Assets of the Market, Assets of the Rural World: Pastoral Market Income Distribution in the Senegalese Sahel (Ferlo)

Based on primary data obtained through investigations in Ferlo (Senegalese Sahel) during a whole year, from the rainy season of 2005 to the rainy season of 2006, this article presents a thorough analysis of the market income distribution of several pastoral communities and sees it in its political perspectives. The global Gini index of this pastoral region, 52.8%, is explained particularly by between-sites inequality at 79%, although within-site inequality represents only 21%. Paradoxically, there is no bigger equality in areas well served by basic infrastructures. The efficiency of national livestock policies and area planning should be questioned. At the economic analysis level, these results show the need to maintain and secure herders’ movements and thus complete the current research with an ecological point of view.