The Challenge

Pastoralists move their herds across Northern Mali but with changing climatic conditions things have become more difficult for them. Now they face unexpected droughts along with periods of heavy rainfall. This means they can no longer rely on age old watering holes and grazing.

The Solution

Sustainable Technology Adaptation for Mali’s Pastoralists (STAMP) is a project that aims to improve resilience among climate-affected pastoralists. It offers access to geo-satellite derived data as well as data gathered on the ground. This means users can access reliable information on: (i) biomass availability, (ii) biomass quality, (iii) surface water availability, (iv) herd concentration, and (v) market prices for livestock and staple grains along the different transhumance routes.

Commercially launched in November 2017, Garbal provides an information service that improves pastoralists’ access to information, helping to give them more control over the management of herd migration. The service can be accessed from a mobile phone. Once through to call centre managed by Orange Mali or BY sending a message requesting information patoralists in remote rural areas can make informed decisions from an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).

The Outcome

Three months after its launch, the service recorded 683 calls and 1,868 USSD requests, proving its usefulness.

STAMP is funded by the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) through the “Geodata for Agriculture and Water” facility.

The project is implemented under a public-private partnership, to ensure its sustained use and operations after project completion.

SNV leads in project coordination and ensures the quality and usability of information formats. Monitoring and evaluation is provided by Project Concern International (PCI), which introduced the use of geo-satellite maps as a decision support tool for the mobility of pastoral communities in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.