Sahel Transhumance Crisis Response Plan 2020

Year

Regional Plan

CRP last updated:

Funding last updated:

$13,000,000

Funding required

2,000,000

People Targeted

Download CRP

IOM Vision

IOM supports its Member States to develop early alert mechanisms and to reinforce local conflict mitigation strategies to preempt and mitigate risk of conflicts associated with increasingly precipitated transhumant movements, which, if ungoverned, may lead to continuing and increasing clashes between mobile herders and sedentary farming and herder communities.

Insecurity and climate variability have forced shifts in the seasonal migratory routes of transhumant movements throughout the Sahel, and between the Sahel and coastal countries in West and Central Africa. The precipitated and inconsistent arrival of international herder movements through agricultural lands across the sub-region have led to recurrent local conflicts as mobile herds graze on uncollected crops thereby diminishing revenue of the sedentary farming communities. Sedentary farming communities also have extended their use of lands beyond the traditional and agreed zones, thereby reducing possible passage corridors that had previously served as safe spaces for transhumant communities.

The past years have seen an escalation of clashes between mobile transhumant and sedentary herder and farming communities necessitating collective action to preempt and mitigate the risk of persistent loss of life and livelihoods across West and Central Africa. The Sahel has been particularly marked by these tensions in recent years, while coastal countries are increasingly reacting to ungoverned transhumant mobility fearing an increase in clashes in their countries, and recognising a risk of transhumant communities becoming stranded within their borders due to escalations of violence in the Sahel.

The Central Transhumance Corridor, spanning across Ghana, Togo, Niger, Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali, is acutely impacted by the growing instability in the Central Sahel, which has led to notable shifts in traditional transhumant routes. This, in turn, has led to a hardened stance by coastal countries who opt to close their borders in an attempt to protect national farmers from losing valuable crops to precipitated grazing by mobile herds. These policy decisions, however, have not halted the passage of transhumant herds through the coastal countries but made these movements more opaque.

Recognising these dynamics, multiple intra-regional bodies have convened focused policy-level discussions to formulate cohesive regional strategies to prevent further risk of tensions in their States, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), accompanied by the largest regional herders' network, the Billital Maroobé Network (Réseau Billital Maroobé in French – RBM), and the Liptako Gourma Authority (ALG) who meet on a regular basis to take stock of the latest transhumance campaigns, grouped along the three primary transhumance corridors, and to discuss risk and vulnerabilities in the tri-State zone, namely Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, respectively.

As a result of these cyclical high-level consultations, two core gaps have been highlighted. ECOWAS Member States remarked and deplored the region’s lack of unified understanding of transhumant movements, their numbers and routes, and noted the direct impact this has on their ability to make sound policy decisions. The ALG, in its governance of the collective responses to herder-farmer conflict in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, stressed the need for localised conflict mitigation approaches to successfully address these recurrent conflicts.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), in its continuing role in support to its Member States, and leveraging its partnership at the regional level with Billital Maroobé Network (Réseau Billital Maroobé in French – RBM), which serves as the largest regional herders' association, to develop an early alert system to preempt potential conflict linked with transhumance movements across several countries in West and Central Africa.

IOM also works closely with the Liptako Gourma Authority (ALG) to identify and discuss risk and vulnerabilities in the tri-State zone, namely Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and in turn has built working relationships with representatives of the three governments alongside representatives of the primary herders’ association for West and Central Africa, civil society representing local community perspectives, and the international community.

IOM participated in the sixth edition of the Ministerial Session of the High-Level Regional Consultation for Peaceful Transboundary Transhumance between the Sahel and the Coastal Countries where the possible support of the Organization was appreciated by Members States, RBM and various international civil society organisation, namely Netherlands Development Organization, CARE, Acting for Life, and Action Against Hunger, who operate on a localised scale to support transhumance-related livelihoods. The Organization will continue to coordinate with these actors to ensure complementarity and information-sharing.

Throughout its efforts to reduce conflict associated with ungoverned transhumance, IOM will also maintain a close working relationship with the Member States it supports at national, sub-national and local levels. With an established presence across all countries of the Central Transhumance Corridor, IOM will extend its support to its Member States on data collection and on localised conflict mitigation approaches through coordination with representatives of relevant line ministries and, where established, representatives of the National Transhumance Committees.

IOM will also extend its partnership with the RBM, who will coordinate with its national herders’ associations across Ghana, Togo, Niger, Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali. IOM will support RBM to integrate the Transhumance Monitoring Tool into the data collection it coordinates with its national members.

