Speaking for ourselves is a tool for marginalized communities, in our case pastoralists and other forest dependent communities. These communities are marginalized on account of incompatibilities between their traditional way of life and the push and pressure of modern development and change. The tool helps communities to express their priority needs and constraints in the language of development professionals. The language is that of the sustainable livelihoods approach. The first part of this paper describes the tool methodology. The second part refers to the tool development process, learning and impact. The field example is based on working with Ethiopian pastoralist communities linked to SOS Sahel’s Borana Collaborative Forest Management Project.

A summary card of this tool is available to download in four languages in PDF format:

English (46K) | French (47K) | Spanish (46K) | Portuguese (46K)

The complete tool is also available (PDF format):

English (345K, 15pp) | French (296K, 15pp) | Spanish (256K, 15pp) | Portuguese (246K)

Please cite this tool as:

Irwin, B., Belay, S. and Macqueen, D. 2005. Speaking for ourselves: pastoralist development dialogue. Power tools series. SOS-Sahel Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK.

For further information:

• Contact: Ben Irwin (cfwcp@telecom.net.et), Semalign Belay (sos.sahel@telecom.net.et) and Duncan Macqueen (duncan.macqueen@iied.org)
• SOS Sahel UK / Ethiopia programme at www.sahel.org.uk