Zachary Angafor, Founder of African Conflicts Response Foundation, discusses his ideas for mitigating conflict between farmers and pastoral communities in North West Cameroon, and his insights in formulating this entrepreneurial approach.

The history of violent conflict in African pastoral and farming communities is an old saga. Indeed, disputes between pastoralists and farmers over water, pasture, grazing land, as well as the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, have transformed the arid lands of the continent into theatres of war. From Sudan to Kenya on the East coast to Cameroon and Nigeria on the West coast, the conflicts are legion and often deadly. However, in this saga of recurrent conflict is a possible solution which, if well exploited, could considerably mitigate, if not, put an end to the violence. This is encouraging and opens up an opportunity to implement a people-to people approach or coexistence to peace and reconciliation in agro-pastoral communities. In other words, to create an environment where there is deep and active coexistence of community, where pastoralists and farmers live with and amongst each other, and where everyday interaction is rich and multifaceted.

North West Cameroon has a history of some of the most violent and bloody farmer-grazer conflicts on the West coast of Africa. Attempts at finding lasting solutions to the communal internecine have often failed because of the entrenched interests of politicians and government as well as traditional authorities. In fact, because of greed, some authorities do not want to resolve the conflicts. Rather, they gain more by its continuation than its resolution since they collect rents from the antagonists and/or leverage them for their political interests. Against this background of greed and unending violence, Zachary Angafor, Founder of African Conflicts Response Foundation (ACRF), has come up with a bold idea that will engage the pastoralists and farmers as the answer to the problem of sustainable peace in their own communities. Pending funding, his project idea will create an environment where pastoral women and women farmers come together to discover their common ground and coexist without discarding their values.

Pastoral women and women farmers in North West Cameroon are talented producers of cultural artifacts such as baskets, calabashes and beads. Handicraft work is therefore their common ground, but they remain divided, poor and unable to read and write. Inspired by his conviction that disparate groups work for peace when they engage in mutually beneficial enterprises, Zachary will work to unite the women in small handicraft cooperative groups where they can interact informally, learn from one another, generate more income, and foster inter-group integration. Zachary believes that by bringing the women together, they would influence their spouses and sons who are responsible for most of the violence to work for peace. And that prejudice and conflict decrease and trust increases when dissimilar groups come together.

Zachary draws his inspiration from some of the writings of authors like Kriesberg Louis on “Coexistence and the Reconciliation of Communal Conflicts” in the Handbook of Interethnic Coexistence, 1998 as well as from real life experiences in disparate communities such as South Africa where black and white South Africans are now living in peace as a result of coexistence. He intends to replicate the project in other countries of the central African sub-continental region once it takes off the ground.

Zachary Angafor is the Founder of African Conflicts Response Foundation, a nascent US based 501 (c) 3 pan-African nonprofit organization. He studied at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the University of Lancaster, and the London School of Economics. He holds Masters Degrees in International Relations and Strategic Studies and in International Public Policy with a focus on Conflict Management and African Studies. Contact: