Changing Lives in Innovative Partnerships (CLIP) has begun the process of facilitating the peace process between host communities in Ghana and herders from the Sahelian regions.
The conflict between farmers and cattle herders costs lives and properties.
CLIP Ghana has brought together co-farmers, traditional authorities, women groups, members of the security service from the police and immigration, agriculture officers and other stakeholders in Paga in the Kassena Nankana West District of the Upper East Region to dialogue on conflict and peace resolution between farmers and pastoralists.
Farmer-herder conflict extends beyond Ghana’s borders and is heightened by the ECOWAS protocol on Transhumance migration.
In Ghana, the border regions are the main transits for Transhuman herders and Upper West and Upper East regions have become the hotspot of farmer-herder conflict in northern Ghana since these are the entry points for Transhumance from the Sahelian region.
The aim of the training is to provide practical tools and a systematic approach to conflict resolution between crop farmers and pastoralists.
The dialogue platform is to also create actionable agreements that lead to sustainable solutions for peaceful coexistence.
The Director of CLIP, Lukman Yussif, has expressed his utmost appreciation to all the stakeholders in the peace and conflict resolution process for allowing the engagement to be initiated without any challenges.
“As an organisation, we are facilitating a process where community members would address issues locally in a way that it does not degenerate into conflicts, resulting in loss of lives and destruction of purpose. So today, we are training these key community leaders and other actors on how to resolve, how to identify conflicts, issues of conflicts, and address it in a way that it does not degenerate.
And therefore, as would have been a strong contribution to maintaining peaceful communities, communities that are more cohesive, so that you will be a farmer, you are a pro farmer, or any other livelihood that you are engaging. You will have the peace required to go above your duties smoothly”, Mr. Lukman said.
A consultant to the project, Dr. Alhassan Issah Suhiyini outlined the objectives of the dialogue and its significance to the peace in the sub-region.
“So today what we are doing is to train stakeholders that are in charge of mediations from a header conflict on how to use dialogue to be able to resolve farmer header conflicts. So over the project period, we are able to conduct dialogues where we engage these stakeholders, and now we train them on the procedure and use dialogue so that all parties involved in the conflict are satisfied. And for that matter, we can have an evaluation that is a sustainable farmer header peaceful system”
“So today what we have done is to take them through the procedure that is when the farmer header conflicts erupt. How do they start with the education process? How do they do about it? When should they be involved?”, Dr. Alhassan Issah Suhiyini added.
Kassena Nankana West Director of Agriculture, Mohammed Bukari, has lauded the efforts of CLIP Ghana for Facilitating the peace process in host communities in Northern Ghana especially the Kassena Nankana West District where few incidents of Farmer-Herder conflicts were recorded as a result of misunderstanding between the two stakeholders. Mr. Bukari believes and is optimistic of positive results after the dialogue sessions by CLIP Ghana.
Some of the stakeholders, including Assembly members of the Kassena Nankana West District expressed maximum satisfaction about the peace process and have pledged to coexist among themselves in the communities and are ready to train community members and herders from what they were taught at the dialogue platform.
By Tanko Mohammed Rabiu
