This document constitutes the main report of the study on the social, economic and environmental impacts, the main drivers of change and the long-term prospects of mobile livestock systems in West Africa. The study was carried out between June 2020 and January 2021 as part of the implementation of the Integrated and Secure Livestock and Pastoralism Project in West Africa (PEPISAO). This regional initiative is funded by the French Development Agency and implemented by the Economic Community of West African States.

i) The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a pioneer in establishing regulations for the exercise of cross-border transhumance, a somewhat controversial livestock production system in relation to its economic, social and environmental impacts, and the conflicts of access to natural resources that are sometimes associated with it. ii) Since 1998, ECOWAS has been experimenting with a set of legal and technical instruments to provide a framework for the exercise of this multi-functional credited activity, which makes it a powerful means of strengthening the resilience of populations in general, and pastoralist and herder households in particular, on the one hand, and promoting social and regional integration in West Africa, on the other.