After a general description of pastoralism in Africa, focusing mainly on the Wodaabe and Macina Fulbe in West Africa, the author discusses livestock development policies. He notes that, in the 1960s and 1970s, much effort was put into programmes to improve cattle breeds and to ameliorate the fodder situation in order to boost meat production, and that in the 1980s, the emphasis on expanding production was relaxed in favour of comprehensive resource management by pastoral groups. This shift coincided with new insights into dry-range ecosystems and their vegetation biodynamics and increased scientific recognition of the efficiency of pastoral economies. In terms of P. Blaikie's analysis (1995, 1996), this new knowledge can be understood as part of a paradigm shift from classic and neoliberal thinking to postmodernist neopopulism. Bibliogr