The Sahel region; assessing progress twenty-five years after the great
drought
Simon Batterbury
[Src:http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/geogmag.html]
A shorter version is in The Geographical (London) May 1998.
Before issues of global warming, ozone depletion or acid rain became important
objects of scientific study and international concern, the Sahel
region came to represent what Claude Raynaut called "the quintessence of
a major environmental emergency" following major episodes of drought and
food shortages in the 1970s. The so-called environmental emergency
has two components; periods of drought, and localized environmental degradation
that together have been sufficiently grave severely to curtail agricultural
production and livestock numbers. The rich culture and history of this African
region has, sadly, become linked in public consciousness to stories of food
insecurity and social vulnerability.
The Sahel forms the southern edge of the Saharan desert, passing
at least 4,500km from Senegal through Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger,
and Chad, and blends seamlessly into the slightly less arid Sudano-Sahel
belt to its southern edge. The 50 million people of the Sahel pursue
diverse livelihood strategies including agriculture, livestock herding, fishing,
short and long-distance trading, and a variety of urban occupations. Farming
in this region is almost entirely reliant on three months of summer rainfall,
except along the banks of the major rivers, lakes, and other seasonal water
courses. Cities were one the seats of empires, the crossing-points for trade,
and sites of learning. Timbuktou, situated on the banks of the Niger, was
the capital of the Songhai empire in the 1500s and the site of the fabled
Islamic university of Sankoré, and it was not captured for the French
until 1894. The colonisation of the Sahel was largely carried out by the
French army, who were closely followed by adventurous traders and missionaries
like France's "White Monks", the Pères Blancs under the infamous Cardinal
Lavigerie. Together with a cadre of bureaucrats, they helped to enlarge the
early native settlements and fortified posts into the administrative, cultural
and economic centres we know today; Dakar, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Bobo Dioulassou,
Niamey and Kano (Nigeria's northern metropolis, taken by the British). These
and other settlements now have good road connections, and there are examples
of market gardening and intensive agricultural production that feed the growing
urban populations. Transport systems are, however, patchy; there are only
three main railway lines, and many smaller towns have been linked to the
cities by metalled roads only since the 1980s. The Niger and Senegal rivers
have provided transport arteries for centuries.
Researchers studying the Sahel today focus on the regions' continued economic
fragility, its halting steps towards democratic political regimes, and its
continued food security problems. Despite complex economic migration patterns
and urban expansion in the 20th century, the vast majority of the region's
rural dwellers are dependent on some form of rain-fed agriculture or animal
production. Some suggest that there are no "normal" rainfall levels in this
region; just fluctuating supplies and changing human demand for water. Three
major droughts have occurred this century, in 1910-1916, 1941-1945, and a
long period of below average rainfall (termed 'desiccation') that began in
the late-1960s and continued, with some interruptions, into the the 1980s.
Absolute minimum rainfall level were recorded at many stations in 1983 and
1984. The period of poor rainfall in the 1970s struck particularly hard for
many Sahelian farmers and pastoralists, when there were an estimated 100,000
drought-related deaths.
The hazardous conditions of the droughts of the 1970s, and those that followed,
have had cumulative impacts, but these impacts form part of complex patterns
of social and economic change, and it is almost impossible to separate the
effects of the natural hazard (drought) from other factors that made individuals
vulnerable. Vulnerability is an everyday situation for some people, but a
rare occurrence for others. It is important here to differentiate between
meteorological drought - below-average moisture supply - and the effects
of changing human land uses and practices. Low rainfall can be coped with,
if farmers have a diverse livelihood systems, or sufficient assets. Famine
situations have resulted in dryland West Africa where drought conditions
have surprised populations that were unprepared for them (as in the 1970s,
when fifteen years of good rainfall had encouraged many to over-invest in
agriculture); and where the possible range of adjustments have been constrained
by warfare, social status, or corruption and mismanagement. In some areas
people starved without drought conditions, because of locust invasions,
epidemics, or the seizure of their harvests by warlords or even colonial
administrators.
Sahelian droughts and their effects have been studied intensively since the
1970s, as part of the international response to "environmental emergency".
It is only in the last ten years, however, that the long-term impacts of
the famines of the 1970s have become evident. Those events provoked a re-thinking
of the links between population growth, drought, and socio-political change,
and also helped to re-focus development policy away from expensive and
unsuccessful "interventions" towards more considerate schemes targeted at
boosting local capacities. Since the 1970s the Sahelian nations have also
witnessed an abrupt economic transformation involving increases in migration,
international trade, and links to the international development aid system.
