On 17 April, we are very pleased to welcome Professor Ian Scoones speaking at our eighth pastoralism and drylands development seminar on ‘The International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists: Why a new narrative is needed.’
The IYRP 2026 provides the opportunity to recast the narrative on rangelands and pastoralists globally. What are the principles that should guide such a new narrative for development and policy?
This talk will offer some of the findings from the PASTRES programme that contribute to such a recasting. Seven themes are identified: mobility, land governance, climate policy, market development, conflict management, humanitarian responses and resilience building.
Each suggest principles for guiding new thinking and acting in pastoral development, making up a new narrative that is relevant to everyone negotiating an increasingly turbulent and uncertain world. But changing both narratives and action on the ground is challenging as the status quo is deeply entrenched.
Change requires redesigning education and training systems, shifting incentives around project development, redefining monitoring and evaluation objectives and challenging power relations across institutions. The talk will discuss what is needed and how the international year can help galvanise such processes of change.
Ian Scoones is Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
An ecologist by original training, he works on the interface between science and policy, focusing on the politics of knowledge in the context of agrarian and environmental change, especially in southern Africa.
His long-term research on land, agricultural and livelihoods in Zimbabwe is covered in his regular blog, Zimbabweland.
His most recent book is Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World published by Polity Books in 2024.
Join us to exchange ideas, hear new perspectives and engage in friendly debate on the core issues shaping Africa’s drylands.
