Joséphine Crabe

We found that local rural people have become increasingly disgruntled with a predatory and corrupt state. They are also fed up with an economic model imposed by the state and international donors that isn’t taking pastoral priorities into account. Rent-seeking by government officials has been especially intense in relation to conflicts over pastoral land, environmental management and the fight against desertification.

Conflicts over land use help to explain why small-scale farmers, and in particular livestock-keepers, join armed groups. Many herders support the jihadist takeover because they are similarly anti-state, anti-elite and pro-pastoral.

Livestock herders throughout the Sahel are disgruntled by development policies and programmes that favour agriculture at the expense of pastures and livestock corridors. Herders and farmers are unhappy about the way a corrupt state exploits rural peasants. Herders also feel that the development model imposed by the state and international donors ignores their needs.

This model favours agricultural expansion at the cost of pastoralism. The result is that key pastures are lost and that livestock corridors are blocked by new agricultural fields. Herders need to pass with their livestock even if corridors are blocked. This often leads to conflicts.

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