Can Social Contact Reduce Economic Conflict between Farmers and Herders? Evidence from Nigeria

Our design involves two interventions, farmer-herder inter-dialogues which constitute our primary intervention (henceforth SFCG workshops) of interest and health workshops which we consider a benchmark case of neutral contact without a target focus on sources of conflict.

The main intervention consists of farmer-herder inter-dialogue workshops organized by Search for Common Ground (SFCG). The SFCG workshops unfold through three steps. First, preparatory meetings are held with farmers and herders separately; then both parties are brought together in two to three-day long fora. These fora include key local leaders, such as the chairmen of the farmer and herder associations, chiefs and local councilors, as well as women and youth leaders. However, there may be as many as 50 individuals from each of the communities, including rank and file herders and farmers. During the fora, farmers and herders collectively discuss key challenges and sources of tension within their community. At the end of the session, they produce a collective record of this discussion, which requires them to reach basic agreement on how these challenges are represented.
Third, SFCG organizes follow-up visits to the communities, 6 weeks after the fora to discuss progress in implementing the action plans. 32 SFCG workshops were implemented involving 96 farmer-herder community pairs. The first workshop took place on July 15, 2020 and the final workshop on November 3, 2021 with the last follow up visit on December 10, 2021.

Additionally, we designed a neutral treatment arm which consists of health workshops. We partnered with a Nigerian health consulting firm, Dan Meshak Consulting, to provide health workshops to farmer and herder communities following the same structure and setup as the SFCG workshops (first farmers and herders meet separately, then together, and a follow-up visit six weeks later). In contrast to the SFCG workshops, issues surrounding the conflict between farmers and herders are not discussed at the health workshops. Only health care problems are addressed, such as child and maternal health, sanitation practices, and COVID-19 prevention. 32 health workshops were implemented involving 96 farmer-herder community pairs. The first health workshop took place on November 24, 2020 and the final health workshop on June 13, 2022 with the last follow up visit on September 30, 2022.

2020-08-03

2022-07-31

Farmer-Herder Disputes; Farmer-Herder Violence

Please refer to the Pre-Analysis Plan for details on the variables.

Secondary Outcomes: Long Run Disputes; Long Run Farmer-Herder Violence; Other Violence; (Subjective) Security Situation; Economic Indicators; Economic Exchange; Migration & Displacement
Mechanisms: Cooperation; Behavior; Asymmetric Information; Trust; Stereotypes & Discrimination; Religious Views; Social Networks; Empathy; Perception of Justice; Dispute Resolution; Institution Building; Intervention Knowledge and Attendance; Health Outcomes

Please refer to the Pre-Analysis Plan for details on the variables.

Our sample included farmer-herder community pairs in three states of the Middle-Belt of Nigeria: Benue, Nassarawa, and Plateau states. We excluded communities that SFCG has previously worked in and coordinated with other NGO's working on farmer-herder relations to avoid contamination.

We stratified the randomization by Local Government Areas (LGA), the Nigerian administrative division below states, this created 15 strata. Within each LGA stratum, we selected a random third of farmer-herder community pairs to the SFCG workshop treatment and another third to the health workshop treatment. Since both SFCG and health workshops involve three communities in one workshop, we sampled 9, 18, 27, or 36 communities per LGA. The randomized sample included 288 farmer-herder community pairs; 96 were assigned to SFCG workshop treatment, 96 to health workshop treatment and 96 to the control group. We refer to farmer-herder community pairs as communities, for brevity.

The intervention consists of inter-dialogue workshops between farmer and herder communities in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. These bring together farmers and herders in two to three-day sessions over which they collectively discuss key challenges and sources of tension within their community. We intend to have a 3 arm study, whereby one arm is assigned to the inter-dialogue intervention, one to control and one to a health workshop. This third health workshop arm will serve as a "neutral" arm, to separate the effect of contact with explicit discussion around conflict from mere contact.

Randomization done in office by a computer

Community

Yes

288 communities

4,608

96 inter-dialogue treatment, 96 health workshop and 96 control communities.

Pre-Analysis Plan