Inclusive pastoralism for women and young people

The MODHEM+ project, funded by SDC and implemented by SNV, supports the construction of infrastructure to improve livestock mobility and health, while enhancing pastoral value chains that benefit young people and women. By working with local municipalities, the project ensures the inclusion of these groups in the development, maintenance, and profitability of the infrastructure. This approach promotes sustainable and peaceful resource management, while strengthening the resilience of pastoral communities in southern Burkina Faso.

The MODHEM+ project, implemented by SNV (Netherlands Development Organization) and funded by the Swiss Cooperation Development Directorate (SDC), aims to improve the productivity, income, resilience, and food and nutritional security of pastoral and agro-pastoral populations in southern Burkina Faso. In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources, and Fisheries (MARAH), the project aligns with the government’s sustainable livestock development policy and covers four regions bordering coastal countries: Cascades, Center-West, Center-South, and South-West. It targets around 290,000 direct participants and more than 800,000 indirect participants across twenty municipalities.

Pastoralism in the Sahel faces numerous interconnected challenges. Livestock mobility, essential for following pasture and water cycles, is hindered by the lack of designated, developed routes and grazing areas. This is due to the expansion of farmland driven by population pressure, resulting in conflicts between herders and farmers. Insecurity and the presence of armed groups further compromise this mobility. Additionally, climate change effects such as droughts impact water and pasture availability, affecting livestock health and milk production. Pastoralist households struggle to process and market their products, such as meat, milk, leather, and manure, which weakens their livelihoods and resilience.

One of the project's main goals is to increase the agricultural and livestock productivity of (agro-)pastoral households and farmers in the covered areas. To achieve this, it seeks to facilitate livestock mobility, improve access to pastoral resources, support animal health, and enhance market access through pastoral infrastructure, benefiting over 50,000 herders and agro-pastoralists, 40% of whom are women.

Users of pastoral infrastructures

Research-action workshops conducted between September 2021 and July 2023, involving teams from several SNV-implemented projects in Burkina Faso, aimed at better understanding the roles and needs of women and youth in the targeted households. These revealed that women use water points for domestic tasks such as maintaining household hygiene, preparing food, and caring for animals. Livestock markets offer business opportunities for women who sell small ruminants, ensure hygiene around slaughterhouses, collect offal, and provide catering services. They are also responsible for milking and processing milk. Finally, they participate as farmers in households managing land where livestock routes are mapped and marked following social agreements. As for young men, they lead the herds during transhumance and are involved in livestock markets, butchery, tanning, fodder production, and can also engage in milk collection and sales. All these activities contribute to household food security and resilience.

But few consulted...

Despite being users of pastoral infrastructure, women are rarely consulted in decisions about its development, maintenance, and management. Their access is not guaranteed in terms of distance, technical choices, or usage costs, largely due to gender norms and roles. As heads of households, men own the resources and actively participate in discussions on resource and infrastructure management, while women are often excluded from these decision-making processes, as are young men.

With repercussions for resilience

The limited involvement of women and youth in managing and profiting from pastoral infrastructure can be inefficient or even cause conflicts, impacting household livelihoods and food security. This observation led the project team and its partners to develop strategies to ensure better inclusion of women and youth in the social engineering process before and during the construction of pastoral infrastructure, as well as their representation and engagement in its management and profitability.

Creation of pastoral infrastructures

The strategies implemented include a social engineering process for infrastructure development, in which women and youth were involved through pastoral civil society organizations. To facilitate mobility and improve livestock health, around 20 vaccination parks were built along 200 km of routes. About 20 hydraulic pastoral infrastructures, including six simplified drinking water systems (AEPS), were constructed in pastoral areas, livestock markets, and grazing and resting areas. Additionally, around 900 hectares of pasture zones were restored and regenerated. Two equipped veterinary posts were completed in Gaoua and Périgban to facilitate herd health monitoring. Technical and economic references were developed for productive infrastructure to add value to products processed by women and youth, such as milk, meat, and hides.

