Pastoralism is a rational and viable economic land-use system able to generate significant returns in the dryland areas of Eastern Africa. Widespread misunderstanding about pastoralism has left it often under-protected, undervalued and an unintended victim of uninformed policies. However, this traditional livelihood system, which evolved as an adaptive strategy for thriving in some of the world’s harshest regions, is ideally suited to the climatic and economic uncertainties of our turbulent century. Therefore, informed and supportive policies need to be developed and implemented to realise the tremendous potential of pastoralism. This policy brief aims to facilitate informaed policy making by elaborating the direct and indirect values of pastoralism.