Climate change and food security in the Sahel

The African Sahel, which is considered a “climate hotspot,” experiences unparalleled rises in temperature, high precipitations variability, and more intense and frequent weather extreme events than the rest of the world.¹² Between the 1961-1990 and 1991-2022 subperiods, the level of warming in the Sahel has increased by 0.1°C, from +0.2 °C to 0.3 °C, which is above the global average increase. In addition, it is estimated that about 110 million Africans were directly affected by climate change in 2022, out of which, there were more than 5,000 fatalities (48% caused by drought and 43% caused by flooding).³ During the monsoon season, Sahelian countries experience extreme flooding. Unsurprisingly, these events and trends have many adverse consequences on levels of growth, poverty, and food security, which are all predicted to further deteriorate in the near and longer term.

According to several estimates, the African Sahel includes countries in the world where food insecurity is the most severe. For more than 10 years, acute food insecurity has been reaching its highest level in Africa. In 2023, about 45,000 people suffered catastrophic levels of hunger in the Sahel, including 42,000 in Burkina Faso and 2,500 in Mali.⁴ Projected annual food imports by African countries are expected to increase by a factor of three, from US $35 billion to US $110 billion by 2025. This general trend is confirmed by the Global Food Security Index, where Sahelian countries are lagging behind in the ranking: Burkina Faso is 89th, Niger 97th, Chad 103rd, and Nigeria 107th out of 113 countries included in the ranking.

Considering the many diverse and often intertwined causes of food insecurity, it would not be true to consider climate change as the only driving factor. Clearly other factors, including high population growth, structurally weak production systems, price distortions, the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitical turmoil such as the Russia-Ukraine war, all played a role in recent food crises. Notwithstanding, the leading role climate change has played in the longer term is supported by a growing body of evidence, including Bello et al. in Nigeria, Masipa in South Africa, and Kabubo-Mariara and Kabara in Kenya.⁵⁶⁷

The channels through which climate change affects food security are numerous. First and foremost, climate change accelerates land degradation, mainly through wind and water erosion and droughts.⁸ Agricultural yields, food quality, and availability are all negatively affected by climate change.⁹ In fragile and conflict-affected countries—like most countries in the Sahel—food security is further jeopardized by infrastructure destruction and important climate-induced displacements of large communities.¹⁰ Sea-level rise and water salinization in coastal zones are also critical factors.

Recommendations

Adaptive policies are key to mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. These include a wide array of practices, investments, innovations, and policies intended to build resilience to climate change. Food production systems can be strengthened in the agriculture, livestock, and fishing sectors through better output pricing, the use of improved inputs, a greater mechanization of production processes, and diversification of crops and activities. Innovation can mainstream climate-smart agriculture and improve coping strategy.¹¹ Well-targeted investments in such strategic areas as irrigation, and also building of dikes in coastal zones, are found to have a great impact on agriculture, and in mitigating the effect of sea-level rise.¹² Crop supplementation is another promising avenue to fight malnutrition and insecurity without further intensifying the use of scarce inputs such as arable land, fertilizers, fresh water, and the like.¹³ In addition, an improvement in government information systems can provide communities exposed to climate change with early warnings about climate extreme and allow them to plan for and adapt to them accordingly.¹⁴ Weather index insurance is also an increasingly recognized tool to mitigate climate risk.¹⁵ Lastly, a better use of indigenous knowledge is found to be very effective in predicting and adapting to climate variance in rural areas.¹⁶

Adaptive strategies to climate change are numerous and diverse. An important challenge for their implementation is an accessible financial scheme for rural, and usually poor communities. The recent COP 28 set-up adaptation fund, if adequately sourced, could play a central role in bridging adaptation financial gaps for Africa’s vulnerable communities.