Ten years of crisis have exacerbated conflict between herders and farmers in the Central African Republic. But reduced insecurity, coupled with warmer relations with Chad, gives Bangui an opportunity to move away from a security-focused approach and address the root causes of the violence.
[Translation from French]
What's new? Ten years of crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) have fostered new dynamics in the livestock sector, exacerbating conflict between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. The government, which has treated transhumance primarily as a security problem, has been unable to curb the violence. So have NGO and UN initiatives.
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Why does it matter? Reducing herder-farmer violence is essential for long-term stability in CAR. Bangui now has an unprecedented opportunity to scale it back, as the state gets re-established in rural areas, non-state armed groups weaken there and CAR's relations warm with neighbouring Chad.
What should be done? To contain herder-farmer violence, Bangui should reassume the regulatory role it abandoned in the 1990s. With the support of international partners, CAR's authorities should rehabilitate pastoral services they once provided, combat army predation upon herders and revive cross-border cooperation with Chad.
Executive Summary
Violence between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers is a main driver of the conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR), which began in 2013 when a coup d'état plunged the country into civil war. New dynamics that have taken hold since then have made herder-farmer clashes deadlier than before. Attacked from all sides, pastoralists have taken up arms, while two powerful militias have emerged claiming to defend them. Foreign herders have also flocked to CAR, whose pastures are among the richest in the region, while more entrepreneurial forms of managing livestock have worsened frictions. But the government in Bangui now has an unprecedented chance to address the root causes of the violence, having bolstered the state's presence in rural provinces. It helps as well that the various armed groups battling the state have weakened and relations with neighbouring Chad have improved. To foster lasting peace in the countryside, CAR's authorities need to re-establish their former regulatory role, rehabilitate the services they once supplied to herders, curtail army abuses and consolidate cooperation with Chad in the livestock sector.
Regularly beset by rebellion, Bangui is inclined to see herder groups primarily as a security threat. Since 2014, two militias made up mainly of herders - Unité pour la paix en Centrafrique (UPC) and Retour, Réclamation, Réhabilitation (3R) - have formed, deepening the government's tendency to conflate pastoralists with insurgents. In 2019, the state signed a peace agreement with the main armed groups it has been fighting since 2013, which was meant to cover herder-farmer conflict as well, but the latter type of violence increased by more than 50 per cent between that year and 2023. In fact, from 2021 onward, as the army regained control of the countryside with the support of Russia and Rwanda, soldiers organised cattle rustling networks similar to those the armed groups had run near the traditional herding corridors. The ensuing theft led pastoralists to abandon these routes, driving their cattle instead through farmers' fields, which made them vulnerable to reprisal. Herders have accordingly lost what little confidence they had left in the state, increasingly looking to the militias for protection.
UPC rebels at their old Bokolobo headquarters, Ouaka prefecture, Central African Republic, March 2019. CRISIS GROUP / Charles Bouëssel Over the past ten years, government initiatives aimed at resolving herder-farmer conflict have multiplied, thanks in particular to substantial Western funding, but without putting an end to the cycle of violence. While Bangui has stepped up efforts to raise awareness among nomadic and sedentary populations of the issues, it has largely neglected the pastoral sector since the late 1990s. Management mechanisms and key state services in herding corridors (such as veterinary care) remain in disarray. This infrastructure was essential for regulating herders' movements and offered them something in exchange for the taxes they formerly paid.
Its absence is all the more glaring with the influx of foreign herders - mainly Chadians who know little about dynamics in CAR - and the rise of what is called néo-élevage. This practice, by which cattle owners employ drovers to herd their livestock from place to place, is a source of numerous conflicts. The drovers are often armed and under great pressure to protect the livestock, while the herds, which are often larger than those of local pastoralists, are difficult to control and regularly damage fields under cultivation. The land law, which has not been updated since the 1960s, does not adequately define the rights and duties of various land users, adding to rural tensions and limiting the effectiveness of international initiatives aimed at ameliorating them.
A third problem in the pastoral sector has been relations between CAR and Chad, which have been stormy since the 2013 coup d'état. Herds coming from Chad - which account for around 70 per cent of the livestock arriving in CAR - are a particular source of conflict, not least because the Chadian herders are often close to the ruling elite in N'Djamena. To better manage the movement of livestock, the two countries signed agreements in 2012 and 2019. But these have not been implemented, even though bilateral tensions have eased of late. In January, the two countries created a joint force to guard the border. In April, N'Djamena also helped broker an agreement between Bangui, on one side, and UPC and 3R representatives, on the other, reintegrating these two militias into the peace process. CAR and Chad should build on these achievements.
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As Crisis Group emphasised in a 2014 report, reducing herder-farmer violence is essential for stabilising CAR. While the challenges of doing so are numerous, the current moment is particularly favourable for tackling the issue head on. The countryside has become less unstable since 2021, with the army redeploying to the interior and rebel groups losing steam. These developments, along with the partial rapprochement with Chad, offer an opportunity to better protect herders and their livestock, while providing a regulatory environment better suited to today's pastoral practices, particularly néo-élevage. The state's return to the hinterland also augurs well for security during the presidential and legislative elections forthcoming in December.
CAR's government should take advantage of these circumstance to reassert its role as regulator and restore the old mechanisms for managing transhumance, which organised the pastoral sector and brought in substantial tax revenues for the state. In these endeavours, the authorities can count on the support of their traditional Western partners, which, despite suspending some of their budgetary aid to protest Russia's influence in CAR, remain committed to the country's recovery, particularly as regards nomadic herding and its impact on stability. New players such as Russia and Rwanda have shown their own interest in reviving the pastoral sector, which could also contribute to curbing violence. Finally, CAR's authorities should combat predation by the army, such as cattle rustling, and renew cross-border cooperation with Chad.
Bangui/Nairobi/Brussels, 28 May 2025
