Mamadou, Farikou

The three northern regions of Cameroon, Adamawa, North and Far-North, are experiencing delays in human development. In addition to the state underinvestment, there are tensions fuelled by population growth and climate change. Moreover, a significant part of the Septentrion is covered by protected areas, leading to the competition for scarce land and natural resources. In response, a 5-year initiative was launched in 2023, “Cameroon Green Septentrion: Integrated Territorial Governance” with the objective to make territorial governance more inclusive and to promote conflict prevention. One of the actions aims at making zoning and land management decisions better informed, transparent and respected and a “conflict hotspot” approach is being implemented, consisting of (i) categorising conflicts according to their typology (e.g. herders-farmers, communities-protected areas, communities-wildlife); (ii) identifying major areas in the landscape where the conflicts occur, called “conflict hotspots”, together with a range of stakeholders in participatory workshops at communal and regional level and selecting representative sites for interventions; (iii) in-depth analysis of conflicts and conflict resolution mechanisms in those pilot sites; (iv) strengthening existing conflict prevention and management mechanisms and/or create new ones; (v) strengthening capacities of main protagonists in the conflicts, to enhance participation of vulnerable groups in decision-making processes and create awareness among the more powerful actors to allow participatory and inclusive land use planning and natural resource management; (vi) developing scenarios of a future without conflicts and a roadmap to arrive at it.