Gender and Natural Resource Conflict Management in Nioro du Sahel, Mali
Publisher: International Institute for Environment and Development
Author(s): Lucy Hamilton and Aly Dama
Date: 2003
Topics: Conflict Prevention, Cooperation, Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Gender, Livelihoods
Countries: Mali
As important natural resource users, women are affected by and involved in natural resource (NR) conflicts, and contribute to their resolution or exacerbation. Women ’s direct involvement in NR conflicts may result in their suffering violence, loss of income, loss of access to resources and restrictions on freedom of movement. Women can also be indirectly affected as wives or daughters of men involved or injured in disputes. On the other hand, throughout Africa, women make positive contributions to NR conflict management. Due to gender- differentiated roles and responsibilities, women have different perspectives and needs to men, and can thus provide different analysis and solutions for conflict management. While their participation in NR conflict management institutions remains remarkably low, women often play an important role behind closed doors, for instance by influencing their male kin.
This paper addresses these issues by describing the experience of a participatory process to facilitate the integration of gender in NR conflict management institutions in northern Mali. This process took place within the context of an action-research and capacity-building programme implemented by IIED and Jam Sahel, a Malian NGO, in the cercle of Nioro, Mali. While this experience may have lessons for similar programmes and activities in West Africa and elsewhere, it is important to note that its primary learning significance is, and was meant to be, for the men and women directly involved in the process. Therefore, although some of the results and lessons of the process may reflect findings that are already consolidated or debated in international literature, they have helped increase local understanding of gender dynamics in Nioro.