In Burkina Faso in the intervention area of the Programme Sahel Burkinabé (PSB), land conflicts could be reduced from 259 in 1996 to 49 in 2002 by the introduction of local agreements. At Kishi Beiga, an area frequented by a multitude of different social groups and known for its dispute potential, before the adaptation of a local agreement on natural resource management, there were on average 60 land use conflicts per year, especially between farmers and pastoralists. Due to
the implementation of preventive measures included in the agreement, the number of conflicts was reduced to 10 per year – a reduction of 83%. The remaining conflicts can now be solved locally by an alterna-tive dispute resolution mechanism introduced in all of Burkina Faso (Banzhaf/Kirsch-Jung 2005).