Healing community trauma to promote peacebuilding in Northern Ghana

November 17, 2023

6 min read

On April 13, 2022, unidentified gunmen attacked the Zakoli community, a Fulbe settlement near the town of Yendi in northern Ghana. The Fulbe are a largely pastoralist ethnic group that is spread across multiple West African countries. Their permanent settlement in Ghana is more recent, and relations between Fulbe and non-Fulbe have often been marked by tension and conflict.

The Yendi attack was surmised to be a reprisal attack for the killing of a non-Fulbe teacher by suspected Fulbe bandits. The violence profoundly impacted the community, including 29-year-old Memuna Belko, who lost three of her brothers among the eight men killed.

Having recently lost her husband in a motor accident, the tragedy compounded Memuna’s grief. Overwhelmed by anguish, she even contemplated suicide.

In parts of northern Ghana, this conflict between Fulbe and non-Fulbe groups poses a threat to social cohesion and community development and enables exploitation by violent extremist organizations. According to local context tracking by the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives’ (OTI) Littorals Regional Initiative (LRI) and anecdotal evidence gathered since 2021, violent attacks on Fulbe communities have increased in intensity and frequency in northern Ghana.

The violence has been met with a handful of arrests and little to no justice for victims. The Fulani Youth Association of Ghana (FUYAG) notes that these incidents, based on long-held stereotyping of the Fulbe as criminals, have pushed many Fulbe to the periphery of towns and villages or caused them to flee to neighboring countries, including Burkina Faso, a country currently under threat from violent extremist organizations.

The violence and upheaval that punctuates these conflicts may be easier to spot, but what is often left unaddressed is the less-obvious damage to the population caused by emotional and psychological trauma — such as in Memuna’s experience.

Working with communities to address trauma

From March to August 2023, OTI partnered with the Center for Social and Development Reform (CSD Reform), a local Ghanaian NGO, to start addressing the psychological effects of the violence by conducting trauma healing training in Karaga, Gushegu, and Yendi — three districts in the Eastern Corridor of the Northern Region with high incidents of clashes between Fulbe and non-Fulbe.

In collaboration with the Council of Fulani Chiefs and two Fulbe organizations — the Ghana Chapter of Tabital Pulaaku and the Fulani Youth Association of Ghana — CSD Reform organized a training of trainers on the Rising from Resilient Roots1 trauma healing tool for 30 selected Fulbe and non-Fulbe youth. CSD Reform then supported these trainers to facilitate trauma healing sessions for 720 residents in the target communities and organized six dialogue sessions between Fulbe communities and traditional and local government authorities.

Trauma healing gives a sense of hope and agency

The trauma healing exercise led by CSD has been life changing for Memuna Belko. Tears flowed as she narrated her story as part of the session and drew her tree of life, a visual depiction that signified her past, present and future represented by the roots, trunk, leaves and fruits.

“The tree of life showed me that despite what I have been through, I still have so much to live for. I have my life, children, friends and my community who love and support me. Suicide is no longer an option,” she said after the session.

Inspired by the transformative power of their individual trees of life, Belko and the other 29 members of her group (both Fulbe and non-Fulbe) decided to merge their creations, forming a collective forest of life, a symbolic gesture representing their shared journey toward healing and growth. Later, during community dialogues, the women discussed how to nurture this forest by deepening inter-ethnic peace and collaboration.

Trauma healing participants initiate trust-building efforts

After CSD Reform led the trauma healing exercises, participants started working together to apply what they learned and build trust and confidence in their abilities to address local conflicts. For example, in May 2023, a Fulbe male leader and female leader in Bagurugu town in the Karaga District jointly organized a meeting for 30 herders and 20 Fulbe women in the community to educate them on best practices to avoid farm destruction by their cattle.

According to the Fulbe woman leader, “The training helped to ease my pain from the past conflict. I also reflected on the loss of property, which cannot be replaced. I want to make sure we can prevent these kinds of conflicts in the future to avoid further pain and loss.”

