Improving the Sahelian Populations’ Resilience to Environmental Changes | REPSAHEL

Approval Date
June 2012

Project Duration 
June 2012 – September 2017

Financial & Technical Partners
SDC Switzerland

Country of operations
Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Senegal

Main Beneficiaries 

  • Burkina Faso : Le Secrétariat Permanent du Conseil National pour l’Environnement et le Développement Durable (SP/CONEDD)
  • Mali : L’Agence de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (AEDD)
  • Mauritania : La Direction de la Programmation, de la Coordination et de l’Information Environnementale/ Ministère l'Environnement et du Développement Durable (DPCIE / MEDD)
  • Niger : Le Centre National de Surveillance Ecologique et Environnementale (CNSEE)
  • Nigeria : Federal Ministry of Environment 
  • Senegal : Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE)
  • Chad : Ministère de l’Environnement et de la Pêche (MEP)


Objectives

Main Objective 
Strengthen the capacities of the Sahel populations to address environmental changes, climate change in particular, through a better management of natural resources. 

Specific Objectives 

  • Elaboration and improvement of data and information production tools that enable the monitoring of ecosystems and the assessment of the communities’ adaptive capacity
  • Information dissemination through the elaboration of an information circulation system aimed at decision-makers, project implementation actors and communities
  • Integration of climate change impacts and other environmental stresses into policymaking processes, notably through the set-up of effective monitoring-evaluation systems
  • Establishment of adequate mechanisms and tools to enable a better participation of the communities in decision-making throughout the different stages of the project (planning, implementation, and monitoring-evaluation.)


Project Status
Achieved (30 September 2017)

Achievements
Thematic mapping and environmental monitoring:

  • Establishment of 19 observatories representative of different ecosystems and environmental issues in the concerned countries,
  • Support to national institutions through the provision of IT tools, GPSs, and automatic weather stations,
  • Inventories of existing ecological and socio-economic data,
  • Analysis and processing of ecological and socio-economic data collected by the observatories  (reports development),
  • Design and establishment of mapping data production chains according to technical specifications approved by the partners,
  • Development and validation of thematic maps at the national and observatories levels:
  1. Land use: Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritania
  2. Update of Mali’s and Chad’s vegetation maps 
  3. Map at the scale of  1/50 000 of the new observatories : Mauritania, Senegal and Chad

Information Circulation

  • Establishment of a regional Information Circulation System for  the dissemination of the project products,
  • Technical and material support for the design and consolidation of information systems at the national level,
  • Regular dissemination of the project products in adapted formats through different communication channels in line with the project communication strategy  

Integration of environmental monitoring tools 

  • Implementation of national studies « Analysis of decisional procedures to define the role of populations and the appropriate mechanism for their involvement in decision-making » to promote the integration of M&E at the national level.
  • Communication actions for decision makers in matters related to environmental monitoring and thematic mapping products,
    1. At the international level: through the participation in the UN Conferences of the Parties (UNCCD/UNFCCC),
    2. At the regional and national levels: through the organization of 14 awareness-raising and results reporting workshops.
  • Organization of a regional workshop for parliamentarians and creation of a common platform to improve strategic decisions in terms of sustainable development  ,
  • Implementation of national studies on local know-how at the observatories level  and its valorization through the elaboration of a regional summary of the results obtained; 
  • Implementation of a regional study on the integration of the gender dimension in climate change adaptation and natural resources management programs and policies in the Sahara and Sahel region;
  • Situational analysis of the environmental education actions conducted in the sub-region.

Populations involvement 

Media Coverage at the regional, national and local levels 

  • Reportages in local TV channels: Senegal, Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Niger…,
  • Elaboration of radio magazines disseminated in community radios,
  • Presence in national and sub-regional press and Internet.

Success stories: the REPSAHEL project allowed to conduct meetings with the local communities in the observatories concerned. 10 meetings were held in the beneficiary countries and allowed to bring together a total number of more than 200 people.The environmental education actions concerned more than 1500 pupils per country, of which 50% girls.These actions included drawing competitions for pupils.