Promoting Better Governance and Bolstering Community-led Conflict Mediation with Benin’s Mediator of the Republic

Promoting Better Governance and Bolstering Community-led Conflict Mediation with Benin’s Mediator of the Republic

In Benin, the institution of the Mediator of the Republic receives and mediates grievances from citizens by finding equitable solutions, but public awareness of the Mediator’s role and responsibilities remains limited. In northern Benin in particular, people would benefit from understanding how to access the support from the Mediator’s office, due to the high number of land and farmer-herder conflicts they face. Even more concerning, the instability caused when these conflicts remain unresolved or are addressed poorly increases community vulnerability to violent extremist organizations (VEOs). That is because feelings of injustice fuel VEOs, creating opportunities for recruitment tactics and a way to exacerbate tensions in communities that are already at-risk due to their proximity to the border. 

OTI’s Littorals Regional Initiative worked with Benin’s Office of the Mediator of the Republic to provide communities with more access to the institution in order to improve governance and build trust between citizens in the north and their government. With OTI support, the Mediator’s office arranged for the National Mediator to visit 18 communes in the north to increase government presence and support. The visits had two purposes: to get the Mediator out into the communities to resolve community grievances, and to familiarize citizens with topics related to preventing violent extremism to detering VEO expansion in the north. Both of these are key to strengthening stability in the region.

More than 6,000 residents ultimately engaged with the Mediator’s office during the town halls, which ran from January to June of 2022. This included leaders of farmer and herder associations, religious and traditional leaders, and women and youth groups from different ethnic backgrounds like the Fulbé (Peuhl) community. These meetings also provided the Mediator’s office with a clearer picture of the issues that local governmental representatives, community leaders, and citizens deal with when resolving conflicts. 

For example, Tewi Cherifa, a farmer from northern Benin’s Bougou district in the Donga department, was involved in a land dispute that remained unresolved for months. She shared, “I was the victim in this dispute, and when I turned to the community elders to intervene, they were not able to resolve the matter.” She was hesitant about taking her grievance to the Mediator at the town hall, but hopefulness replaced her initial skepticism.

In her words, “I didn’t know we could take our disputes to the Mediator for resolution; I am confident that I will have justice soon.”

Cherifa’s displeasure with the conflict management tools available to her community is not an isolated one. Land and farmer-herder disputes often turn violent, but attempts by local authorities, the judiciary, and the state police to intervene can aggravate conflicts instead of resolving them. A local government official in Partago village of Donga department explained, “We have tried to resolve these conflicts and so have the chiefs, but the communities say that we are biased.” Whatever the reason for the breakdown in trust between authorities and citizens, its pervasiveness poses a danger to a region that is vulnerable to instability and extremism. However, the dialogues—which were organized with the understanding that mediation is a reliable means of conflict resolution in Benin—marked an important breakthrough. The Mediator’s representatives used the town halls to share resources around peacebuilding and mediation tools with key stakeholders, leaving them better equipped to handle future conflict mediation requests. One local councilor who participated in a town hall admitted that authorities were often overwhelmed with cases and did not have the skills to resolve them—until the Mediator’s office visited and shared new approaches. “We now understand that dialogue is the best way to solve our issues. Violence is never an option,” he said.

OTI’s partnership with the Mediator’s office to hold these town halls helped disprove claims used by extremist groups about the government not delivering for its people simply by showing up. Instead of feeling abandoned or unheard by their government, communities in the north heard directly from the Mediator and had their mediation petitions received. And for many attendees, it was the first time they met or interacted with a high-level government official. Barry, a Fulbe participant, could not hide his excitement and recalled, “We the Fulbé have never been invited to such an engagement before,” adding that "the messages conveyed by the Mediator are welcome and well understood and will consolidate efforts for peace within our various communities." The Mediator’s presence in these communities underscored the government’s commitment to strengthening its ties with them. 

The new approach of roving public town halls, supported by OTI, also allowed the Mediator’s Office to reach more people. Since then, the office has already replicated the model with other donor support, including USAID’s Consortium for Elections & Political Process Strengthening program, implemented by the International Republican Institute, UNICEF, and Swiss donors, to extend their town halls to all but one department of Benin. The positive effects of the OTI supported town halls have also endured. Residents across the region have reported 36 disputes to the Mediator’s northern departmental branch office. Additionally, some communities have, for the first time, reached out to the Mediator’s office for conflict resolution, demonstrating that progress is possible when communities trust in their leaders.

The shift has also been seen in the Mediator’s office directly. In 2022, the office received 150 appeals, when in previous years it only received a few dozen cases. In March 2023, to respond to this increase in appeals, OTI again partnered with the office to train 15 newly-hired agents to resolve conflict petitions. The Mediator's office also leveraged the positive momentum built by the OTI-supported town hall campaign to receive internal Beninese government funds to hire the new officers and purchase a digital processing system to speed up the appeals process. By the end of the training, the Mediator’s office had achieved their goal of “zero in the drawer,” meaning that they processed and logged all claims in their system.

The sensitive and nuanced nature of conflict mediation requires highly skilled and experienced consultants that understand the realities of the tensions that exist in Benin’s communities. Before launching the town hall meetings, OTI and the Mediator’s office included practitioners on their teams to consider and address challenges, such as the large-scale nature of the project and the need to include all ethnic groups despite traditional attitudes, while also determining how best to facilitate training and discussions. These efforts contributed to the success of the initial 18 town halls and garnered the buy-in needed to replicate them in other departments throughout Benin. Throughout 2023, the Mediator’s office saw how making themselves available to hear from the communities directly produced immediate, positive dividends. It also started to shift public perception. The town halls provide a tangible example of how the government is able to help the northern communities at a critical time as pressure from VEOs increases, while also strengthening their governance by showcasing their value.