Masai society: conditions of reproduction and transformations

The start and finish of the "western range management in Africa coincide in a singular manner with the experience in Tanzanian Masailand. The Fallon report, which was its preface, supported an intervention logic that was carried out mainly by the USAID and the UNDP during the 1960s and 1979s in Tunisia, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Northern Nigeria, Northern Ghana, Ethiopia, Somalia, North-Eastern Kenya, Kenya Masailand, and Botswana (J. Moris 1981). The end of the Masai project, on the other hand, coincides with a seminar promoted by the USAID in 1980, where, on the basis of evaluations of the different interventions in sub-Saharian Africa, it was recommended that ,programmes and projects for the livestock sector must be re-oriented to make them more compatible with the social economical and environmental reality of the arid and semi-arid pastoral regions (AID 1980). The necessity of giving priority to the breeders basic resources rather than insisting on commercial activities, was also emphasised. This does not mean - it was observed (AID 1980) - denying the validity of national requirements, nor refusing pressures to increase the livestock contribution to the national wealth. But these contributions will not be assured in a definite way until the same producers do not have a secure subsistence base".