Peace Building in the Casamance, Senegal

For the past 20 years, the Movement for the Democratic Forces of the Casamance (MFDC) has waged war against the Government of Senegal (GoS). The Crisis Response and Stabilization (CRS) group assisted the current USAID-financed peace effort by facilitating the environment for reconciliation.

Assessments by CRS showed that past attempts at reconstruction failed because they did not address root causes of the conflict, nor did they foster inter-party trust. CRS also found that the MFDC’s limited ability to negotiate is affected by its fragmentation, while the GoS needs greater coordination within its ranks to engage in the peace process.

The Support to the Casamance Peace Process project seeks to increase the capacity of the GoS, the MFDC, and civil society actors to successfully reach and implement a peace agreement. This AECOM activity consists of a series of training workshops, facilitated dialogues, technical assistance, seed project subgrants, and relationship building. The technical steps of a peace process include dialogue to assist with negotiations, strategy design, and overall nurturing of peace. Through this program, AECOM intents to generate several results:

• Build demand for a durable solution the Casamance conflict
• Facilitate the effective involvement of civil society in the peace process
• Address obstacles to a peace accord (e.g., capacity-based obstacles and those related to weak political will) as they arise so that the peace process advances toward a definitive end to the conflict