Governments do not know much about them at all, or make much effort to find out."If they did, east African governments would discover that restrictive trade rules and a lack of infrastructure prevent pastoralists from making a potentially lucrative trade in livestock, a trade that would ease hunger and dependence on aid.Saudi Arabia banned live exports from the Horn of Africa in 1997 after an outbreak of Rift Valley fever which affected cattle in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Those countries once exported several million animals to the Middle East every year, but although the disease is long gone, the ban remains. Fu'ad Adan Adde, Somaliland's minister for pastoralist development said the ban is "political".Mr Grahn added: "There is systematic under-investment in any pastoral area you care to name. You can count the number of schools and Tarmac roads on your fingers. People can't get livestock to market because there are no roads and often government policies don't allow cattle to be moved across the country."But although many of the challenges faced by pastoralists can be solved by government, others can be sorted out among themselves. During the recent drought, Masai from north-east Kenya were forced to move as far south as Nairobi in search of land for their cattle to graze.The drought cycle is shrinking; the next major crisis is expected in just two years.

This has led some regional analysts to suggest that the pastoralists' way of life may have to change if they are to survive. In most areas where pastoralists live, their nomadic lifestyle is the only way of making a living from the land. They tend to inhabit land not suited for agriculture that relies on predictable or plentiful rainfall. Instead, they are constantly moving their herds in search of water and grazing.Oxfam's Richard Grahn said that the greatest problem pastoralists face was a lack of political representation. Those resources are becoming all the more meagre as global warming takes its toll. Pastoralists do not drive SUVs or work in factories that pump out gallons of CO2 every second But the effect of global warming is felt here. Desertification has caused the semi-arid Sahel region, just below the Sahara, to spread south, encroaching on previously fertile land.

The 540 Israeli checkpoints and barriers so fragment this small piece of territory that they are destroying the Palestinian economy. Nablus, once the heart of the West Bank, is like a ghost town. Ten years ago this was a bustling commercial centre but today there are few cars in the streets and half of the shops have closed.. A massive suicide car bomb struck a convoy of US military vehicles in the Afghan capital today, killing at least 18 people, including two American soldiers, and injuring more than 30 others. The blast, near the US Embassy in Kabul, came just days before the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as Nato chiefs appealed for member nations to send reinforcements to combat resurgent Taliban militants.