By Firmain Eric Mbadinga
One of the festering wounds in Chad's history of internal tumult is the conflict between farmers and herders over livestock sometimes being let loose on croplands.
What should, at worst, have been a village squabble requiring local mediation has escalated into a forest fire of mistrust between the country's farming and herder communities across provinces, often resulting in bloody clashes and loss of lives.
In their quest for peaceful and inclusive solutions to this conflict, the Chadian government and various non-governmental organisations have had to initiate a slew of aid, empowerment, and awareness projects and programmes in the country.
One of these projects is "Consolidation of peace and security between farming and herding communities in the provinces of Salamat, Sila and Ouaddaï", launched in November 2021 and due to end in another five months, according to the initial timetable.
On July 13 this year, the project began its training phase based on the "resilience fund concept". The overall project involves setting up 90 such resilience funds to support the livestock and farming activities of 2,700 households, including 1,890 men and 810 women.
The beneficiaries of the projects receive training, and their livestock and farming projects are financed and monitored to maximise their chances of economic success.
The approach has already proved its worth in the Central African Republic, a country that was also tested by communal conflict in 2013-2014.
In the case of Chad, the government is implementing this project with the technical and financial support of NGOs such as the United Nations Food Fund and the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund.
Recurrent friction
Inter-community conflict in certain provinces of Chad continues to exact a heavy human toll. In a report published in July 2021, the United Nations said such clashes had caused 309 deaths and 182 injuries, and displaced more than 6,500 people in that year alone.
In 2022, at least 36 cases of communal violence were reported in the country. The south accounts for 56% of community conflicts, with a high proportion (90%) relating to the management of natural resources, particularly between farmers and herders.
These conflicts are largely linked to the fact that breeders are looking for new pastures to ensure the survival of their livestock.
The UN-commissioned study carried out by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicates that the southern part of Chad, with its milder climate and more abundant vegetation, has long attracted herders from the Sahelian desert areas of the north, and remains a region of transhumance.
Important lever
Chad's minister of economy and development planning, Dr Issa Doubragne, and the UN's resident coordinator, Violette Kakyomya, launched a project on the theme — "Consolidation of peace and security between farming and herding communities in the provinces of Salamat, Sila and Ouaddaï" — to address some of the underlying issues stoking the ongoing conflict.
"On behalf of the government, we are determined to work with the United Nations system to promote peaceful cohabitation between communities and resolve this problem of inter-community conflict,'' Dr Doubragne said at the launch of the project, covering both social and economic goals.
The conflict ''bereaves families, divides our communities and undermines the government's efforts to bring all the sons and daughters of Chad together around one table and live in peace," he lamented.
To put this project into action, all the partners — the FAO, UNDP, WFP, IOM and the Chadian government — have put together not less than US $3.5 million.
The project's objectives span seven specific areas, one of which is "strengthening the resilience of communities to ensure social cohesion by integrating an approach based on human rights".
A sub-objective of this refers to a training course that was launched on July 13 this year to provide stakeholders with the tools they need to structure their livestock and farming activities more effectively.
The UN describes this as "an important lever for consolidating social ties between farmers and breeders".
Equitable access to natural resources and improved legislation are among the other objectives of the project. This entails updating the law on pastoralism in Chad, which dates back to 1959.
Positive response
Abdelrahim Oumar Agadi Atim of Chad's civil society welcomes "any action that contributes to establishing peace between populations".
"The issues of security and economic development in my country are so important to me that I chose 'The Challenges of Political Stability in Africa: The Case of Chad' as the theme for my dissertation," the US-based Chadian told TRT Afrika.
Atim encourages the enhancement of international economic partnership to define intelligent, sustainable, gradual solutions to the endemic and endogenous problems that have undermined the consolidation of peace in Chad since its independence.
"In its first approach, the UN programme showed tangible results through the setting up of an alert system in the eastern region, training workshops for penal auxiliaries, and the definition of transhumance corridors," said Atim, who is also national coordinator of the North American Chadian Initiative.
Dr Edmiaune Zouga, a teacher and expert in ethics, governance and conflict resolution, sees the project as part of a larger search for "ways of preventing and resolving conflicts, which remain the means of ensuring genuine security and peace, as guaranteed by human rights".
For the expert in governance and conflict resolution, building of resilience between the two social categories of farmers and herders has to be complemented with a commitment to safeguard the rights of both farmers and herders through proper organisation and dissemination of information.
The continuation of the project is a source of hope for the local population as well as civil society, according to Asma Gassim Lamy, founder president of the NGO, Lamy-Fortains Association (the former name of the Chadian capital N'Djamena).
"When we were growing up, we never heard about this kind of conflict. Everyone has to learn to live with each other, and respect each other's freedom," she told TRT Afrika.
"The impact of the government-UN project is commendable. I congratulate all those active in the socio-political field in Chad to achieve lasting and practical peace between farmers and herders," she said.
