Attachments
Introduction
Throughout the Sahelian strip, conflicts over access to natural resources between nomadic and sedentary communities continue to multiply on transhumance routes. While the scarcity of natural resources due to demographic pressure, climate instability, and armed conflicts is the main cause, these micro-conflicts fuel the emergence of inter-community conflicts, which in turn fuel political conflicts.
Faced with the risk of increasing militarization of these agro-pastoral conflicts, since 2015, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) has been deploying a mediation mechanism between nomadic and sedentary communities for the benefit of the Sahelian states to prevent and peacefully manage disputes over sharing natural resources and transhumance. In March 2022, there were 2,072 agropastoral mediators—progressively trained in conflict resolution—in the network across 133 border municipalities in Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso,
Niger, and Chad.
This approach has demonstrated its importance since this network of mediators has autonomously resolved 1,100 micro-conflicts over access to natural resources and transhumance, while more than 8,000 heads of stolen or lost livestock were returned to their owners. In addition, community mediators are at the heart of mediating local agreements to sustainably improve the mechanisms for managing disputed natural resources. The project thus contributes to stabilization efforts in the Sahel by re-establishing traditional mechanisms for permanent mediation between communities. It has always been the communities that amicably resolve disputes related to the exploitation of common resources. They have the power to decide in assembly on passage corridors and to punish cattle thefts. As a result of the deteriorating social fabric, particularly as a result of the emergence of new elites resulting from armed conflicts, this role has been weakened.
However, community leaders have the expertise and legitimacy to resolve community conflicts through negotiation.
HD has thus helped communities to identify ongoing conflicts over access to natural resources and transhumance, but also to identify traditional, customary, and emerging leaders who, once brought together in a network, can resolve these conflicts through mediation. On one hand, this fieldwork has demonstrated that habits and customs are still strongly rooted in the daily life of each community, despite the fact that the knowledge of habits and customs has been altered by time and changes in social realities. The resulting misunderstandings give rise to benign disputes that can, in situations with political and security tensions, turn into— sometimes armed—conflicts. On the other hand, these efforts have enabled HD to collect a wealth of valuable information on these habits and customs as experienced and dealt with by the border communities of Mauritanian intervention in Chad. This publication seeks to highlight the fact that local conventions can prevent conflicts in cases where customs and practices are not well known or understood.
Through this publication, HD intends to share this knowledge of habits and customs for the benefit of as many people as possible. This document is primarily intended for the communities themselves because if endogenous mediation proves to be highly effective, it is a question of contributing to conflict prevention through better knowledge of the habits and customs of the various Sahelian communities. It is also aimed at any stakeholder, partner, or donor eager to take into account the realities of local communities in the formulation and implementation of cooperation projects.
The information in this guide was collected directly from the communities and is limited to the HD-led agro-pastoral mediation program’s areas of intervention—essentially cross-border municipalities far from urban centres—and is therefore not exhaustive.