ZAMTAPO: Restoring peaceful co-existence in Maradi and Zinder regions
Livestock monitoring tools
October 20, 2020
The Adcast® Application
October 22, 2020
About this practice
In a context of endemic poverty and strong population growth, traditional cattle corridors are disappearing due to extension of agriculture activities on land, traditionally reserved for pastoral activities. This increasingly leads to conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers. The Project works closely with local authorities, sedentary farmers and pastoralist networks and proposes an innovative methodology which aims at securing the traditional corridors as well as supporting conflict resolution mechanisms along the rehabilitated areas.
Entry point
What was/were the main shock(s) that triggered this practice? What was the entry point for the implementation of the practice?
- In a context of endemic poverty and strong population growth, traditional cattle corridors are disappearing due to extension of agriculture activities on land, traditionally reserved for pastoral activities. This increasingly leads to conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers.
- The Project was and is still implemented (since 2012) in rural Niger, in the Regions of Maradi and Zinder. The intervention aims at restoring traditional pastoral corridors and adjacent natural resources (grazing land and water ponds) to allow for free cattle and herder movements in a densely populated area of southern Niger.
Impact
What are the main social, economic, political impacts?
- The pratice is supporting nigerien authorities to better enforce local laws and to enable them to apply a better conflict resolution and jurisprudence in land matters falling under the Code.
- The force of the intervention, besides the obvious results of having functional cattle corridors, is that the local authorities in charge of conflict resolution in land matters are from the beginning closely associated to the process and can claim ownership of the activities. This does not only improve their legitimacy but also ensures close engagement of these crucial actors along the whole process.
Main lesson learned summary
What is the main lesson learned about this good practice?
- Establishment of rural land commission and its associated conflict resolution mechanisms/jurisprudence is contributing to an increased acceptance of the disposition of the rural code among the population. It leads also to a higher demand of land titles, increasing legal security in rural areas.
- Inclusion of a large stakeholder basis in social negotiations has beneficial impacts on the social climate in the project zone and leads to a better social climate between farmers and pastoralists, ultimately leading to less and less violent conflicts on land issues in the intervention zone. This holds true years after the intervention has passed on to other areas.
- Letting Government/traditional authorities lead the process is key to establish ownership of the process and ensure sustainable management of the structures after retreat of the project team.
- Underfunding of land commission on local levels are limiting sustainability of the intervention (high staff turnover, replacement of trained staffs by untrained ones, lack of Equipment etc.)
Kaspar Akermann
Kaspar holds a Master of International Relations degree at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (2006) and MAS in Development and Cooperation at the ETH Zürich (2010). He has worked for various INGO’s in the development and humanitarian sector in Mali, Niger, India, the Democratic Republic of Georgia, and the Central African Republic. Since June 2018, he has been the Programme Manager Niger and Senegal with HEKS/EPER, based in Zürich Switzerland.
