Where have all the nomads gone? Fifty years of statistical and demographic invisibilities of African mobile pastoralists

Sara Randall

doi:10.1186/s13570-015-0042-9

Abstract

There is considerable interest in the numbers and population dynamics of mobile African pastoralists alongside a recognition that they are probably undercounted or excluded from many data sources because of the difficulties in enumerating mobile individuals. In the Sustainable Development Goals where it is anticipated that everyone will be counted and their characteristics measured, it is important to develop appropriate strategies for including mobile pastoralists. I document the extent to which mobile African pastoralists have been invisible in the demographic record in the last half century and analyse the diverse pathways by which these invisibilities have been brought about in census and survey data collection exercises in different countries. A careful review of available documentation for censuses and Demographic and Health Surveys for the band of countries from Mauritania across to Kenya reveals heterogeneous patterns of pastoral nomad statistical invisibility with different forms and intensities according to national and socio-political context. Whereas there was substantial statistical invisibility of mobile pastoralists in the 1980s and 1990s in both data sources, deliberate exclusion has been much reduced in recent years, although there remain issues of clarity and definition. Although the availability of demographic and statistical data on mobile pastoralists is improving, it is impossible to document with any accuracy any transformations in the numbers of these populations over the last half century. Considerable work on developing appropriate categories and definitions needs to be undertaken if statistics on the characteristics of mobile pastoralists are to be appropriately represented in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Highlights

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) both have, as their ultimate goal, the improvement of the human lot at a global level
There are a number of challenges with this ‘data revolution’ encompassing ‘measurable targets and technically rigorous indicators’ (United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) 2014: p. 28), one of which is the assumption that sustainable development can best be captured through quantitative indicators and that if the goals represented by these indicators are achieved, progress has necessarily been made
In documenting the extent to which mobile African pastoralists have been invisible in the demographic record in the past half century, I have shown that the invisibility itself is very heterogeneous and multi-layered

Summary

Introduction

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) both have, as their ultimate goal, the improvement of the human lot at a global level. A key change in the SDGs is the emphasis on inclusion, on counting everyone and on disaggregation (United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) 2014), so that populations which might have previously been excluded, or hidden, become revealed and their situation and progress monitored. Professional groups such as demographers have already identified some issues with this approach (IUSSP 2015), noting the difficulties of disaggregation for demographic indicators which require substantial population sizes in order to identify significant trends and changes. There are a number of challenges with this ‘data revolution’ encompassing ‘measurable targets and technically rigorous indicators’ (United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) 2014: p. I analyse the range of different forces which contribute to either statistical invisibility or visibility, in order to reflect on the merits, the feasibility and the challenges of the UNSG’s aims of counting everyone

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion