Overview

Emerging strategies to manage conflict and natural resources in the Sahel were reviewed and discussed at a SANREM- sponsored workshop in Mali in February 2000. This recurrent workshop provides a forum for researchers, development practitioners, and the donor community interested in conflict and natural resource management (NRM) in agro-pastoral systems to present and discuss results, strategies, program directions, and impacts of collaborative research in these overlapping domains. This year’s workshop introduced SANREM West Africa’s (WAF) commune- level focus and the participatory method- ology being used to develop social infra- structure at this level. Regional collabora- tors will be closely following the evolution of this experiment in decentralized NRM. Attendees included SANREM West Africa project collaborators, natural resource stakeholders from Mali’s Mopti Region, and other interested parties from West Africa and around the world. Participants met at the Institute of the Sahel (INSAH) to discuss current research on conflict and NRM in the region. Re- searcher participants from eight CILSS (Interstate Committee on Drought Control in the Sahel) countries made presenta- tions, in addition to those made by SANREM CRSP-West Africa collaborators. Participants included regional NRM Research Pole representatives from Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Mali, Chad, and Mauritania. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and CARE-Mali representatives were present. Although invited, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) remained unrepresented.