Agropastoralists’ voices in Africa’s borderlands

The Africa Borderlands Centre of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) made a mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative) study “Promise, peril and resilience: voices of agropastoralists in Africa’s borderland regions” (2022, 152pp) among communities living in borderland regions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan and Uganda. In direct testimonies, community members describe their strengths and vulnerabilities; the challenges of forced displacement, climate change and increased conflict; and their strategies to overcome these challenges. Their resilience depends primarily on cross-border family ties, labour diversification and mobility. Their detailed accounts of their values, history, practices and priorities provide a roadmap toward improved development initiatives that can better support the innate resilience of agropastoralist communities in Africa’s borderlands. Recommendations based on their statements include incremental changes in basic governance and service provision, scaling up existing efforts and improving coordination between local and national levels of government.

Posted on 28 February 2023 in Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralism & Peacebuilding, Pastoralism & Services, Pastoralism, Mobility & Land Tenure, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition