Current Programmes

In Mauritania, we support two communities locked in a land dispute, helping them resolve it to mutual benefit. In 1989, nearly 100,000 Pulaar people were violently displaced from their homelands in the fertile Senegal River Valley. The land was given to Haratine people, ostensibly to help them out of modern day slavery. When the Pulaar returned, over 20 years later, returnees and Haratine both had a legitimate interest in the same land, with both acutely vulnerable to food shortages.

The Abyei Administrative Area (Abyei) is a disputed area on the border of Sudan and South Sudan and is contested territory between the two countries. Its 4,000 square miles are mostly inhabited by Ngok Dinka pastoralist farmers and by Misseriya herders and traders, with more Misseriya herders arriving during the dry season to escape drought, and Dinka Twic arriving in the wet season to escape floods. We have been working along this politically sensitive border since 2009, promoting peaceful trade and livestock movement to mutual economic benefit.

We work in the northern prefectures, which are important corridors for seasonal livestock migration to and from Chad, Cameroon and Sudan’s Darfur. It's a crucial node for regional trade, but this can also create tensions, where herders and farmers find themselves on opposite sides of armed sectarian conflict, as well as in conflict over natural resources.

In 2020-21, the CAR team completed the final year of a £1.4 million UK Aid Direct funded programme. We also secured EU funding to continue our long-term commitment to the people of CAR.