The PEACECORE project uses sustainable, climate conscious livelihood support as a tool to restore traditional, and create new, trade and exchange opportunities for farmers and herders in 6 Local Government Areas of Plateau State, Nigeria. The aim is to replace negative conflict behaviors with mutually beneficial economic relations, while mediation and dialogue also supported through the first building block. Participants from communities affected by conflict have been brought together and trained across various organic agricultural and dairy value chain opportunities, cooperative formation and operation, and conflict resolution. Through such efforts we have been able to bring together conflicting livelihood groups of farmers and herders to establish trade agreements and form cooperatives around value chains including organic fertilizer supply, supply of cow dung and crop waste for briquette production, fodder and forage production, dairy and tofu production etc.

The project has brought conflicting parties using platforms such as the Community Peace Architecture Forum CPAF and the People First Impact Method P-FIM. This approach has succeeded in bringing people at the community level together to discuss and resolve their issues at the local level using community driven solutions. Communities have been able to resolve disputes arising through mediation of the CPAF and articulate their needs, and goals through P-FIM. All of which have helped the project to design and deliver on its objectives with the buy in of local communities.

SAGE Findings:

1. Little involvement of fisherwomen in LMMA decision-making, discriminated against because of mosquito net fishing.
2. Lack of recognition of community rights to participate in LMMA decision-making.
3. Major deficiencies in the process of complaints and follow-up of cases related to invasion of the reserves by the entire community due to the lack of inspection instruments.
4. Deficit of collaboration and coordination, it does not share reports and plan of activities between different actors.

Recommendations:

1. Involve mosquito net fisherwomen at all stages of LMMA establishment and prioritize opportunity costs for them.
2. Disseminate information on rights to participate in LMMA decision-making to all community.
3. Encourage community to report offenders and follow up on cases related to the invasion of the reserves. 
4. Promote regular meetings to share reports and activity plans between actors.

Based on these recommendations, the project is implementing bivalve aquaculture, prioritising women’s involvement to address opportunity costs. We are supporting annual district, provincial and national stakeholder meetings. We are supporting CCPs with equipment for improved LMMA enforcement. We are strengthening CCP skills for communication and equitable governance through training by AMA.

Data Collection, Data Analysis and Data Synthesis:

Organised groups of actors from different social backgrounds gathered for this process, which was facilitated using the local language and a translator was engaged to assist with the translation. To take into account the level of education of participants, we defined the appropriate means of communication. People participated according to the same interest group or social status (Community Fishery Council, fishermen, fisherwomen, government, influential members and income generation alternatives, among them). In the first phase, discussions were done separately and later discussed in plenary; after the discussion participants reached consensus, it is this consensus that was considered as the final response. To ensure that the selection of members taking part in each target group was inclusive, it did not take into consideration party affiliation, religion, social level, gender. During the meetings we also explained the importance of the SAGE process.

The first part of this project was training participants on SAGE. To make the SAGE more applicable to our situation, we chose six of the most important principles that are relevant to the LMMA:

1: Respect for resource rights and human rights of community members

3: Effective participation of all relevant actors in decision making

4: Transparency, information sharing and accountability for actions and inactions

8: Equitable sharing of benefits among relevant actors

9: Achievement of conservation and other objectives

10: Effective coordination and collaboration between actors, sectors and levels

The SAGE methodology is a participatory process, conducted with: Community Fisheries Council, fishermen, livelihoods group, community and religious leaders, district and provincial government.

The IMET was supported by two consultants from the National Administration of Conservation Areas. Various actors were invited: a) National Fisheries Administration, Provincial Service of Economic Activities, Provincial Directorate of Environment, Provincial Directorate of Tourism; b) District Service of Economic Activities, Maritime and Lake Police, Administrator of Quirimbas National Park and Justice Authority; c) Community Fisheries Councils, fishermen, community and religious Leaders).