lClimate disasters are accelerating and currently threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in West Africa. The recent devastating floods are a direct example of this: they have affected more than 3 million people in the countries of the central Sahel and Nigeria, killing hundreds of people, causing further displacement, damaging vast areas of agricultural land and causing a worrying increase of cholera. and malnutrition.
This unprecedented crisis, which tragically illustrates how the most fragile countries are disproportionately affected by climate change, has not made the headlines in Europe.
Political and economic marginalization
It has plunged the region into a state of emergency in which some 25 million people already face unprecedented humanitarian needs, an increase of almost 200% since 2016.
In Nigeria, floods destroyed much of the cultivated land at the start of the harvest season that would have fed 8.5 million people for six months, raising serious concerns about the upcoming lean season.
In Niger, where droughts and floods are frequent and which is mired in a major political crisis leading to border closures, the population still faces hunger at some of the highest levels. Every year more than 100,000 hectares of arable land disappear in this country.
In Mali, land degradation has fueled tensions between communities dependent on agriculture, leading to violence that has contributed to the current humanitarian crisis.
How do we get here? The effects of this complex crisis are not distributed proportionally or randomly throughout the region. Political decisions made over time, since colonization, have led to the political and economic marginalization of peripheral areas and widespread poverty. As a result, the region’s populations are vulnerable to climate change, to which they have contributed very little.
Hunger and poverty inexorably increase as conflict drives thousands of people onto the roads or prevents them from cultivating their fields. A vicious circle is established: tensions discourage governments from investing to reduce dependence on climate-vulnerable sectors, such as agriculture and livestock. They lead to the destruction of water sources, power grids and other critical infrastructure.
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