Milking drylands : gender networks, pastoral markets and food security in stateless Somalia

The Milking Drylands research initiative addresses the critical issues of food security, market integration, gender roles and governance matters in a peculiar area of the world, the Somali ecosystem. The research aims at exploring interesting dynamics of ongoing social change, in order to stimulate appropriate understanding of complex pastoral economics and provide options for sensitive interventions. More specifically camel milk marketing is a developing women enterprise in Somali drylands, aimed at ensuring food security, generating some income and providing a buffer to cope with critical situations. Within a livelihood perspective socio-economic processes related to camel milk commoditization are investigated, in order to assess the relevance of existing embedding institutions on the construction of pastoral markets, with a special concern for the relevance of gender roles, state control and governance