ClimDev-Africa, an overarching structure providing comprehensive information for Africa’s development

Abdoulaye Baldé, Senegal’s Minister of Environment was one of the most active ministers who took part in the successful deliberation of CCDA-IV, which was held from 8 - 10 October in Marrakech Morocco. At the end of the meeting, Mr Baldé shared with the ClimDev-Africa Reporting Team his views on the Conference, his thoughts about food self-sufficiency in Senegal and for ClimDev-Africa, the Pan-African initiative, which organized Africa's largest event on climate change.

Mr Balde, you are the Minister of Environment of Senegal, you participated actively in the proceedings of the 4th Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-IV), held here in Marrakech. What is your overall assessment of the Conference?

Thank you. Overall, I think it's a very good meeting because it is part of the process of discussions, understanding, exchange and sharing of knowledge leading to important events such as the COPs of Lima and Paris. It is about having the required level of understanding and maturity, a clear, justifiable and common position for our countries. I think it is an extremely important event to take stock of and assess progress.

The main theme of the conference is food self-sufficiency. Can Senegal feed Senegal?

I had stated in my speech at the conference that each country should be able to feed itself. Senegal can indeed feed itself. We have land, over 4 million hectares of arable land, of which only 2 million have been put to use. We have water, water resources, both surface and groundwater, which represent a considerable potential. Overall, we don’t exceed more than 20% in our use of these resources. We also have the sun: all of these elements are critical factors for agricultural production.

Today, there is no impediment to Senegal feeding itself. The staple food that we all love, that all Senegalese love, is rice. And we have been producing it for generations, so there is certainly some traditional knowledge, but unfortunately our rice import amounts to more than 2/3 while we grow only 1/3.

We therefore need to move forward and modernize the agriculture sector, particularly to promote production using water harnessing techniques. This is essential, we must not continue to produce under rain-fed conditions; for three or four months of rainfall, you can only produce food that lasts for four months. , This is exactly the issue, we produce 1/3 and import 2/3 of our needs.

And indeed, we only work 1/3 of the time as we work only four months out of 12, amounting exactly to 1/3. If we manage to work 12 months out of 12 using water harnessing techniques, then I think we would make huge strides. And Senegal has taken steps for the development of irrigated agriculture in the North and in the South. To assist us in this objective, the government is currently implementing an ambitious initiative aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in rice.

From Karang, bordering Gambia, to Dakar, there is a very large stretch of land, but unfortunately the land cannot be used for agriculture because of the salt content in the soil. What solution is the Senegalese government contemplating to put this vast area to use for something else?

Balde: Absolutely! As I mentioned earlier, Senegal has 4 million hectares of arable land, and obviously we experience issues of land salinity and acidity. The government, assisted by research, is currently developing salt-tolerant rice varieties, such as Paddy rice. The aim is to grow rice in patches with high salt content.

In addition, there are other programs to reclaim saline land through a water projects to block sea water intrusion upstream and at washing to some extent saline areas, since some of the land has become saline due to the drought that caused sea water intrusion. Therefore, we are undertaking projects that can help wash the salt away and push back the sea. These programs are in the process of being implemented and we are recovering more or less some thousand hectares.

You are in a budding partnership with ClimDev-Africa, what attracted you to this program?

Senegal became aware of some of the adverse effects of climate change because Senegal, like Benin, is a coastal country with 1,600 km of coastline, and seaside tourism was a flagship sector of the economy, as is fishing. But with the effects of climate change, the entire coastline is under threat, and tourism is currently confronted to a number of difficulties. The fishing industry is also experiencing a lot of problems while agriculture still mainly relies on rainfall which has become erratic. There are times when there is no rain, in which case there is drought; at other times, rainfall becomes excessive, causing flooding, there’s no rule. Finally, all the essential economic sectors are at risk because of climate change.

For a long-term vision, we had to take head-on the issue of climate change and see the adaptation measures we need to undertake now in order to enhance the potential of production of all our inputs, including land, water, the sea, the coastlines for tourism and the sea for fishing.

Mr Minister, what is the content of this partnership?

This partnership is primarily focused on designing adaptation programs, which in my opinion is extremely important, pilot programs to showcase how we can adapt, get results in terms of varieties which are salt-tolerant, or varieties that grow in areas experiencing food shortfall. These are the kind of programs that we want to develop in order to ensure food security. It's really important; it is the fight against poverty.

You are just at the beginning of this partnership, but it is possible that you expect another vision. How do you assess it at this stage?

This is a beginning and every beginning has its share of problems because we feel that things are going slow, and there are urgent issues to address. But we must also have a long-term vision because these are issues whose effects will intensify in the next 15 to 20 years. We have to be ready to talk about it and to take actions now.

We must not lose sight of these two dimensions. There are emergency situations in the case of flooding etc., but more importantly, we should focus on long-term strategies to ensure preparedness in the years to come.

What if you were asked to rewrite the ClimDev-Africa programme as an expert, what are the tasks you will assign this program?

The tasks to be assigned to ClimDev-Africa? I would make it an overarching structure for generation of knowledge, and comprehensive and reliable information that each of our countries can use to prepare its strategy, a relevant strategy which needs to contain evidence-based elements and information in order to be relevant.

The problem is that our countries lack the means to finance research and information at the national level because we are busy addressing urgent issues, under pressure to meet the immediate needs of our populations. This is where we need ClimDev-Africa to intervene!