{jathumbnail off} This project aims to generate debate about pastoral innovation options, focusing on pastoral areas of Kenya and Ethiopia, linking insights from pastoral areas to the wider debate about science and technology in Africa.

In March 2009 over 50 pastoralists from across southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya from a dozen ethnic groups gathered in the Borana lowlands at the ‘University of the Bush’ to debate key pastoral development issues. This week-long event was hosted by the Oromia Pastoralist Association and organised by the Democracy, Growth and Peace for Pastoralists project of the Pastoralist Communication Initiative. Intense and animated discussions took place under the trees next to a tented camp established in the Gujji pastoral area. The Future Agricultures Consortium was represented by Ian Scoones of IDS and Andrew Adwera of African Centre for Technology Studies based in Kenya.

A new FAC publication documenting the results of this workshop is now available: Pastoral Innovation Systems: Perspectives from Ethiopia and Kenya.  This is being widely disseminated in the region through PCI and FAC-Ethiopia and Kenya. The paper was made available at a donors’ workshop looking at pastoral issues in June 2009.

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