8 research outputs found
Sahel Social Cohesion in Burkina Faso and Niger
No full textHippolyt Pul POLICY SEMINAR Research Findings on Resilience & Social Cohesion in Burkina Faso and Niger Co-organized by IFPRI, World Food Programme (WFP), Institute for Peace and Development (IPD), and the CGIAR Research Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM) JUL 11, 2023 - 9:00 TO 10:30AM ED
Making Me You: The Elusive Missions of Development and Peace in Liberia and Sierra Leone
No full textThreads and Stitches of Peace- Understanding What Makes Ghana an Oasis of Peace?
Get PDFGhana is considered an oasis of peace despite having the same mix of ethno-political competitions for state power and resources; north-south horizontal inequalities; ethno-regional concentrations of Christians and Muslims; highly ethnicised elections; a natural resource dependent economy; and a politically polarized public sphere, among others, that have plunged other countries in Africa into violent and often protracted national conflicts. Use of the conflict paradigm to explain Africa\u27s conflicts glosses over positive deviance cases such as Ghana. This study used the peace paradigm in a mixed method, grounded theory research to examine Ghana\u27s apparent exceptionalism in staving off violent national conflicts. From the survey of 1429 respondents and 31 Key Informants, findings indicate Ghanaians are divided on whether their country is peaceful or not. They are equally divided on classifying the state of peace in Ghana as negative or positive. Instead, they have identified sets of centrifugal and centripetal forces that somehow self-neutralize to keep Ghana in a steady state of unstable peace. Among the lift forces are strongly shared cultural and Indigenous African Religious values; symbiotic interethnic economic relationships; identity dissolution and cultural miscegenation due to open interethnic systems of accommodation and incorporation; and the persistence of historical multi-lateral political, sociocultural, and economic relationships. On the drag side are the youth bulge; emergent religious intolerance; elite exit from the state in using private solutions for public problems; and highly politicized and partisan national discourses that leave the country with no national agenda. In sum, Ghana is no exception to the rule. The four interconnected meso theories that this study identifies provide pointers to what factors Ghana needs to strengthen to avert descent into violence
Strengthening Evaluation Contracting Partnerships: Fostering Stronger Relationships Between Funders and Small, Proximate Evaluation Firms
Get PDFFoundations often support initiatives in multiple countries and cultures, including within the United States, with limited access to or familiarity with the people and local contexts in which activities occur. To gain a deep and nuanced understanding of their investments’ relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability, foundations are often eager to partner with evaluators close to the contexts and people who participate in and are most affected by their investments.
Yet, foundations’ procurement and contracting systems may not be built for these partnerships. Through the Strengthening Evaluation Contracting Partnerships Initiative, we are addressing this challenge by helping foundations, small and proximate evaluation firms and evaluators, ally evaluation firms, and other medium and large-sized evaluation firms work together to identify practical actions we can each take to strengthen these partnerships.
We share highlights from our open letter to funders and learning since then, offer practical examples, and suggest a way forward. In the Appendix, we offer a checklist that funders and other evaluation commissioners can use to strengthen their partnerships with small and proximate evaluation firms and evaluators
Sahel social cohesion research in Burkina Faso and Niger: Research Brief
No full textThe World Food Programme (WFP) supports communities to mitigate the impact of and build resilience to natural and human-made shocks and stressors that contribute to food insecurity and destabilize people’s livelihoods. WFP’s interventions, therefore, aim to equip communities with the knowledge, skills, and tools to avert or mitigate the impact of cyclical natural events such as droughts and floods through asset and capacity building in affected communities. In the Sahelian areas of Burkina Faso and Niger (as part of a broader regional program also covering Chad, Mali, and Mauritania), WFP promotes climate-resilient agricultural infrastructure and systems to help address issues of land degradation, deforestation, dwindling pasturelands, and depletion of water sources, which all trigger competition for productive resources and migration of people and livestock into better-resourced areas. The interventions also aim to address the impacts of violent conflict from within and outside communities in the Sahelian belt of the two countries, especially those related to extremist groups operating in the area.
