Indigenous Food Systems as a Pathway to Health and Food Sovereignty

"Indigenous Food Systems as a Pathway to Health and Food Sovereignty" was prepared by Association Tinhinan, an Indigenous, women-led nomadic pastoralist organization and a partner in the Ărramăt Project. It was given to the Indigenous Peoples' Food Systems (IPFS) Coalition as an introduction to the organization and its work, during a Coalition knowledge-sharing session held over Zoom on 15 May 2026. The presenters were Aminata Diallo (Tuareg and Fulani) and Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine (Tuareg), a Co-Principal Investigator of the Ărramăt Project. The aim was to open a conversation among Coalition members, not to lay out a finished programme. The talk has several parts. It opens with the story of Association Tinhinan, founded in 1994 by Tuareg pastoralist women who were themselves refugees, and now working across Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Canada. It then turns to the Ărramăt Project, the global Indigenous-led research initiative on biodiversity conservation and Indigenous health and well-being that Tinhinan is part of, covering its model, its ten Global Transformation Pathways, and the place-based projects in its network. From there it focuses on Pathway T1, Strengthening Indigenous Food Systems. The later sections take up a harder question: what do Indigenous food systems mean for communities living through conflict and forced displacement? The Mbera refugee camp in Hodh Chargui, Mauritania, home to Malian refugees who are in majority Kel Tamasheq and Fulani, grounds that part of the discussion. The presentation closes with an early-stage idea: that school-meals programmes might be broadened to draw on the food knowledge displaced communities carry with them, considered alongside the wider evidence on school feeding and the role of Indigenous women as holders of food knowledge. One note on that idea. The school-meals concept for Mbera is an early proposal, shared to begin a conversation. Nothing has been decided, and any design would be developed and led together with the Mbera community. The presentation draws on sources from the Ărramăt Project, UNHCR, WFP and CGIAR. EN:We acknowledge the support of the Government of Canada's New Frontiers in Research Fund(NFRF), NFRFT-2020-00188.FR :Nous reconnaissons le soutien du gouvernement du Canada par l'entremise du fonds Nouvellesfrontières en recherche (FNFR), NFRFT-2020-00188.