In April 2023, following a series of farm destruction incidents by Fulbe cattle, a non-Fulbe youth leader in Bagurugu town in the Karaga District averted a planned attack on the Fulbe community.

A farmer was upset following a series of farm destruction cases by cattle he believed belonged to a Fulbe. The non-Fulbe youth leader, who happens to be a member of an interim mixed mediation committee formed after the “Rising from Resilient Roots” training, became aware of the farmer’s frustration and employed due processes learned during the training to calm the farmer down. The youth leader also liaised with Fulbe representatives in the committee to identify the owner of the cattle and resolve the issue amicably.

The cattle owner took responsibility for the farm destruction, apologized, and was prepared to pay the compensation, which the farmer graciously declined on the grounds that the herder admitted to the wrongdoing and earnestly apologized.

According to the youth leader, “I have learned that peaceful co-existence between community members is a very important way to prevent the inflow of violent extremist groups into the community.”

Additionally, in August 2023, Memuna and over 30 youth from the Dagomba, Fulbe, and Konkomba ethnic groups from the Zakoli community formed a multi-ethnic peacebuilding group to organize community dialogues to tackle conflicts peacefully.

Restorative Circles: A trauma healing tool

In a separate activity in Tamale and Wa in Ghana’s Northern and Upper West Regions, Dr. Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams, a professor and the Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, trained 44 OTI partners and other interested civil society representatives to use a trauma healing tool called restorative circles.

The tool teaches a method that encourages conflicting parties to sit in a circle and air their grievances through equal opportunity sharing and listening. After the training led by Dr. Williams, participants reported using restorative circles to improve community relationships and pass on the knowledge by training their peers on the trauma healing technique.

Since May 2023, Hajia Mariam Alhassan Alolo, an Islamic instructor and founder of the Hajia Mariam Alolo Islamic Institute in Tamale, has taken what she learned and introduced the restorative circle methodology to her community. She took the initiative to organize five training sessions on it for 49 members of her school community.

Damata, one of the participants, acknowledged the benefit of the sessions and said, “The training is healing. It has helped me bring out some issues that have burdened my heart for a long time, and it is refreshing to share this with other people who are going through similar pain.”

Hajia Mariam’s ultimate goal is to introduce the methodology to the other instructors at her school and eventually integrate it into her curriculum. Additionally, two Queen Mothers — who play powerful leadership roles in their communities — and a female Fulbe leader successfully introduced the restorative circle methodology to 47 Queen Mothers in the Upper East Region.

So far, former participants of the initial training have conducted restorative circle training for more than 300 of their peers across northern Ghana.

Recognizing the transformative power of trauma healing practices, OTI remains committed to harnessing local capacity in this area and piloting innovative approaches to conflict resolution, healing, restoration and recovery.

Ghana panel: Women, Youth & Social Cohesion — Locally led innovations that lead to positive change

May 23, 2023

1 min read

Panelists discuss how engaging youth and women into peacebuilding programs are critical to building social cohesion in Ghana. Organized by the USAID/OTI program called Littorals Regional Initiative, the session included Father Clement, Center for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies, as the moderator and the following panelists:

Jawol Vera Magan is the director of youth empowerment for life (YEfL – Ghana); Abdul-Razak Farida Numbu is the project officer for the community development alliance (CDA-GHANA); and Daouda Dao, the Deputy Chief of Party – programs for the USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative.

Regional Peace Councils in northern Ghana address emerging threats

April 17, 2023

1 min read

Across northern Ghana, USAID/OTI’s Littorals Regional Initiative is building on UDAID’s longstanding relationship with Ghana’s Peace Councils to training them on emerging security threats and support their efforts to better engage religious and traditional leaders, district assemblies and community influencers on social cohesion and peacebuilding. Ghana’s National Peace Council is mandated by law to prevent, manage and resolve conflict and to build sustainable peace.

