies operating in “CSR” mode, however well-intentioned, show a systemic tendency to attempt to teach proper engagement with markets, and remarkably little readiness to learn how pastoralists and other livestock-keepers wish to engage with markets, and what constrains them from doing so. When allied with the intrinsic complexity of livestock-keepers’ objectives and constraints in production and marketing, this tendency to teach rather than learn severely limits the potential development contribution of CSR.