Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are preparing to deepen cross-border dialogue and conflict-management efforts following the deadly Gbenyiri conflict that forced thousands of Ghanaians to flee into neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire last year.
A two-day preparatory meeting held in Bole on August 18 and 19, 2026, brought together Ghanaian and Ivorian stakeholders to lay the groundwork for an inclusive political dialogue aimed at finding a peaceful and sustainable solution to tensions between Gonja and Birifor communities along the two countries’ border.
The meeting was convened with the involvement of the Ghana Boundary Commission and authorities of the Savannah Regional Coordinating Council, with participation from Ivorian authorities, including the Prefecture of the Bounkani Region.
The initiative has produced a roadmap for conflict management and the voluntary return of displaced persons, as well as plans for a joint mechanism to coordinate and monitor community-level mediation.
Representatives of Gonja and Birifor youth associations also renewed their commitment to peaceful coexistence.
The Savannah Regional Minister, Salisu Be-Awuribe Issifu, and the Prefect of the Bounkani Region, Chérif Brahima, signed a joint communiqué reinforcing the commitment to trust, cooperation and coordinated action between authorities and communities on both sides of the border.
The next step is the organisation of a broader political dialogue involving the Boundary Commissions, political and administrative authorities and other key stakeholders.
How the Gbenyiri conflict began
The proposed dialogue comes nearly a year after violence erupted in Gbenyiri, a farming community in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District, close to Ghana’s borders with Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso.
The immediate trigger was a dispute over a parcel of land that had reportedly been sold to a private developer. Attempts to develop the land sparked confrontation, which quickly escalated into wider communal violence between Gonja and Birifor communities.
But authorities and peace actors have stressed that the conflict cannot be understood simply as a dispute over a piece of land.
The Savannah Regional Peace Council, during the height of the crisis, said the violence reflected deeper historical issues and a breakdown in dialogue, warning that misconceptions and lack of engagement had helped transform a local disagreement into widespread violence.
The clashes, which erupted on August 23, 2025, spread beyond Gbenyiri to other communities in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba and Bole areas.
At least 31 people were killed and about 48,000 people were displaced, according to official figures cited by the Ghana News Agency and other reports. The government subsequently established a seven-member Gbenyiri Mediation Committee in September 2025 to help rebuild trust and establish a framework for lasting peace.
Conflict crosses into Côte d’Ivoire
The crisis did not stop at Ghana’s territorial boundary.
As violence intensified, thousands of residents fled their homes. More than 13,000 Ghanaians crossed into Côte d’Ivoire and sought refuge mainly in the Bounkani Region, placing additional pressure on communities that were already hosting displaced people from the wider Sahel crisis.
The scale of the displacement turned what began as a local Ghanaian communal conflict into a cross-border humanitarian and security concern.
The Savannah Regional Minister subsequently travelled to Bouna to engage Ivorian authorities and thank them for receiving the displaced Ghanaians. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire also discussed stronger border security, intelligence sharing and measures to prevent armed groups and reprisals from crossing the frontier.
By September 2025, about 8,000 of the displaced Ghanaians had returned home, while more than 5,000 remained in Côte d’Ivoire at the time of the government’s update.
From mediation to cross-border dialogue
Ghana’s own mediation process has since produced a formal report.
The Gbenyiri Mediation Committee, chaired by conflict-resolution expert Emmanuel Bombande, presented its final report to Interior Minister Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak in February 2026.
The committee was tasked with promoting dialogue and peaceful coexistence between the Gonja and Lobi/Birifor communities and developing a roadmap for rebuilding trust and restoring stability.
Mr Bombande called for the recommendations to be implemented through a clear roadmap and monitoring mechanism, stressing that conflict resolution requires sustained effort and collective responsibility.
The new Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire process therefore represents another layer of the peace effort, recognising that the consequences of the Gbenyiri conflict extended beyond Ghana’s borders.
Part of wider regional cooperation
The dialogue is being supported under the SKBoWa project, the Peaceful and Resilient Cross-Border Regions initiative covering Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Mali.
The project is co-funded by the European Union and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ.
It seeks to strengthen cross-border cooperation in local governance, social cohesion and peace, as well as economic development and agribusiness. Ghana’s Boundary Commission has previously identified the Savannah and Upper West regions as key intervention areas under the initiative.
The August meeting in Bole has consequently shifted the focus from managing the aftermath of the Gbenyiri conflict to building mechanisms that could prevent similar disputes from escalating across the Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire border.
For communities whose social, cultural and economic relations long predate the modern international boundary, authorities are now seeking to ensure that the border becomes a point of cooperation rather than a route through which local conflicts spread.
The planned political dialogue is expected to consolidate the roadmap, strengthen coordination between traditional and state authorities and advance social cohesion among communities on both sides of the frontier.
Source: www.kumasimail.com