The Executive Secretary of the Northern and North East Regional Peace Councils, Rev. Father Thaddeus Kuusah, says they have reached more than 2,000 residents. Also, these engagements have renewed the Council’s relevance in the North.

Produced by Littorals Regional Initiative on behalf of USAID/OTI. The opinions expressed are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the position of the U.S. government.

Mock Parliaments, Real Issues

December 6, 2022

1 min read

Mobile youth parliaments in northern Ghana provide an opportunity for them to engage communities in discussions about issues that are obstacles to social cohesion and peace. Supported by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives through its Littorals Regional Initiative program, the youth parliaments are organized by the nonprofit Youth Empowerment for Life (YEFL).

Youth-led YEFL set up youth parliaments in 20 districts across Northern Ghana to promote youth participation in governance.

For more information about YEFL, please visit the organization’s website: yeflghana.org

Fonio: An ancient grain at the center of women’s economic inclusion

December 5, 2022

By Akua Mensah

4 min read

Two key phenomena intersect in the rural areas of the north – both of which are detrimental to women.

Nearly 35 percent of land in Ghana is under threat of desertification, with much of it located in the north. As households in these areas depend heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods, desertification and degradation pose real threats to financial stability and food security. Meanwhile, patriarchal customs deny women land ownership. Land inheritance is patrilineal—men own land, while women can only work on it.

Together, they restrict women’s access to agricultural production, food security and income generation. AMAATI Co. Ltd., led by CEO Salma Abdulai, set out to address the issue of women’s marginalization through empowering women who do not own land in northern Ghana.

“Our approach is a deliberate attempt to respond to the unique needs of rural women to advance sustainable development for themselves and their communities by addressing their limited rights to land, credit and natural resources that compromise their income and food security,” says CEO Abdulai.

Established in 2014, AMAATI also pioneered the revival of the cultivation of fonio, a drought-resistant crop that also regenerates degraded soil. “AMAATI addresses women’s marginalization by facilitating access to abandoned marginal lands through their community leaders, supporting them to cultivate fonio on these poor soils for food and income,” she adds.

Through USAID/Ghana, the West Africa Trade & Investment Hub awarded AMAATI a $742,000 co-investment grant to develop a 1,000-acre nucleus farm in Mion District in the Northern Region and to support 6,000 women farmers to produce fonio. The Trade Hub’s grant also helps the company to secure $4.5 million in private investments to modernize the factory and generate $4.6 million in exports to the United States and Europe.

With operations primarily in Chereponi, a USAID Zone of Influence in the North East Region, AMAATI negotiates with local chiefs to lease abandoned or degraded land to the company’s name. The company registers and trains women farmers, who are then allotted plots to cultivate fonio.

USAID Trade & Investment Hub grantee AMAATI Co. in Ghana, processing fonio. Photo by AMAATI.

Prior to AMAATI’s program, these women would typically have only been given one or two acres of their fathers’ or husbands’ farms on which to cultivate subsistence crops. With AMAATI’s intervention, they can lay claim to an additional one to three acres on which to cultivate a burgeoning export crop.

To protect their incomes, AMAATI pre-finances the farmers’ seeds and ensures a buy-back of 80 percent of the fonio produced, while encouraging them to retain 20 percent for their own households. This buy-back arrangement guarantees year-round financial stability and food security for these female farmers.

Additionally, as fonio has become more of a household staple as the crop’s acceptance grows in the region, many of the women’s husbands have also begun cultivating fonio on their own farms.

From its inception, AMAATI has put the welfare of women at the forefront of its operations. Co-founded and led by a female CEO, the company ensures that women are represented in leadership throughout the organization. Today, 75 percent of AMAATI’s workforce (factory and administrative) is made up of women, and female farmers comprise approximately 80 percent of their outgrowers.

“We create dignified and sustainable livelihoods for women, both at the factory (women processes) and on the field (women farmers), to reduce their social and economic power inequalities and compensate them for living up to their social responsibilities,” she says.

