Pastoralists are making some noise at COP28. Their homes in the drylands and rangelands covers two-thirds of the African continent and they are increasingly vulnerable to environmental and human-driven climate shocks. Given their long ‘front line’ experience facing environmental shocks, they are key allies in devising and sharing climate adaptation and resilience solutions and to receive additional support to adapt to the effects of climate change.

On 6 December, the Food Systems Pavilion at COP28 hosted pastoralist leaders Guyo Malicha Roba, Dodo Boureima, Nuria Gollo Halake, Amadou Adamou, Jarso Mokku and Kunow Sheikh Abdi to discuss the ways pastoralists are pioneering solutions to prepare, adapt and respond to climate shocks in Africa’s drylands and rangelands. They explained why  dryland systems are a key policy and intervention space and how to best support pastoralist communities. This includes solutions such as drawing upon knowledge from pastoralist communities as well as research, investing in anticipatory actions, and designing solutions for long and short term response and recovery outcomes.

Speaker Quotes 

Research shows that pastoralism has better food security than crops in dryland areas” - Guyo Malicha Roba, Jameel Observatory

We need political recognition of pastoralism which can help lead to more needed investment in pastoralism” - Dodo Boureima, Réseau Billital Maroobè

We need to have more discussion on people when talking about climate change - not just the environment” - Kunow Sheikh Abdi, Mercy Corps

Key Takeaways

• We need to listen and learn from pastoralists.  
• Land, livestock, people and livelihoods need to be addressed together holistically to create integrated and inter-connected solutions, looking at them in silos won’t be good enough to reach our climate, economic and  nutrition goals.  
• We need to shift attention and investments away from just reactive interventions. For dryland areas, we need much greater attention to prediction and early actions that anticipate and mitigate likely impacts.
• We need to work together, uniting and amplifying voices to motivate well-adapted policy solutions and political will.   

The session was co-organized with ALive4Climate partners the Jameel Observatory on Food Security Early Action, the International Land Coalition, Mercy Corps, the International Livestock Research Institute and SNV.

Watch a recording of the full session here.