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By Abdoulaye Saley Moussa and Robert Zougmoré

As drought continues to ravage West Africa, threatening millions of lives, it is becoming clear that food security in the region, which already relies on unsustainable agricultural practices, will be further threatened by the effects of climate change. Urgent actions are needed to prevent the situation from turning into a humanitarian disaster in this semi-arid region. Ensuring food security in a changing climate has never been more important; at the same time it represents one of the greatest challenges to overcome.

Although agriculture constitutes the major source of food, it is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Climate-smart agriculture, defined as “agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes GHGs (mitigation), while enhancing the achievement of national food security and development goals“ is needed to overcome this threat and ensure sustainable food security while conserving the environment.

Joining forces to address the food insecure situation in West Africa

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), through the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), has joined forces with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) to implement a project on ”Developing community-based climate smart agriculture through participatory action research in West Africa”. The objective of the project is to test and validate a scalable climate-smart model for agricultural development that puts together a range of innovative agricultural risk management strategies. Researchers are working closely with rural communities and other stakeholders to achieve this objective.

The project started with a planning workshop held in Bamako, Mali in February which had the following objectives:

• Exchange information about current mitigation activities and lessons learnt
• Identify key actions and related research priorities for mitigation and adaptation that would enhance the economic or technical feasibility of mitigation, the synergies of mitigation with adaption or opportunities for scaling up efforts
• Develop countries workplan for the project implementation

The project will use a three-pronged approach: 1) stock-taking of on-going projects and activities, 2) identification of gaps and opportunities and 2) identification and prioritization of activities to address these gaps. The workshop attracted delegates Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali, non-governmental organizations as well as community-based organizations, CGIAR Centers, AGRHYMET and many more.

The project will use findings from existing projects, encourage partners to add missing facts and details to the existing and on-going projects and initiate new activities. More specifically, this participatory action research will use the  (image below) to implement the various  activities that will be defined through participatory identification of gaps and research priorities in each country/site. The project will initially be implemented on CCAFS benchmark sites, in Mali, Ghana and Burkina Faso, and will further consider sites in Niger and Senegal.

Read more about CGIAR Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Research in West Africa

This story was written by Abdoulaye Saley Moussa, Science Officer for West Africa together with Regional Program Leader Robert Zougmoré, West Africa.