To date, AMAATI has successfully onboarded 5,508 women farmers (91 percent of their target) to the fonio outgrower program. The women farmers use their proceeds from their buy-back agreement with AMAATI to repair their homes, set up small businesses, plant other crops or selling provisions, and even to save towards paying for their personal tertiary education fees.

In the future, AMAATI seeks to encourage more of their outgrowers to open bank accounts and plans to work with financial institutions to establish arrangements for the farmers to repay future loans on a schedule that coincides with their fonio sales. This would allow their women farmers more financial independence and the capacity to fully participate in the local economy.

AMAATI’s work in providing a pathway to economic inclusion for women is invaluable in the bid to support women in the smallholder agricultural economy. Given access to the necessary resources, women would be able to substantially reduce the nation’s food insecurity and import dependence, as AMAATI successfully demonstrates. Working with women who are disenfranchised from land ownership, on plots that would otherwise be abandoned, AMAATI is not only restoring agricultural land, but also the livelihoods of these women and their families.

Equally important to social inclusion and the growth of household income are the production results. “We have also increased our production capacity to 3.5 tons/day from 500kg/day, and we hope to upgrade to 10 tons/day by April 2023,” says CEO Abdulai.

Akua Mensah is a West Africa Trade & Investment Hub Communication Specialist.

Female religious leader builds peace in northern Ghana

August 24, 2022

1 min read

Hajia Mariam Alhassan Alolo has created more than 100 religious centers in northern Ghana, including in and near the city of Tamale, that have serviced thousands of students, mostly women and girls. Hajia Mariam uses her role to identify and reduce conflicts within families and the community, as well as working with other religious leaders to resolve intra-Muslim conflicts in the north. With the support of the USAID/OTI-funded Littorals Regional Initiative, she has developed new peacebuilding and leadership skills that have benefited her community and peers. Produced by Littorals Regional Initiative on behalf of USAID/OTI. The opinions expressed are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the position of the U.S. government.

Ghana: Building lives, improving relations & stemming violence through VSLAs

August 24, 2022

1 min read

Longstanding prejudice and land competition between ethnic Fulbe pastoralists and settled farmers in Ghana’s Savannah Region are causing increased conflict and destabilizing communities. The USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative is leveraging mixed village savings and loans associations to promote peaceful co-existence and economic collaboration between the two groups.

Partnering with local organizations in Northern Ghana to build social cohesion

June 1, 2022

1 min read

The Center for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies (CECOTAPS) brings people together to study peace and also to learn how to transform their daily disputes and daily conflicts into opportunities. With a grant from USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, the center is working in Northern Ghana to better understand the farmer-herder divide and to build effective, sustainable ways to resolve their issues in a peaceful manner. The USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative is implemented by Creative Associates International.

ANKA: Connecting African artisans to the global market

May 20, 2022

By Sabra Ayres

4 min read

An African start-up that created an online marketplace for mostly women-led small businesses and artisans to sell worldwide recently raised $6.1 million for expansion, thanks to an initial $1.5 million investment from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Africa Trade & Investment Hub (Trade Hub) aimed at leveraging outside funding.

ANKA is an online marketplace platform working with 2,000 African micro-, small- and medium enterprises. Sellers use the digital export platform to sell their apparel, jewelry, decorative arts and designer fabrics to customers around the world.

Nearly 80 percent of the sellers on ANKA are women engaged in apparel and accessories making, many of them from small workshops or working in their homes. Historically, selling on Afrikrea, ANKA’s original name, raised businesses’ income by 50 percent year-over-year, according to Charles Polet, a Public-Private Partnership Manager at the Trade Hub.

The $6.1 million in new investment supports a potential job creation of 27,000 based on ANKA’s goal to onboard 3,000 new merchants to its platform within the next three years. More than 50 percent will be women.  

