Managing the Boom and Bust: Supporting Climate Resilient Livelihoods in the Sahel
Publisher: Ced Hesse, Simon Anderson, Lorenzo Cotula, Jamie Skinner and Camilla Toulmin (IIED)
Date: 2013
Topics: Climate Change, Land, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources
Countries: Chad, Mali, Niger
For decades the Sahel has been presented as suffering from irreversible degradation, leading to desert advancement and the impoverishment of the population. This issue paper develops an alternative profile and identifies the considerable potential of the Sahel’s dryland ecosystems. It explores the inherent resilience within existing crop and livestock production systems based on exploiting climatic variability; systems which local people in the Sahel have used to establish successful local and national economies. This new profile can help re-define development interventions and promote a more climate resilient future.