This briefing note summarises the presentations and discussions at the regional seminar on local land management in West Africa and Madagascar, held in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in March 2023 at the initiative of the Land Tenure and Development Technical Committee (CTFD). It brought together seventy participants, members of civil society organisations, farmers’ organisations and land administrations, and expert researchers from eight African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Madagascar, Mali and Niger), as well as members of the CTFD and speakers from AFD.

It analyses public policies and new community regulatory instruments to promote the recognition of pastoral commons and the resilience of pastoral livestock farming, while highlighting the paradox of dual regulation of mobility of livestock, which juxtaposes different visions of livestock farming: on the one hand, the need to maintain a mobile livestock farming system, arguing that it can adapt continuously to climate change and variability; on the other, the promotion of an intensive, sedentary livestock farming system perceived as more viable by many elites who have sometimes invested in this type of farming themselves.

Following an analysis of the scope and limitations of current approaches to securing pastoral rights and developing pastoral infrastructure, the paper calls for a structural transformation of the land tenure system that takes greater account of the interests of pastoralists.