Soc-Econ Dev & Peace in Borderlands

The annual report for 2021 for UNDP African Borderland's Center (UNDP ABC) was shared on 19 July. The report is better described as a visibility product with a focus on the vision for the borderlands in Africa. In 2021, the UNDP ABC worked with border communities and stakeholders in 20 African countries, and also engaged with the African Union Commission (AUC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Liptako-Gourma Authority (LGA) at the regional level. In its first year, several programmes were initiated. For example, ABC's 2021 Innovation Challenge revealed how local talents and innovations are best placed to solve local development challenges. As a result, four projects are currently contributing to financial inclusion for informal cross-border traders in the border regions of Sudan-South Sudan, Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso, Zambia-Zimbabwe and Benin-Ghana-Togo. For the pilot work specifically funded by Sweden, UNDP ABC focus on 3 areas: 1: Facilitate quality contributions by women and youth-led CSOs to borderlands development through enhanced collaboration with the AU, IGAD, LPI and UN system in East Africa. LPI and AU has an established working group and the CSO mapping in East Africa for AU borderland engagement has been completed. As AU is going through a reform process with limited staff, UNDP is currently recruiting a consultant who will support the undercapacitated unit who deals with the borderland strategy. 2: Improve socio-economic conditions of cross-border traders and trading communities through facilitating women and youth-traders access to market information in the Liptako-Gourma. UNDP ABC has been focusing on milk value chains in Liptako-Gourma (storage, transportation and digital platform). The storage and transportation components are almost complete and the digital platform is under construction. 3: Enhance the resilience of border communities in Karamoja through catalytic livelihoods support, climate change impact mitigation and enhance social cohesion engagements. UNDP has implemented succesful QIPs fro livelihood support targeting women and climate change impact mitigation projects involving communities. They have also contributed to revitalising the MoU between the Kenyan and Ugandan government and several meetings have taken place to reviltalise the implementation framework. The up-coming election in Kenya is delaying the planned validation workshop. As the cross-border peace dialogues are connected to the framework, UNDP is assessing technical solutions to be implemented meanwhile. If not feasible, additional QIPs might be developed and implemented.

This one-year pilot project is focused on embracing the opportunities of Africas borderlands with a particular focus on engaging and empowering women and youth. The project combines interventions that build the capacity of borderland CSOs, pilot innovative approaches to unleash the economic potential of borderlands while also providing immediate livelihood improvements to communities. This project is designed as a pilot initiative to showcase the approach and potential of a joint AU-UNDP borderlands engagement. The geographic focus of the interventions is Eastern Africa (CSO engagement); the border area Karamoja (Kenya, Uganda) and the Liptako-Gourma (Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso) for livelihoods and Peacebuilding interventions. Outcome: Socio-economic recovery and resilience in borderland communities are strengthened through inclusive dialogues, improved informal cross-border trade, and rapid mitigation against sources of marginalization, particularly for women and youth. Output 1: Facilitate quality contributions by women and youth-led CSOs to borderlands development through enhanced collaboration with the AU, IGAD, Life and Peace Institute (LPI) and the UN system in East Africa. Output 2: Improve socio-economic conditions of cross-border traders and trading communities through facilitating women and youth-traders access to market information in the Liptako-Gourma Output 3: Enhance the resilience of border communities in Karamoja through catalytic livelihoods support, climate change impact mitigation and social cohesion engagements.