IOM currently benefits from support to the cross-border implementation of its two-pronged transhumance conflict mitigation strategy, which leverages institutional expertise in data collection for the application of the Transhumance Tracking Tool and localised approaches for community stabilisation.

IOM’s global expertise in data collection through the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) methodology, and its various tools, are of particular relevance to this strategy. Based on this methodology and in coordination with the regional pastoralist network RBM in West and Central Africa, IOM has developed the regional Transhumance Tracking Tool (TTT), under which the Transhumance Monitoring Tool has been developed.

The TTT tools seek to enhance the capacity of the regional network to liaise effectively with its national counterparts to contribute to a sound regional understanding of transhumant movements and prevent conflict associated with premature transhumance through lands that have yet to be harvested. IOM will, therefore, be able to benefit from this existing partnership with RBM, and from its demonstrated institutional experience in rapidly identifying and training enumerators on adapted methodologies to respond to the particular needs of various population movements.

IOM will also benefit from its global and regional expertise in community stabilisation programming which seeks to enhance communities' support for and engagement with local authorities, endemic conflict mitigation structures and mechanisms, and support improved perceptions of participatory decision-making processes for collective mutual benefit. Moreover, experienced personnel with existing networks on the ground will allow the collaboration to implement these participatory approaches on the ground.

Objective
Driving solutions to displacement

$13,000,000

Funding required

At risk communities

People Targeted

Description of People and Entities Targeted

Herders, National Transhumance Committees, line ministries in charge of agriculture and livestock, local authorities, traditional leaders, and communities.

Community stabilization

IOM will apply its substantial experience in community stabilisation along at-risk zones, as defined by the Transhumance Tracking Tool, to work with local governance structures in communities regularly affected by transhumant movements to define conflict mitigation and resolutions methods. These activities will support the resolution of potential land tenure issues and work collaboratively to define acceptable passage corridors for transhumant movements.

Where additional community infrastructure may be needed in order to cater for the passage of transhumant movements, IOM will similarly support the participatory local decision-making processes to define priority infrastructure that would contribute to conflict mitigation or resolution, and support relevant line ministries to respond to this collective prioritisation in direct response to communities who may otherwise be aggrieved.

Funding required

$8,000,000

Plan types

Displacement tracking for recovery and crisis prevention

IOM seeks to build the capacity of its Member States along the multiple transhumance corridors in West and Central Africa to develop and apply a unified data collection mechanism to inform and support sound policy decision-making as it pertains to the regional governance of transhumant mobility. To do so, IOM will support several complementary data collection exercises, including broadening the application of the Transhumance Tracking Tool.

Mapping: IOM will engage with Member States and key stakeholders at regional, national, sub-national and local levels to map transhumance corridors, highlighting also key landmarks (including water points, grazing areas, markets, border posts, inter alia) which influence mobility paths chosen by transhumant movements.

Early Alert: Based on the results of the mapping, IOM will identify conflict-prone areas, or areas at particular risk of clashes, which will demarcate areas where data collection exercises will focus to identify early or massive movements of transhumant herds that may place a particular strain on community resources. Based on this data collection, IOM alongside its regional, national and local partners, will create information sharing/early alert systems that will notify at-risk communities ahead of the arrival of massive herds to ensure communities can prepare and agree on solutions to facilitate safe and mutually beneficial passage ahead of clashes materialising.

Sahel-Coastal Transhumance Movement Tracking: IOM seeks to respond to the ECOWAS request for enhanced provision of reliable and unified analysis of North-South transhumant movements to encourage regional decision-making, engaging both Sahelian and coastal countries, to reduce potential tension-inducing policies. To this end, IOM will work with Member States to conduct extensive transhumance movement tracking, enhancing access to reliable data on the scale of the movements between Sahelian and coastal countries.

Funding required

$5,000,000

Plan types

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Operational presence in

Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic

^{The map used here is for illustration purposes only. Names and boundaries do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by IOM.}

^{Figures are as of 31 December 2023. For more details of IOM's operational capacity in country, please see the IOM Capacity section.}

Global Crisis Response Platform

Working across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus

Sahel Transhumance Crisis Response Plan 2020

Objective Driving solutions to displacement

Community stabilization

Displacement tracking for recovery and crisis prevention

Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic

Objective
Driving solutions to displacement