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On May 18 and 19, 2021 in Ouagadougou, CILSS and ECOWAS through the PEPISAO project and the GIZ Africa Union Border Programme (AUBP) organised a technical workshop to refine the training modules for magistrates and defence and security force agents for a better prevention and management of conflicts related to competition over access to natural resources.

In two days, pastoral experts, legal experts and magistrates specialised in pastoral land tenure and the CILSS and ECOWAS teams reviewed the contents on different themes, namely: the causes of mobility, the basis of livestock farming in West Africa and the Sahel, pastoral mobility to exploit resources and manage animal capital, pastoral hydraulics, pastoral land tenure issues, national regulations, community regulations, the legal status of pastoral areas in the different countries, the rights and obligations of pastoralists provided for by national regulations on pastoralism and transhumance in the different countries, restrictions, etc.

The module harmonisation workshop consisted in reviewing all the information provided by the thematic experts in order to create a rich, comprehensive module adapted to the realities of magistrates and DSFs in order to help them understand the current context of pastoralism and cross-border transhumance in West Africa, its actors, its practice in the field and, above all, the rules governing this activity.

Participants agreed to refine a module comprising the following main parts:                                        

·        Introduction to the regional policy on pastoralism;    

·        Mobility issues at stake in West Africa and the Sahel;                          

·        Scope and limits of the regional regulatory framework;

·        Pastoral land tenure status;

·        Practical exercises to facilitate exchanges between participants and to familiarise them with real situations that may arise in the field.                                         

This module will feed into the training workshops that the African Union Border Programme coordinated by GIZ and the PEPISAO project, financed by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and coordinated by ECOWAS, are organising in June and July respectively in Bamako, Mali and Kebbi, Nigeria.   

It is more than necessary for the region to have such a tool to enable magistrates and DSFs to better understand pastoralism and especially the regulations and agreements that govern pastoralism in order to better apply them. This is why the representatives of the institutions that initiated these training sessions, Dr Bio Goura Soulé, ECOWAS Technical Assistant for Livestock and Pastoralism, Bakary Sanou, Manager of the ECOWAS Component of the ECOWAS Borders Programme and Philippe Zoungrana, Coordinator of the CILSS Regional Programme for Natural Resource Management and Climate Change, noted that the various training experiences of magistrates and DSFs since 2019 in Benin, Niger, Togo and Burkina Faso have produced convincing results and effects. These different capacity building sessions have increased the critical mass of magistrates and DSFs trained and equipped on the issues of pastoralism as well as innovative approaches to conflict prevention and management, positive behavioural changes of these groups of actors towards transhumant herders, etc.

A roadmap was developed by the participants to finalise the module before the training itself.