AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK AND FARMERS-HERDERS BOND IN WEST AFRICA BY INWALOMHE DONALD

West African countries must initiate Africa Development Bank 10-year farmers-herders bond to finance key projects like water pipelines, pumping of water and build irrigation in the desert to stop farmers-herders clashes in West Africa. Africa Development Bank needs to create a strategic farmers-herders bond that target agricultural investments to end farmers-herders clashes, hunger and create wealth in Africa. A bond that could finance key agricultural projects to resolve Nigeria’s farmers and herders clashes. A bond to resolve deadly battle for scarce resources. Clashes between armed herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria are escalating to increasingly violent episodes and Africa Development Bank could create a bond to finance some projects to help resolve the crisis. The conflict is mainly between the sedentary crop farmers and the nomadic cow herders across Nigeria, where competition over diminishing land and water resources has turned lethal in an environment of near-total impunity

Water, or more accurately the lack of it, is at the heart of consistent conflicts between farmers and herders in many parts of the country. Water catchment and conservation systems must be developed. This includes the prudent use of dams and irrigation sub-systems maintainable at the local level. A bond could finance more water efficient farming techniques and projects that could protect the land against additional desertification that must take adequate priority.

A bond that could end Water scarcity and drought which affect over 400 million people in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, threatening livelihoods and food security. In these areas, the only available water may be surface runoff during rainy seasons, or shallow groundwater. Water rights in deserts and rangelands are often poorly defined. But tapping water in the upstream reaches of a valley with an ephemeral stream, may adversely affect people living downstream. Avoiding conflict requires clear policies on water rights. Groundwater resources are also common property in most dry areas and, with the help of modern pumps, are often over-exploited, decreasing the quality and quantity of the available water. Policies that regulate water pumping can help re-establish ground water resources, although few have been implemented.

The development and commercialization of agriculture requires financial services like a 10-year bond that can support: larger agriculture investments and agriculture-related infrastructure that require long-term funding (given that currently transportation and logistics costs are too high, especially for landlocked countries), a greater inclusion of youth and women in the sector, and advancements in technology (both in terms of mechanizing the agriculture. But also toward farmers and their farmlands. Each year, the desert eats up thousands upon thousands of acres of land.  This pushes herders and even some farmers southward.

The result is that an increasing number of people and livestock seek to extract from a dwindling amount of fertile land enough water and feed to sustain themselves. This is a recipe for increased competition and conflict. Violence is almost inevitable in this situation of diminishing vital resources.

Africa Development Bank could provide affordable credit to agricultural producers, either directly or through agricultural cooperatives and farmers’ associations. Finance for water pipelines, irrigation and used farm machinery or Equipment. Finance for purchasing feed, fertiliser, seed or crop protection supplies. One of Funding to purchase land next to your farm or a new property. Facilities to cover the cost of a barn, shed or other agricultural building.

The African Development Bank could raise an exceptional ten-year bond to help alleviate the economic and social impact on herders-farmers clashes on livelihoods and Africa’s economies.  The bond could realise the vision for Agriculture and Rural Development that strive to become the leading development finance institution in Africa, dedicated to assisting African regional member countries in their poverty reduction efforts.

This bond thus focuses on the central goal of poverty reduction and, therefore, on agriculture and rural development as a prime building block, given the dominant role agriculture plays in most West African countries, as the key employer of the people and the main contributor to GDP, rural transformation, and economic growth.

More specifically, the Bank’s bond for the agriculture and rural development sector is to assume a leading catalytic role, within the next decade, in supporting the technological, institutional and policy changes that would trigger a lasting transformation of the rural economies of West Africa by empowering their rural populations to improve their productivity and real incomes in an equitable and environmentally sustainable manner.  Hence, the thrust of the bond is client-focus, with “people-centered development” as the principal theme.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) could create a bond to boost joint efforts aimed at catalysing agriculture sector investments in Africa to end hunger and malnutrition and increase prosperity throughout the continent. Specifically, the new strategic bond seeks to enhance the quality and impact of investment in food security, nutrition, social protection, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development.

It signals a commitment to accelerate the delivery of high quality programs and increased investment for public-private-partnerships in Africa’s agriculture sector. This will help us achieve the vision of making agriculture a business, as enshrined in the Bank’s Feed Africa strategy.” The Bank’s Feed Africa strategy, launched in 2015, targets to invest $24 billion into African agriculture over a ten-year period. The aim is that of improving agricultural policies, markets, infrastructure and institutions to ensure that agricultural value chains are well developed and that improved technologies are made available to reach several millions farmers.

A bond from Africa Development Bank is needed to finance a trans-African project designed to stop drought-and-desert and strategies for ending the conflicts.

There is need for concerted efforts by the government, private sector, regional bodies and the international community at large to come together to create a bond to address these challenges. Political leaders have failed to invoke appropriate legislations to be backed by action that would define rules and limits for parties involved in the conflict. At the regional level, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) must create farmers-herders bond to finance water pipelines, pumping of water and build irrigation in the desert to stop farmers-herders clashes in West Africa.

The herder-farmer conflict has become more significant in the last two years. Although the government had in the past taken some measures and African Development Bank (AfDB) could create a 10-year bond to address this phenomenon, the increasing desertification and the effects of climate change have further increased the drive for the herdsmen to move further south in search of grazing land and pasture for their livestock and farmers-herders bond from Africa Development Bank could end the crisis.

Inwalomhe Donald writes via inwalomhe.donald@yahoo.com