Laraba MUREY
The International Organization for Migration’s partnership with Search for Common Ground, SFCG, and Mercy Corps to address the conflict between herder and farmers has been declared a tremendous success in communities within Adamawa State.
IOM made the announcement on Wednesday in Abuja at the third and final high-level project steering committee meeting to discuss and present project achievements, lessons learned and look forward to the next phase.
The two-year European Union-funded project tagged “Contributing to the mitigation of conflict over natural resources between farmer and herder communities in Adamawa State, Nigeria”, COMITAS, was implemented in five Local Government Areas of the state, including Demsa, Girei, Numan, Lamurde, and Mayo Belwa.
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Chief of Mission, IOM Nigeria, Prestage Murima, said “I am happy to report that the consortium has indeed succeeded in completing its activities and in meeting its objectives.
“Amongst the achievements of COMITAS is the establishment of the Transhumance Information Management system by IOM that covered 51 communities in five LGAs of Adamawa state. Over this period the system received 2,206 early warning alerts that assisted communities in early response.”
IOM also conducted 11 policy dialogues that were attended by over 400 community members and local government officials as part of the project’s objective of building trust between the communities and authorities.
According to Murima, the peace platforms established by the consortium during the project conducted over 300 meetings and dialogues which helped in building the social cohesion between farmer and herder communities in Adamawa state.
She further stated that the consortium conducted over 42 Early Warning and Early Response, EWER, trainings and established the Adamawa Forum for Farmer and Herder Relations, AFFHAR, and worked with the media in peace messaging that were all aimed at making a positive contribution to building sustainable peace.
She said as part of efforts to build the capacities and local authorities in natural resource management, trainings were also conducted on issues such as Interest Based Negotiation, IBN.
She said the consortium implemented Quick Impact Projects, QIPs, in communities that included provision of solar-powered motorized boreholes and tree planting campaigns as efforts in contributing to sustainable natural resource management and climate change adaptation.
On his part, the Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri, expressed his appreciation to the EU, IOM, Mercy Corps and Search for Common Grounds for partnering to carry out the projects in his state.
Fintiri said “We deeply appreciate the support of the European Union and the implementing partners for the work they are doing in the state. As government we are aware that many factors contribute to farmers-herders conflict, such as competition over natural resources, climate change, environmental issues, population growth, land issues, stock routes, etc.
“Adamawa State government is committed to ensuring the peace in the State. This has produced a positive impact on the farmers’ headers communities in the state. We also hope that the collaboration will continue because the project is aligned to the policies and priorities of Adamawa State government as well as the needs of the communities affected by farmer header crisis.”
