Livestock Mobility: Strengthening the resilience of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists

Countries of Operation: Senegal, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso

The Livestock Mobility project focuses on securing and equipping livestock corridors for the trans-border movement of livestock, enabling Sahel pastoralists and agro-pastoralists to manage climate variability, reach refuge areas during severe droughts, and ensure access to markets and value chains.

The project has three principal outcomes:

Strategic livestock corridors are mapped, protected and equipped (water points, transit campsites and grazing reserves) and managed by users and institutional actors (decentralised authorities, state services).

Key services (fodder supplements and animal health) are provided to pastoralists and agro-pastoralists along the corridors, and innovative services for mobile herders are tested through action research.

Appropriate lobbying tools demonstrating the economic, social and environmental contributions of transborder livestock mobility in West Africa are disseminated, allowing communities and key stakeholders to advocate for trans-border livestock mobility at local, national and sub-regional levels.

Main achievements to date

Three years of BRACED project implementation and research has provided evidence that in the context of scattered resources and unpredictable seasonal and inter-annual climate variability, livestock mobility constitutes a basic livelihood strategy. Evidence shows that mobility is a major factor in the resilience of not only pastoral and agro-pastoral households, but also local host communities along their routes of passage.

Main achievements to date:

2,668 km of livestock corridors secured
52 water points constructed
53 new or rehabilitated fodder banks
More than 3000 tons of fodder supplements provided along transhumance routes
135 facilitators trained in lobbying tools

BRACED phase 1 impact indicator analysis shows improved food security for beneficiaries (measured in TLU – tropical livestock units for pastoralist households) and a reduction of households living below the poverty threshold.

Next steps

In year 4 the project will focus on strengthening support for work with governments at the national and decentralised levels, as well as on access to markets.

→ Consolidation and development of the institutional anchoring process established in BRACED. This will ensure post-project financing for the management of pastoral resources is included in local and national government planning. The architecture of the mechanism has been established in Niger, Burkina Faso and Senegal with the creation of inter-municipal bodies which manage pastoral resources on an inter-municipal level. In Y4 these bodies will be linked with the private sector (value chain actors) as a technical service for the management of pastoral resources.

→ Increased access to markets will support sustainability providing financial backing to the institutional anchoring mechanism. Partners will 1) select key markets 2) put into place statistical tools to monitor markets 3) establish the appropriate distribution of revenue (management committee, local authority). The funds drawn from the livestock markets by the local authority are then fed directly into the inter-municipal body which manages pastoral resources.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us:

Arnaud FRANCOIS

Coordinateur Afrique

afrancois@acting-for-life.org

+33.1.49.34.83.13

Annabelle POWELL

Chargée de programmes

apowell@acting-for-life.org

+33.1.48.62.58.23