The result of a partnership between the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and the Food Security Information Network (FSIN), this report on food security and nutrition in West Africa and the Sahel provides timely and reliable data needed to address growing food security and nutrition challenges in the region. The food and nutritional situation is worrying for the 2024 lean season. Even though the number of people in the highest phases has significantly decreased in several countries since the 2023 peak, the aggregate number and percentage of people in CH Phase 3 or above are projected to be the highest ever recorded in CH history due to the interaction between conflict and civil insecurity, economic shocks, weather extremes, underlying poverty, and other vulnerability factors.

PEPISAO aims to strengthen the capacities of States and regional and national actors so that they can develop approaches to secure livestock mobility and integrate livestock farming methods in line with a shared regional vision and offering maximum guarantees for the peaceful cohabitation of different users of natural resources. In order to achieve this ambition, the ECOWAS Commission, in collaboration with UEMOA and CILSS, has initiated a prospective reflection on mobile livestock systems. Such an exercise reflects an anticipatory approach based on the analysis of relevant factors of change for the future of livestock systems. The present note, which is part of this exercise, aims to characterise the socio-political dynamics at work in the region, in relation to mobile livestock systems. The link between anticipation and strategic planning is tenuous. Moreover, the challenge of exploring the likely future of transhumance and consequently the future of millions of people - development actors in their own right of territories for which they are overlooked - is of crucial importance for regional integration and stability of the region and for peaceful cohabitation between socio-cultural groups. Studies, regional programmes and high-level meetings have multiplied in recent years, reflecting both the acuteness of the issue for the various actors and the complexity of the process of constructing political and social arrangements at the relevant levels of decision-making and action in the areas concerned by these problems.