Despite slow starts, since the early 1970s the international community has
acquired an increasing capability to prevent the onset of drought-induced
food shortages. Early warning systems are one aspect of this. These provide
the data necessary to predict or assess potential crop loss and animal
shortfalls, based partly on remotely-sensed data of vegetation cover and
rainfall patterns and partly on food market surveys. The FEWS (Famine Early
Warning System) developed by the American aid programme (USAID) for example,
alerts policymakers and governments to rapid price hikes for the staple foods
at local markets, and unusual land cover changes, that may signal an impending
food shortage. But responding to these warnings has been more difficult,
and the record of food distribution in famine situations by donors and
governments has been chequered. While the provision of adequate grain reserves
in affected areas has been helped with the establishment of national cereals
boards in most Sahelian nations, and eased by road construction into the
remoter rural areas, national financial resources are frequently inadequate
to maintain food reserves. Rural dwellers still have to pay for government
grain except in times of extreme famine, and not all households may be able
to pay even a subsidised price. In the 1990s, private traders have taken
over much of the burden of grain provision and prices now float according
to supply and demand, with less government intervention. In the canton of
Hamdallaye, a market centre that serves a hinterland of Zarma villages in
south west Niger, market prices fluctuate considerably on a monthly basis,
and have actually risen at well above inflation rates since the start of
the 1980s when the government scaled down its grain programme. Fred Pearce
of the New Scientist summarises the situation thus: "Across the Sahel, most
countries now have sufficient grain most years. It doesn't always get to
the poorest inhabitants any more than Porches "trickle down" to the poor.
But it is there. Often, with no thanks to governments".
Another group of proposed adjustments were focused on working with the human
and drought-induced stress on natural ecosystems, by supporting only modest
increases in the production of foodstuffs and livestock numbers but, at the
same time, improving the resilience of these systems to "bad years" of drought
or other hazards. Resilience may be boosted by encouraging soil and water
conservation, agro-forestry, and stocks of fodder for livestock. Locally-based
efforts to nurture and protect the resource base are a feature of many
development initiatives in the Sahel today, and a flourishing of local interest
these schemes owes much to the international concern first raised in the
1970s. The premise was that, if rainfall was unreliable, then what fell should
be captured and used more effectively. There are now thousands of farmer
cooperatives, small-scale NGO projects, internationally funded development
projects and programmes involved in environmental rehabilitation, soil and
water conservation, and other forms of support to rural people. Classic cases
are found on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso, occupied by the Mossi people.
The Plateau, which straddles the Sahel and Sudano-Sahel zones, is a "laboratory"
for some of the most innovative techniques in soil and water conservation
and agroforestry in dryland Africa. Contour stone lines (diguettes) built
by farmers and consisting of lines of stones and rocks placed across the
land contour, are cheap and popular erosion control methods and are much
publicized by development organisations like OXFAM and GTZ (German development
aid). These are built to slow the erosive overland flow from summer rains
and to capture water where it is needed by the growing crops, as well as
to increase the deposition of sediments rich in soil nutrients, also of benefit
to crops and trees. These systems were developed by European volunteers and
farmers experimenting together, and they are transforming the landscape around
hundreds of villages. Stone lines and other conservation works are now highly
visible features of the contemporary rural landscape. They are not miracle
cures, however, and are of most assistance to farmers who own their own land.
Much more applied research and collaboration with farmers is required on
these techniques.
A third group of proposed adjustments were focused on improved production
technologies, such as higher-yielding drought-resistant crops, irrigation,
or improved ranching and grazing schemes. The record here is less good, and
as the FEWS project notes, "hopes for a Green Reolution in the Sahel have
faded". Plant breeding and technological development by organizations like
ICRISAT (the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics,
with a laboratory outside Niamey in Niger) has created improved varieties
of millet and sorghum, the two staple foodgrains. These generally require
more moisture than local varieties, and more fertilizer and pesticides. Without
these inputs - so difficult to afford in the present economic climate - yield
increase rarely seem to compensate for increased costs to farmers. The
"development and transfer of technology to the farmer" - part of ICRISAT's
mandate, and the focus of several American-funded projects in the 1970s and
1980s - seems to have faltered. The largest effort to overcome national food
defecits was the Authorité des Aménagements des Vallées
des Voltas (AVV) scheme in southern Burkina Faso, which resettled thousands
of farmers from the densely settled northern areas of Burkina Faso in the
fertile river valleys in the south and west of the country. These sparsely
populated lands were opened up for settlement by a massive river-blindness
eradication program in the 1970s. Settlers were allocated plots, received
start-up assistance, and were asked to adopt a package of improved seed varieties
and intensive cultivation techniques. After 25 years, there is little evidence
of sustainable intensification of agriculture in the AVV, although the scheme
has certainly provided new land and new options for some farmers.
