Unpacking Decades of Multi-Scale Events and Environment-Based Development in the Senegalese Sahel: Lessons and Perspectives for the Future

A major challenge faced by human societies is to promote development that truly makes difference for people without jeopardizing their environment. This is particularly urgent in developing countries where, despite decades of development programs, local populations often live under poverty threshold...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land (Basel) 2021-07, Vol.10 (7), p.755
Main Authors: Mazzero, Hugo, Perrotton, Arthur, Ka, Abdou, Goffner, Deborah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biodiversity
Developing countries
development
Documentation
environment
Environmental Sciences
Evolution
Farming
Ferlo
Green Wall
International organizations
LDCs
Local population
Natural resource management
Natural resources
Objectives
Pastoralism
Poverty
Project management
Redundancy
Reforestation
Resource management
Senegal
Sustainable development
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Summary:A major challenge faced by human societies is to promote development that truly makes difference for people without jeopardizing their environment. This is particularly urgent in developing countries where, despite decades of development programs, local populations often live under poverty thresholds. With this study, we participate in the ongoing debate about the necessary global revision of development theory and practice in the rural Sahel. We retrace the development trajectories in the Ferlo, the northern silvopastoral zone of Senegal. We highlight how development has evolved from the 1940s to the present, from centralized development action programs focused on hydraulic infrastructure to current polycentric development with growing environmental concerns. We highlight multi-scale events that have influenced the successive development paradigms in the area. Focusing on the past thirty years, we analyzed twenty-five environment and natural resource management-oriented projects, describing the evolution of their objectives and actions over time and identifying recurring flaws: redundancy, lack of synergy, and questionable relevance to local needs We put forth that a more resilient thinking-based development paradigm is necessary to guide the growing number of environment-oriented development actions, including the African Great Green Wall, for which massive investments are ongoing throughout Ferlo and across the Sahel.
ISSN:2073-445X
2073-445X
DOI:10.3390/land10070755