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Introduction

IFAD’s pastoral development programme recognizes that pastoralists exist within challenging environments and require a specialized programming approach. A number of IFAD supported projects focus on strengthening governance of land tenure as a platform for more sustainable pastoralism. Increasingly today, pastoral areas are sites of tension and conflict due to an often-complex set of issues including poverty, population pressures, contested territorial claims, undefined or shifted resource boundaries that often do not align with administrative boundaries, weakened customary institutions and increased availability of firearms amongst other. Conflict ‘multipliers’ include phenomena such as land grabs, foreign land investments and climate change, many of which are aggravated by insecurity of tenure (Jonckheere et al, 2017). As a result, any development intervention working in pastoral areas needs to be able to prevent and respond to conflict should it arise.

This How To Do Note (HTDN) is focused on how the increased levels of conflict over land and natural resources in pastoral areas can be prevented and/or if existing already, transformed into positive outcomes. It identifies why land tenure is a complex issue within pastoralism; the combination of factors that are contributing to more insecure pastoral tenure and triggering pastoral area conflicts; and introduces some of the frameworks, tools and approaches that can be used as part of project design to reduce the potential for conflict.

This HTDN complements the IFAD Toolkit and HTDN on Pastoralism produced in 2018, and the IFAD Land Tenure Toolkit – Lessons Learned Pastoralism, Land Rights and Tenure produced in 2014 that provide an introduction to pastoralism, and land tenure and governance systems supported. The objective of this Note is to provide guidance that project developers and others need to consider when working on IFAD projects in pastoral areas, in recognition of the heightened sensitivity of land and resource issues.

It unpacks some of the complexities associated with pastoralism and gives guidance on how to address the different parts, helping to prevent conflicts from occuring and resolving those that might already exist. This document has drawn from the guidelines Improving governance of pastoral lands: Implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the contexts of national food security (FAO, 2016), and it is recommended to read these guidelines in full to receive more broader guidance on pastoral land tenure and governance issues.

Preventing conflicts in pastoral areas is an IFAD priority as conflict impacts the ability of individuals and communities to achieve food security. The first section of this HTDN explains the context of conflicts over land and natural resources in pastoralist areas in order to provide a broad understanding of the issues. Section two then provides guidance on how project designers and implementers can promote conflict resolution or transformation, peacebuildng and improved governance for land tenure issues so that conflicts are less likely to take place.