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Theme: Supporting Pastoral Civil Society

Strengthening Pastoral Civil Society in Senegal

Decentralisation in Senegal offers real opportunities for local people to have a say in natural resource management and planning, and how their areas should be developed. Under the provisions of decentralisation, local elected government bodies (rural councils) are legally responsible for delivering social and economic services (health, water, education etc.) and for drawing up local land use plans for agricultural forestry pastoral and other uses.

These provisions while offering many opportunities also bring many challenges. On the one hand, elected local government bodies often have a poor understanding of the rational of pastoral systems. As a result they have little interest in supporting a land use system, which, to their understanding, brings few economic returns. This poor understanding is grounded in a widespread prejudice against pastoralism, which dates back to colonial times. On the other hand, pastoral groups are rarely represented on local government bodies, and lack the skills to articulate their own vision in order to influence the decision making processes that affect their lives.

Building the capacity of pastoralists and pastoral associations to participate on a more equal basis in decision-making processes and development activities is therefore crucial to improving their access to land, health, education and other livelihoods needs.

The project
Funded by Comic Relief, this project aims to improve the livelihoods of pastoral groups in Senegal by strengthening their capacity to influence the decisions and activities that affect their lives at local and national levels. To achieve this we are:

1. Building the capacity of pastoral associations to educate their members and the broader pastoral community of their rights and how best to influence local government decision-making processes over access to land and water.

2. Promoting more inclusive, participatory and accountable decision-making by local government authorities, which take account of the development needs of pastoral communities in their area including improved access to land and services in water, education, health, credit etc.

3. Building the capacity of partners to inform and influence national policy making processes with respect to land and other resources in order to ensure more secure and equitable livelihoods for pastoral communities in the long term.

Our partners
This project works with three associations present in the Ferlo Region of Senegal:

           
and with

      
ARED is an NGO which specialises in adult literacy in local languages and is providing training support and advice to the pastoral associations. IED Afrique has a great body of experience in participatory appraisal techniques and in lobbying and advocacy. Their role in the project is to work with pastoral associations to development their lobbying strategies.

Le pastoralisme au Sahel: Module d'animation et de formation de l'IIED-ARED. Click on the link above to download the leaflet on the advocacy training module "Pastoralism in the Sahel" (French only). PDF file (390 KB).

For more information about this project please contact Su Fei Tan at sufei.tan@iied.org.

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