Supporting local capacities for managing conflicts over natural resources in the Sahel : A review of issues with an annotated bibliography.

This document reviews the literature concerning conflicts over natural resources in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems in the Sahel. Section 1 highlights some of the features of conflict among competing resource users in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems and how these were dealt with in the past. The reasons for the increase in these conflicts in certain areas are then examined and the ways in which they are changing form and becoming more difficult to manage. Section II goes on to examine the changes in approaches to managing such conflict and in particular the current trend towards external interventions which aim to address conflict explicitly, including those which are participatory in nature. Section III examines how local capacities for managing conflicts can be supported. The kinds of skills that can be transferred usefully in training exercises are discussed. Finally, the report includes a bibliography of English and French literature on managing conflicts over natural resources in the Sahel and also a list of key organisations and resource people involved with conflict management in the African pastoral sector.