The Trade Hub manages a pipeline of more than $1.2 billion in transactions and has engaged with more than 700 private companies, as well as business associations, development finance institutions and government agencies. It is actively working in 14 countries across 23 value chains.

During its first two and a half years, the project awarded $70 million in grants to 75 public and private sector co-investment partners, including CrossBoundary and Cordaid Investment Management. Collectively, these co-investments are expected to generate $560 million in private investment, create 59,000 sustainable jobs and facilitate more than $456 million in exports in agriculture, manufactured goods, energy and services by the end of the program. The private investment generated is so significant that it represents eight times the value of the Trade Hub funds.

CrossBoundary entered a $1.5 million co-investment partnership with the Trade Hub in February 2021. Under the pay-for-results partnership, CrossBoundary identifies potential investments, such as it did with Afrikrea in 2021. The firm then leverages its USAID-backed $1.5 million investment to encourage outside investors to help finance the potential in other African small and medium enterprises. While the Trade Hub put up the initial $1.5 million, CrossBoundary is committed to raising an additional $14 million in outside investments for at least five small- and medium-sized enterprises.

As of November, CrossBoundary is facilitating $50 million of private capital for 12 small and medium enterprises in agricultural processing, light manufacturing and commerce within eight West African countries, including Cameroon, Liberia, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria and Mali. The investments will promote regional trade, U.S. exports, the U.S. government’s Feed the Future initiative, women’s entrepreneurship, and market-driven supply chains in post-conflict and near-conflict areas.

ANKA’s focus on women-led businesses caught the attention of CrossBoundary, an investment firm that seeks to raise capital for small- and medium enterprises typically underserved by the financing products available, for example, women-led agriculture or handicraft businesses in West Africa. Such enterprises often face prohibitive transaction costs associated with raising funds for expansion and growth.

Originally conceived as Afrikrea, ANKA’s online market lets small artisans and sellers tap into the global market to increase opportunities and profit, and get paid faster, all on one platform.

“At ANKA, our mission is to ‘Bridge Africa and The World,’” said Janis Kouassi, who has been with ANKA since its start in 2019, in a recent blog post. “As an Ivorian woman, that speaks volume to me. Being a part of something that has never been done before, i.e., export Africans’ know-how rather than sell things to Africans, was extremely attractive to me. Being in alignment with your company’s mission and values is key to one’s personal and professional growth.”

ANKA is a U.S. registered company with key operations in Côte d’Ivoire. It’s original name, Afrikrea, is derived from a French play on words, merging “Africa” with the French would for design, “creation.”

The substantial investments will allow ANKA to expand its reach to bring on 3,000 new, small- and medium-sized enterprises in Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria.

“For many of our sellers, ANKA allows them to reach markets that were out of reach just selling on their own,” said Ilan Mouyal, the head of acquisitions at ANKA. “This expansion will mean more artisans, particularly women, can share in that success.”

In addition, supporting ANKA in turn promotes regional trade under Africa Continental Frea Trade Area, or AfCFTA, Polet says, referring to a free-trade area brokered in 2018 to include 54 of the 55 African Union nations. The AfCFTA is the largest free-trade market in the world by member states after the World Trade Organization. The creation of the free-trade region aims to deepen the economic integration of the African continent.

“It’s not easy to fund African start-ups, especially those that help and target microbusinesses,” Polet says. “This is a success story because it builds on promoting U.S. investments and U.S. trade, while at the same time promotes income for micro-ateliers in Africa.”

Mapping inter-ethnic dynamics in Northern Ghana

March 31, 2022

1 min read

Mapping inter-ethnic dynamics in Northern Ghana

USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives is working with community organizations to determine what unites and divides ethnic groups in Northern Ghana. One technique is a “mapping” of opinions, expectations and needs of farmers and herders. Featured in this short video is Rasmata, an enumerator who conducted surveys in many communities. From the Fulbe ethnic group, she had unique access to homes and the candid conversations.