Setting up inclusive management committees

Inclusive management committees have been established for all infrastructures, with the support of the Pastoralism Communication Network (RECOPA), to ensure their management, maintenance, and profitability. For the routes, 24 management committees have been set up across 24 villages. The project emphasized the importance of appointing a woman and a youth representative on each management committee and worked through communication efforts to create an environment conducive to their participation. In total, 46 Management Committees (COGES), composed of 73% men and 27% women, were established and trained on their roles and responsibilities.

Activities to support household resilience

The project supports fodder production and milk processing as income-generating activities for youth and women. Four fodder production units and four AEPS have been built for cooperative societies in Léo and Kampti. Community consultations were held to ensure the social embedding of investments and equipment provided. The project organized training on technical routes and fodder varieties. In 2023, over 467 tons of fodder and 77 tons of grain were produced over an area of 499 hectares in the 20 municipalities, coordinated by management committees and overseen by decentralized technical services. Two kiosks for catering services were built at slaughter areas in Gaoua and Niangoloko, two tanneries were completed for processing hides, and two productive biodigesters, each of 40 m³, were installed. Finally, 80 household biodigesters were installed, including four led by women. A total of 1,650 tons of compost was produced, and 327 hectares of agricultural land benefited from organic fertilizers, contributing to farmers' resilience in a context of rising agricultural input costs.

Support for local authorities

Awareness and training activities have improved the inclusive management of pastoral infrastructure by local authorities. Training on gender equality and conflict-sensitive planning was provided to 20 secretaries-general and 16 municipal focal points (including two women), with particular attention to the participation of women and youth in key activities to promote social justice and prevent conflicts: 192 village general assemblies were held to disseminate and promote the indigenous conflict prevention and peaceful resolution mechanism to 941 members (including 58 women) of village development councils (CVDs); the mechanism was operationalized among communities, reaching 20,385 people, including 7,688 women, 4,636 youth, and 8,061 men; support was provided for 20 municipal sessions on transhumance in the intervention zone. Thanks to the project's communication efforts, it is estimated that 35% of women participate in village assemblies organized by municipalities on transhumance and pastoral resource management.

Thanks to these strategies, agricultural and livestock productivity has improved, with an increase in the volume of processed products, particularly for meat and fodder. For example, 683,770 kg of meat was produced, exceeding the target of 32,086, and 69,520 kg of fodder was produced, surpassing the target of 25,380 kg. The number of producers who saw their income increase (44,122, including 6,409 women) through milk and compost production remained below expectations due to insecurity. The project also created or improved 1,954 jobs, mainly in fodder production. Conflicts between farmers and herders have decreased thanks to awareness activities organized by municipalities, including 217 dialogues for conflict prevention and management. The municipalities of Banfora, Dalo, and Gao developed municipal development plans that support pastoral livestock farming, and 105 local texts were adopted and disseminated to strengthen pastoral infrastructure management and improve livestock mobility.

Local authorities, with the support of municipal focal points, play a central role in the management and sustainability of the completed infrastructure, ensuring exemplary governance and diversifying revenue sources for their maintenance. The main lessons for improving women and youth participation in the development, management, and profitability of infrastructure were learned during the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) planning workshop for municipalities.

First, quotas to promote the participation of these groups must be established when drafting the terms of reference for each activity. Traditional and village authorities must be sensitized with arguments showing that women and youth are users of the infrastructure and contribute to household resilience. Their involvement must be ensured at every stage of the process, in meetings, consultations, and within management committees (COGES), and systematically tracked through meeting minutes, attendance lists, etc.

Leaders must be identified within local associations to ensure the representation of women and youth, and their capacities must be strengthened through leadership training and key topics such as land rights. They should be encouraged to take on local leadership positions. Finally, young people and women should be supported in value chains where they are active to contribute to their economic empowerment: fodder, milk, meat, and compost production. This is long-term work where communication plays a key role. In the future, the project will work to include internally displaced people in these processes, given the evolving security context. The lessons learned are presented in the PASSHA guide and toolkit to integrate GESI.

Article authored by Kassoum Ouedraogo, originally published on SDC-foodsystems