Human Service Delivery to Mobile Pastoralists

One of the factors encouraging the sedentarisation of pastoralists is their desire to be close to facilities which provide human services, particularly health centres and schools. The provision of mobile services may therefore have an environmental impact in encouraging (alongside other factors) mobile pastoralists to remain mobile, and therefore to continue "tracking" fodder availability, rather than overgrazing in one area. Of course, mobile provision of services may have other benefits, in terms of better outreach for the services, and a style of education that does not alienate pastoralist children from their culture.

However, pastoralists are not only mobile, but also typically have very low overall human population densities. In many pastoral areas, the size of communities that migrate together on a long-term basis may be very small.

Given this, mobile models for education - "tent schools" - may be less feasible under many migration regimes than has previously been assumed and it may be very difficult to design service delivery systems that are truly cost-effective. Variables to be considered will be desirable teacher-pupil ratios, acceptable distances for walking to school, overall population densities and settlement patterns. Innovative solutions will be needed that combine some mobility in education provision, with boarding provision that is designed not to conflict with traditional pastoralist cultures. Very basic levels of preventative and curative health can more easily be provided on a mobile basis, but beyond these, the same sort of planning will be needed.

Key references

Sandford, S. 1978. Welfare and Wanderers. ODI Review, 1

NOPA. 1992. Pastoralists at a Crossroads: Survival and Development Issues in African Pastoralism UNICEF/UNSO Project for Nomadic Pastoralists in Africa

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