On the 16th of March 2023 in Nouakchott, with the support of the European Union, Iram organised the opening of its Nomadic Exhibition. Based on a series of portraits taken as part of the Rimrap Copco project, this exhibition was born out of a desire to highlight the faces of the men and women at the heart of the changes taking place in the agropastoral areas and societies in the Sahel.
The Institutional reinforcement program for agropastoral resilience in Mauritania (Rimrap), funded by the European Union between 2016 and 2020 in Mauritania, has been extended from 2020 to 2023 as part of the response to Covid with the Rimrap Copco programme. Its aim is to reduce agricultural and pastoral vulnerability, increase people's capacity to act and improve access to and use of resources.
As part of this programme, in November 2022 Iram conducted two studies in the wilayas of Guidimakha, Hodh el Gharbi and Hodh el Charghi:
- The first aimed to shed light on the processes involved in preventing and managing agro-sylvo-pastoral conflicts by analysing the practice of local mediators, who play a major role in preventing and settling disputes over access to natural resources.
- The second looked at the role of women in transhumance, how this role is changing as family mobility is reduced in favour of essentially male mobility, and the difficulties and opportunities encountered by women in this new paradigm.
For these two studies, Younes Dowgui, a Mauritanian video-maker, photographer, and sound technician, produced portraits of women involved in transhumance and community mediators. The Nomadic Exhibition bring light to the women and men changing the agropastoral spaces and societies in the Sahel.
Including 26 panels, this exhibition also gives a voice to these women and men, through the quotations that accompany their photographs.
Inaugurated on the 16th of March 2023 in Nouakchott in the presence of some forty people - including Ahmed Salem El Arbi, Director of Animal Resources at the Ministry of Livestock; Aliou Kane, coordinator of the National Group of Pastoral Associations; and representatives of the Collective of Pastoral Women - this exhibition, funded by the European Union, will then travel to Paris and Montpellier. The aim is for these two destinations to be just the start of a wider itinerary.