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Since the 2012 crisis and its culmination in the 2013 coup d’état, the borderlands of the Central African Republic have turned into a hotspot of violent conflict involving migratory
(transhumant) herders and farmers, armed groups and self-defence groups. This has further eroded already compromised social cohesion and governance institutions.
Against this backdrop, FCDO’s UK Aid Direct and the European Union’s BEKOU Trust Fund awarded Concordis a three-year programme entitled, “Promoting peaceful and safe seasonal migration in northern Central African Republic”. This aims to contribute to peace and poverty reduction in northern CAR by fostering community-based conflict resolution between nomadic herders and settled populations. The programme covers the borderlands between CAR, Chad, Sudan and Cameroon, focusing on the prefectures of Ouham-Pendé, Ouham, Bamingui Bangoran and Vakaga.
The first phase of the programme comprised a large-scale mapping and consultation exercise, collecting detailed quantitative and qualitative information through individual questionnaires and focus groups with those involved in or affected by seasonal transhumance, consulting over 2,500 people in the targeted areas between February and June 2019.
The purpose of this consultation was to identify grassroots challenges to peace and opportunities to promote social cohesion and economic development. It is intended to
inform subsequent phases of the conflict resolution programme and provide a baseline against which impacts of ensuing interventions may be measured.
This report covers the consultation in the prefectures of Ouham-Pendé and Ouham, with the key challenges, project figures and findings, as well as a suite of recommendations, presented in graphic format immediately below. A detailed discussion of the methodology is provided as an annex at the end of the report.
For the intervention to deliver sustainable outcomes, it is necessary to avoid the temptation of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.
The implementation of the recommendations offered here requires distinct approaches in each area, recognizing existing initiatives and listening to the needs, fears and hopes
stakeholders express. This entails discussions being held at the local level with representatives of all stakeholder groups, in order to plan and deliver interventions that are responsive to the lived reality of each unique situation.
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