A fourth group of changes set in motion by the environmental emergencies
of the 1970s involve a re-structuring of the Sahel's place in Africa and
the world. The drought, when it received popular attention, helped initiate
some longer-term externally-aided projects that might not otherwise have
been supported. Readers may recall seeing BBC television documentaries about
a team of British celebrities playing soccer against local teams in Burkina
Faso in 1997, in order to raise money for the charity, Comic Relief. But
the changes go much deeper. Over the last twenty-five years, national governments
have attempted to 'catch up' with their more affluent and progressive neighbors
through investment in basic industries, power supply, agricultural exports,
mining, transportation networks and healthcare - funded in large part by
foreign aid. Structural Adjustment programmes for macro-economic recovery,
that impose special conditions on the recipient countries, have (as elsewhere
in Africa) had mixed results. An over-inflated and inefficient public
administration has been trimmed back under these programmes, but entrepreneurship
and 'market forces' have not, and perhaps will not, improve qulity of life
and economic conditions for the majority of Sahelian peoples. For example
in Niger, currently the Sahel's poorest nation, a severe economic crisis
and political instability has been compounded by the withdrawal by most aid
donors in the mid 1990s. The lack of financial resources has mean rural
schooling, healthcare, and agricultural extension services (once funded by
government export of uranium reserves, when prices for that product were
higher) have virtually ground to a halt. Burkina Faso, by contrast, has a
healthier economy and it is experiencing an 'aid boom'. It exports green
beans to Paris, and dried tomatoes and mangos to British health food outlets.
But questions are being raised about its focus on improving its export potential
and economic growth, rather than on supporting its skilled and innovative
subsistence farmers and pastoralists.
Lastly, is it important to note that rural populations have responded to
all these fast-changing conditions through increasing mobility. Rural population
in the Sahel could easily double in the next thirty years. Some see this
as a major problem, given the likely limit to home-grown food supplies. Others,
like Mike Mortimore - a British geographer who has studied farming systems
in Northern Nigeria for thirty years - say that much of the region is
"underpopulated, not overpopulated", and more people are needed for soil
and water conservation and agricultural labour - "more hands to work and
more brains to think", says Fred Pearce. Migration to new regions, or temporary
movements to find paid work, have allowed Sahelian populations to "breathe"
where that are faced with drought, land pressures, and poor soil quality,
according to the Club du Sahel. It is common to find the majority of young
men from Sahelian villages "en exode" (on economic migration, mainly to the
cities and coastal areas) in the dry season when farming activities are minimal.
Some ethnic groups, like the Tuareg and the Peul, are traditionally mobile
in rural space. But it is common to see farmers, from groups including the
Mossi and Hausa, moving to new areas of low population density including
eastern or south-west Burkina Faso, as land becomes scarce back home. The
Club du Sahel also predict a growing urban population for the region; across
all of West Africa, thirty cities will achieve populations of a million people
or more by 2020. There are only six at the present time. The region is unlikely
to develop a strong indigenous manufacturing sector, thus splitting urban
employment between the thousands of remaining government employees (the
functionnaires) and a thriving informal sector.
Into the future
The changes currently under way in the Sahel region remind us that, for all
the influence of political and economic restructuring on everyday lives,
the natural environment still plays a major part in determining who prospers,
who suffers, who migrates, and who starves. The consellation of forces that
link the Sahel's rural people to global climatic changes, financial flows,
and circuits of political and military power, cannot be adequately understood
if we see the region as suffering a continuing "environmental emergency".
Persistent drought is but one of a set of overwhelming problems affecting
the Sahel, which has some of the poorest nations in the world. In most countries
there is little internal capacity to cope even with the most pressing impacts
of the drought, let alone the more subtle ones. Boosting this capacity is
an important element of the work of organisations like the International
Institute for Environment and Development's Drylands Programme, the Club
du Sahel, Denmark's DANIDA, and the Institut du Sahel in Mali.
Geographers are well placed to undertand the nature of these changes, and
to help shape them. To focus on just three areas in which a radical, and
yet applied geographical input is needed:
we can conduct practical research to permit local people to take over the
management of running of their own development initiatives, building upon
their own skills, indigenous knowledge, and resources.
we can assess long-term trends, using combinations of long-range monitoring
and detailed local investigations. Detailed local studies have already identified
the evolution of the food crises of the 1970s. Now, as the world has changed,
much of our efforts could be taken up with indicating the exit points from
those same crises.
we should also look to work with those in positions of influence and power
to improve their interventions and to help ensure positive benefits to rural
people and their livelihood systems. It is important that the skills and
aspirations of rural dwellers, and the increasing urban population, are
translated into a language understood by governments and development projects.
Development rarely succeeds where it is imposed or where it ignores complex
social and ecological realities. The last thing the people of the Sahel need
is poorly thought-out development.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Grateful thanks to Robert W. Kates and Andrew Warren for comments. The article
draws on material from the Club du Sahel, and the Famine Early Warning Systems
Project.
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Dr Simon Batterbury lectures in human geography at Brunel University, London,
and at the University of Colorado, USA. He works in Burkina Faso and Niger
on case studies of soil and water conservation programmes and long-term
adjustments to social and environmental change.
simon.batterbury@brunel.ac.uk
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On Wednesday May 13th 1998 in London, the RGS-IBG hosted an open conference
for students, policymakers, and researchers to assess the progress of research
and policy in the Sahel region since the droughts of the 1970s, leading to
a re-assessment of future priorities. The international panel of speakers
included Camila Toulmin, Gaoussou Traoré, Mike Hulme, Claude Raynaut,
Rob Groot, Mike Mortimore, Brigitte Thèbaud and Jean-Marie Cour. See
the conference website at http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/sahel.html
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