Peace and Security for Pastoralist Communities in African Borderlands

The 2020 African Union Strategy for Better Integrated Border Governance summarises peace and security challenges relating to African borders as follows:

In Africa, state borders are often not identical to peoples’ borders and hence have been known to foster three kinds of tensions: between neighbouring states, between states and their people and between states and violent actors, including international criminal cartels and terrorist groups.

Much of Africa’s 83,000 kilometres of borders run through sparsely inhabited territories where state services are scant and state authority is stretched. For many communities in these borderland areas, the essentials of life are secured not through trustworthy institutions, but through community-to-community arrangements and agreements – or coercively through guns and violence.

Pastoralists have been traversing these territories since long before formal borders came into existence, but their way of life and modes of self-governance have become inextricably entwined with contemporary border phenomena. Transhumance and pastoral mobility cut across political boundaries, jurisdictions and authorities, and though they usually do so with a high degree of cooperative engagement between local communities, they can also encounter and become enmeshed in different manifestations of borderland violence – from criminality to human rights violations, armed insurgency and inter-community fighting.

In XCEPT research in West and East Africa covering Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Uganda  and Kenya in 2022–23, Conciliation Resources and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) worked with communities and local research partners to learn about how violence works in some of the key borderlands.

We found that significant borderland insecurity can be traced to national and international failure to control cross-border transnational insurgency and violent crime– contrary to predominant analyses that emphasise badly managed pastoralism for violent conflict. National, regional and international neglect of the crucial inter-state boundaries has allowed violence to persist and spiral and has damaged the lives of millions of people. Policies, attitudes and actions have obstructed, undermined, neglected or supplanted inter-community networks, allowing insecurity systems to prevail – from weak or bad governance, to inappropriate law and order or security deployments, and dysfunctional systems of accountability. More accurate, locally based understanding of the roots and manifestations violence, and of the foundations of stability is essential for developing effective borderland peace and security policies that have community engagement and support.

Analysis, key findings and priorities for improving peace and security for pastoralist communities’ peace and security in borderlands are outlined in this introduction. These are drawn from deep-dive, regional case studies based on XCEPT field and satellite research in East and West Africa, which are presented subsequently in the report. The regional case studies are referenced and footnoted.  References from the regional case studies are not repeated in the introductory cross-contextual analysis.

Cover photo: A young Fulani herder returning home with cattle from daily grazing during the dry season in Jigawa State, Nigeria, near the border with Niger, 27 February 2022. © Adam Higazi