Ouagadougou — Experts from the Inter-State Committee to Fight Drought in the Sahel (Comité inter Etats de lutte contre la sécheresse au Sahel, CILSS) are calling on donors to invest further in the fight against desertification in this region, because of the positive economic effects such investment would have.
The Sahel is a region located between the Sahara Desert and the equatorial area, stretching across most of Africa.
"The Sahel is now becoming green again. This is the result of previous investments. Through 'Sahel Studies', we want to show that these investments do have an economic impact on people's lives," said Issa Martin Bikienga, CILSS Secretary General, this in reference to a report made public towards the end of last year.
The survey was carried out in 2005 and 2006 in the Tahoua, Maradi, Zinder and Tillabery regions of Niger. It showed programmes against desertification had yielded encouraging results -- such as regeneration and increased density of plant cover. "Where there used to be three trees per hectare, twenty years ago, there are now 20 to 150 trees," indicates the study.
The use of plant resources is also developing, such as the sale of fodder and firewood, generating significant income for small farmers.
According to the report, farmers believe their levels of poverty have decreased, and that they are now less vulnerable to the effects of drought than when the investments in natural resource management began. "The living standard of the rural population is higher than twenty years ago," say experts who conducted the study.
The CILSS was created in September 1973 after the great droughts that wracked the Sahel in the 1970s. It comprises Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.
It is estimated that nearly 70 percent of land dealt with by the CILSS is Saharo-Sahelian -- that is to say, receiving less than 300 millimetres (mm) of rain, on average, each year -- and that up to 25 percent is completely Sahelian, registering rainfall of 300 to 750 mm annually.
'Sahel Studies' has also revealed that the water table in the region has risen, and that there is greater availability of surface water. This has contributed to crop diversification.
According to Edwige Liéhoun, an expert in natural resources management at CILSS, the study showed that despite gloomy forecasts, Niger has managed to put in place an effective policy for restoring degraded land.
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"We also discovered that after having rehabilitated degraded soil, which was totally unproductive at the outset, it is possible to have one to two tonnes of production per hectare," she explained.
Researchers further noted that while women were spending two and a half hours per day collecting firewood some two decades ago, in 1984, they would not need more than half an hour to do this at present.
In addition, the study reports victories against desertification in the Maggia valley in the Tahoua region of Niger.
"We want to document the investments that were made over the last 15 to 20 years to show that what was initiated then has started to bear fruit," said Liéhoun.
For Chris Reij, a consultant in natural resource management at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the results show that people were able to take action in the face of adverse environmental conditions which even threatened their existence.
Liéhoun warns however that investing in natural resource management does not give immediate results. Consequently, she asks for patience on the part of donors: "We have to wait several years. The partners should not expect to see the effects of their investments at the end of three years."
In order to evaluate better the economic effect of investments against desertification in the whole of the Sahel, the CILSS will soon launch another study in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal.
