Checklist for the implementation of livestock sector activities or infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan pastoral areas The Conflict Sensitivity and Prevention (CSP) Checklist was developed as part of the "Pastoralism and Stability in the Sahel and Horn of Africa" programme (PASSHA, 2016-2017, World Bank). The PASSHA programme was designed to support CILSS (the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel) and IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development). It aims to integrate the Conflict Sensitivity and Prevention approach into the interventions of both institutions and strengthen their capacity in this area. Its content has been improved in the framework of the implementation of the Integrated and Secure Pastoralism in West Africa Project (PEPISAO 2018-2022). The checklist is a field tool associated with the Practical Guide to Conflict Sensitivity and Prevention in Livestock Sector Development Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been tested within the framework of the Sahel Regional Pastoralism Support Project (PRAPS) and the Regional Pastoral and Livestock Resilience Project (RPLRP) respectively. If you are new to the checklist, please first read the Practical Guide

Pastoralism and transhumance are livestock production practices in Africa in general and West Africa in particular. Moreover, continental, sub-regional and national organisations consider that pastoralism is useful for preserving and increasing livestock production. On the whole, this practice is faced with various difficulties, notably clashes between the different users of natural resources. In order to maintain social peace, which contributes to the promotion of regional development and integration, continental, supranational and national bodies have enacted legal texts and policy guidelines to enable pastoralists to carry out their activities in peace alongside the other economic actors. As a reminder, it can be noted that "a regulation is a legal concept that covers a set of legal instruments in the form of laws, decisions, rules and regulations, and other legal texts that frame a social and economic activity, etc. It is, in fact, about subjecting an activity to regulations”. Regulations govern activities related to the movement of people and their economic activities. To this end, the African Union, ECOWAS, UEMOA, States and communities, through legislative and regulatory measures, have laid down strong legal and institutional foundations to facilitate the movement of animals in their sub-regional and national areas. Between 1998 and 2004, ECOWAS, UEMOA and other partners adopted several legal texts and policy documents to regulate cross-border transhumance and reduce conflicts between farmers and herders, and then to protect public health, in the light of the global health environment (resurgence of animal diseases transmissible to humans). In order to control transhumance and reduce conflicts between herders and farmers, the States have adopted, since independence, laws that have been adapted to regional regulations. Despite this body of legislation, conflicts remain and the management of transhumance is still a major concern in the States and at the cross-border level. In order to contribute to better application of the regulations, the Integrated and Secure Livestock Farming and Pastoralism Project (PEPISAO), financed by the Agence française de développement (French Development Agency) (AFD) and coordinated by ECOWAS, which has delegated the implementation of Components 1 and 2 to CILSS, is working to promote the most relevant texts and also to facilitate their accessibility. The elaboration of the information directory of regulations required a process that helped to identify regulations relating to the prevention and management of pastoral conflicts with regard to the measures to be taken before going for, during and after transhumance, procedures for settling cases of field damage, natural resource management, access to resources, etc. The main regional and national texts have been compiled to extract relevant information to facilitate accessibility, better understanding and application by field actors

The "Integrated and Secure Livestock Production and Pastoralism in West Africa" (PEPISAO) project is implemented by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as Project Manager, and CILSS, as Delegated Project Manager, with the financial support of the Agence française de Développement (French Development Agency) (AFD) and the technical assistance of the IRAM/ISSALA/ LARES consortium. With a duration of four years (2018-2022) and an amount of five (5) million Euros, the project covers the ECOWAS zone plus Chad and Mauritania. It has been extended at no additional cost to 31 December 2023. The project has been implemented since 2019 in a regional context marked by: (i) the deterioration of the pastoral, food and nutritional situation, (ii) the resurgence of insecurity of goods and people; (iii) the prevalence of the COVID 19 pandemic, on the one hand, and by (v) a significant increase in the number of regional projects dealing with pastoralism and (vi) a relative deterioration in the governance of cross-border transhumance, on the other hand. However, the stakeholders were able to overcome the effects of these factors through their commitment, and the project has achieved a lot. This report capitalises on the major achievements and results of four years of implementation.

Mobile livestock production systems have been facing a number of challenges over the past twenty years, including farmer-pastoralist conflicts and civil insecurity in West Africa and the Sahel. In recent decades, conflicts initially sparked by competition over natural resources have gradually evolved into struggles for control of land between socio-cultural groups, and politico-religious demands that have intensified the displacement of both animals and people. At the same time, we note that the media - print, radio and audiovisual - most often focus on pastoral issues, such as the management of land conflicts between farmers and herders, and access to transhumance corridors. Pastoralists and pastoral households are therefore most often described in terms of this general conception of pastoral farming as vulnerable to climatic, environmental, health and terrorist risks, and as inefficient in the context of agricultural modernisation policies. All in all, these observations lead us to conclude that pastoral livestock farming is a production system that is not only under-represented, but also little-known by the media in West Africa and the Sahel, who more often than not are content to relay current representations and official events about it.