Global COE Program - Kyoto University - In Search of Sustainable Humanosphere in Asia and Africa

［Outline］
African pastoral societies are experiencing rapid transition due to both natural and socio-economic changes in the past half century. The increasing frequency of drought, loss of access to natural resources, politico-economic marginalization, ethnic conflicts and insecurity, have all had a heavy impact on pastoral subsistence. Numerous large-scale development projects with the objective of sedentarization, market-oriented economic reform and peace building have been implemented among pastoral societies by both international development agencies and national governments since 1970s. Some interventions resulted in success for improving living conditions and the others failed and led to more complicated situations.

Considering such complicated situation, the Nairobi Research Station of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the Institute of African Studies of Nairobi University, and the Center for African Area Studies of Kyoto University held an international workshop in September 2008 in Kenya. The workshop aimed to address new possibilities for the sustainable development of African pastoral societies through dialogue between researchers and development workers. The discussion on both the potential and the problem of current African pastoralists from political, economic, and anthropological perspectives manifested the solid consensus that African pastoral societies should have their own process of development, and more opportunities might be created through integrating scientific technologies and managements with local knowledge and practice. The output of the workshop has been published as a special issue of MILA: a journal of the Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies of University of Nairobi (vol. 10, 2009).

To advance the output achieved in the last workshop for feasible plans for future pastoral development, the Center for African Area Studies of Kyoto University and the JSPS Global COE Program “In Search of Sustainable Humanoshpere in Asia and Africa” are going to hold an international workshop in March 2010 in Japan. In this workshop, further elaboration of the idea like “to make the most of local knowledge and practice” will be reached at by integrating scientific technologies and managements with local knowledge and practice along the following two lines of problem consciousness:

1. Pastoralists are facing increasing risks from both natural and socio-economic environment changes. Some risk management projects, such as restocking and livelihood diversification, have been introduced to pastoral societies and have achieved certain success. However, the problems that pastoralists are facing today consist of great complexity and difficulty and need more consideration for prevention, mitigation, coping and promotion. Is it possible to develop a comprehensive risk management programme, which combines policy making and scientific technology, with local knowledge and practice?
2. Current and future global climate change constitutes a grave menace to the sustainable humanosphere. Pastoralists living in arid and semi-arid area of Africa are among the highly vulnerable people to be affected by climate change. However, although climate change has become an important issue at international political and economic debates, little attention has been paid to the local and remote areas in Africa. The first to be examined is the impacts of global climate change on both arid ecosystem and pastoral subsistence. Then, the possibility and potential for cooperative and multi-disciplinary researches should be sought especially between anthropological studies and environmental science, such as drought early-warning systems, remote sensing and bio-diversity conservation studies.

By focusing on the topics above, we hope to address critical issues facing pastoral societies today and build up workable solutions that can shape sustainable development for the future. The ultimate goal is to move toward more comprehensive and effective development policies, based on local practices, for African pastoralism.