Anticipatory action and pastoralism in Africa: a synthesis of current challenges, opportunities and priorities

This article synthesises the current situation vis-à-vis the aid modality of anticipatory action in pastoralist settings. Broadly comprising pre-planned, pre-financed interventions triggered by early warning systems and aimed at reducing the impacts of crises, anticipatory action has been effective at reducing the impact of shocks in multiple settings (particularly sudden-onset shocks such as floods and cyclones). However, it has seemingly failed to achieve as significant an impact in mobile, livestock herding areas, where recurrent drought – a slow onset disaster – is a defining ecological feature. To understand this limited success, the article explores the distinct challenges posed by the socio-economic and ecological dynamics of the drylands, where crises are never uniform or unilinear and are thus extremely difficult to make predictions amidst. Surveying diverse evidence and perspectives, it highlights some of the unique characteristics of pastoral livelihoods, which set them apart from other forms of subsistence in ways that are critical to the conceptualisation and implementation of assistance programmes. In doing so, it examines cross-cutting themes of central significance to the future of anticipatory action in the drylands, identifying key uncharted areas for future enquiry and new potentials that might be unlocked through novel approaches to programming and intervention.