Though primarily designed to increase community assets for productive purposes, WFP’s support for the rehabilitation of lands, construction of water-harvesting and retention structures, reforestation and protection of farmlands and pastures, and soil fertility improvement interventions also aims to increase the availability of, reduce intergroup competition for, and ensure equitable access to these resources. In this way, WFP hopes to reduce conflicts over community resources. The use of participatory and collaborative processes for mobilizing and engaging communities should also contribute to increased dialogue within and between different communities and promote peaceful coexistence among the different groups. In particular, the requirement of collaborative approaches to development of communal assets is intended to create spaces of encounter and dialogue that could ease tensions, promote equity in the distribution and use of the created assets, and build relationships among various stakeholders and community groups to ensure that actions for resilience building have the support of government, development partners, and other decision-makers at several administrative levels
Sahel social cohesion research in Burkina Faso and Niger: Working Paper
No full textIntervention Context: WFP’s activities in Burkina Faso and Niger focus on fragile agrarian communities in the Sahel, where cyclical floods and droughts combine with decreasing soil fertility and increasing desertification, among other challenges, to aggravate food and livelihood insecurity. Increased competition for land for food crops and pastures as well as water for domestic, productive, and livestock use, intensify conflicts over ownership and usage rights for land and the commons such as forests. in particular, this competition has heightened conflicts between farmers and herders. Layered on these localized conflicts are recent increases in human safety and security concerns related to the spread of attacks by violent extremist groups across the eastern flanks of both countries. The increasing frequency and intensity of these attacks have led to the loss of lives, property, and the displacement of large groups of people. The attendant deepening of food, livelihood, and human insecurities has contributed to a rural exodus of men and women to cities and other economic enclaves in search of alternate sources of food and income. The arrival of displaced persons fleeing the attacks has increased pressure on already limited food stocks and other assets of host communities. COVID-19 added another layer of vulnerability. In addition to the disease burden, lockdowns and restrictions on the movement of persons affected the ability of communities to travel to engage in nonfarm economic activities for supplementary income and food. This greatly affected the food and livelihood security systems of the populations in these already impoverished and fragile communities
Sahel social cohesion research in Burkina Faso and Niger: Research brief
No full textThe World Food Programme (WFP) supports communities to mitigate the impact of and build resilience to natural and human-made shocks and stressors that contribute to food insecurity and destabilize people’s livelihoods. WFP’s interventions, therefore, aim to equip communities with the knowledge, skills, and tools to avert or mitigate the impact of cyclical natural events such as droughts and floods through asset and capacity building in affected communities. In the Sahelian areas of Burkina Faso and Niger (as part of a broader regional program also covering Chad, Mali, and Mauritania), WFP promotes climate-resilient agricultural infrastructure and systems to help address issues of land degradation, deforestation, dwindling pasturelands, and depletion of water sources, which all trigger competition for productive resources and migration of people and livestock into better-resourced areas. The interventions also aim to address the impacts of violent conflict from within and outside communities in the Sahelian belt of the two countries, especially those related to extremist groups operating in the area.
Though primarily designed to increase community assets for productive purposes, WFP’s support for the rehabilitation of lands, construction of water-harvesting and retention structures, reforestation and protection of farmlands and pastures, and soil fertility improvement interventions also aims to increase the availability of, reduce intergroup competition for, and ensure equitable access to these resources. In this way, WFP hopes to reduce conflicts over community resources. The use of participatory and collaborative processes for mobilizing and engaging communities should also contribute to increased dialogue within and between different communities and promote peaceful coexistence among the different groups. In particular, the requirement of collaborative approaches to development of communal assets is intended to create spaces of encounter and dialogue that could ease tensions, promote equity in the distribution and use of the created assets, and build relationships among various stakeholders and community groups to ensure that actions for resilience building have the support of government, development partners, and other decision-makers at several administrative levels.Non-PRIFPRI1; DCA; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernanceDevelopment Strategies and Governance (DSG); Transformation Strategies; Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR
Sahel social cohesion research in Burkina Faso and Niger: Working paper
No full textIntervention Context: WFP’s activities in Burkina Faso and Niger focus on fragile agrarian communities in the Sahel, where cyclical floods and droughts combine with decreasing soil fertility and increasing desertification, among other challenges, to aggravate food and livelihood insecurity. Increased competition for land for food crops and pastures as well as water for domestic, productive, and livestock use, intensify conflicts over ownership and usage rights for land and the commons such as forests. in particular, this competition has heightened conflicts between farmers and herders. Layered on these localized conflicts are recent increases in human safety and security concerns related to the spread of attacks by violent extremist groups across the eastern flanks of both countries. The increasing frequency and intensity of these attacks have led to the loss of lives, property, and the displacement of large groups of people. The attendant deepening of food, livelihood, and human insecurities has contributed to a rural exodus of men and women to cities and other economic enclaves in search of alternate sources of food and income. The arrival of displaced persons fleeing the attacks has increased pressure on already limited food stocks and other assets of host communities. COVID-19 added another layer of vulnerability. In addition to the disease burden, lockdowns and restrictions on the movement of persons affected the ability of communities to travel to engage in nonfarm economic activities for supplementary income and food. This greatly affected the food and livelihood security systems of the populations in these already impoverished and fragile communities.Non-PRIFPRI1; DCA; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernanceDevelopment Strategies and Governance (DSG); Transformation Strategies; Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR
