Community animal health services build peace in the Sudans

In the Abyei Administrative Area (AAA) on the border between South Sudan and Sudan, Dinka Ngok and Missiriya pastoralists used to share pasture and water, with access being regulated by customary law. However, in recent years leading up to and after the independence of South Sudan, the AAA has been marked by frequent outbreaks of violence. In this area of protracted crisis and conflict, FAO facilitated a process focused on dialogue and building social cohesion at grassroots level. The 20-page report “Linking community-based animal health services with natural resource conflict mitigation in the Abyei Administrative Area: building resilience through dialogue and negotiation in a contested area between Sudan and South Sudan” (2017) describes how FAO identified a window of opportunity for conflict mitigation by offering community-based animal health services for vaccination and treatment of livestock within the AAA as a tool to improve relations between the two pastoralist communities and to strengthen the ongoing peacebuilding process headed by traditional leaders of both communities.

Posted on 20 November 2017 in Pastoralism & Peacebuilding, Pastoralism & Services