Between 2000 and 2019, more than 1.4 billion people were affected by droughts. This figure from the FAO highlights the scale of the phenomenon, the frequency and intensity of which continue to increase over time. At the heart of discussions on the first day of the Désertif’actions summit, taking place in Djerba from 25 to 28 March, are the responses that public policy can offer. For today, the issue is less technical than political. To tackle these extreme weather events, a number of solutions exist, but they are too often confined to ‘pilot’ areas or require systemic changes. Developing them at a regional level requires policy tools and strategies that are not easy to implement.
Globally, 11% of rain-fed cropland and 14% of pastureland have been affected by droughts over the past 40 years. These figures, taken from the latest FAO report, were presented by Nora Berrahmouni, deputy director of the organisation’s Land and Water Department, at the 6th edition of Désertif’actions, taking place in Djerba from 25 to 28 March. “If we are in a scenario where global warming reaches +4°C, we will see seven times more drought,” warned the specialist during a round-table discussion on the global impact of droughts and their consideration in policy-making.
The consequences of these extreme weather events are manifold and affect everything from food supplies for people and animals to economic activity and ecosystem diversity. “When livestock are decimated because there is no more water, herders are of course affected, but so are those who consume their products, such as milk,” pointed out Harouna Abarchi, president of the Nigerien association A2N (Global Alliance for the IYRP). “The environment is also altered because animals carry seeds in their faeces, which helps diversify the local flora, and during times of drought, this disappears.” Dorothy Amwata, a Kenyan academic, for her part, highlighted the vulnerability of women and people with disabilities, who are even less equipped than others to cope.
Knowing how to adapt species
Yet solutions do exist. This is what Sahbi Mahjoub, founder of Sadira, a company specialising in arboriculture, explained. “We have 700 hectares of fruit trees spread from north to south across Tunisia, and with climate change, the increasing frequency of droughts and floods, we’ve had to completely reinvent ourselves.” This reinvention involves adapting the species. The expert is therefore promoting the cultivation of tomatoes irrigated with osmosis water in the Gabès region. “One hectare can provide a very good living for around ten families,” he emphasised. One of his next challenges is to develop the cultivation of raspberries and blueberries using new varieties. Their cold requirements are very low, and they could be irrigated with desalinated water.
Whilst the entrepreneur believes that one solution to drought lies in settling communities through economic activities that provide a livelihood, Harouna Abarchi, whose country relies heavily on livestock farming, advocates for mobility. “Herders must be able to move from a less fertile area to a more fertile one, which allows the land to regenerate,” he emphasised. Like Sahbi Mahjoub, he believes in adapting livestock breeds. “ In a ‘very scientific’ way, herders will favour cattle breeds that perform well to facilitate transhumance,” he explained. For Dorothy Amwata, whatever these practices may be, they must absolutely be considered over the long term. In her view, “We need to move from responding to drought to preventing risks through long-term measures.”
Preventing the risk of drought rather than managing crises
This view is widely shared by Jean-Luc Chotte, a researcher at the IRD and chair of the French Scientific Committee on Desertification (CSFD). “Drought should not be seen as a crisis, but as a systemic risk,” he explained. “Its impact is linked to the vulnerability of both people and ecosystems, depending on whether or not they are prepared for this type of risk.” This “preparedness” involves building resilience – at both the population and ecosystem levels – which enables risks to be anticipated in such a way as to make systems less, or even more, vulnerable. It can only be built up over the long term.
“We have the knowledge, we have the institutional frameworks at international level, and we have the political will, but we’re not making enough progress,” lamented the expert. There are several reasons for this, including the high degree of fragmentation within these institutional frameworks, as well as the difficulty of taking action simultaneously across very different areas. Harouna Inoussa, head of the Nigerien commune of Hamdollaye, which comprises 78 villages and 40 hamlets near Niamey, thus highlights the need for land reform. “The majority of our farmers work on inherited fields, which are shared among all the descendants and are too small to allow them to earn a living.” But tackling this issue alone is not enough: we must also protect the environment through appropriate legislation, regulate the cost of inputs whilst promoting more sustainable production techniques… This requires time, expertise and funding – one of the cruxes of the problem.
Thinking about funding from a long-term perspective
In Burkina Faso, Bernabé Traoré notes the precarious funding situation for a number of tools designed to support public policy, such as early warning systems: “Mechanisms are being put in place, but very often the systems are funded by programmes that have a fixed duration, and it is difficult to ensure their long-term sustainability.” Awatef Mabrouk, a sociologist specialising in rural development, laments certain contexts: “In Tunisia, we have centralised governance. But this is not optimised in terms of its connection with local realities.”
For Jean-Luc Chotte, one of the solutions to these difficulties is to stop treating the issue of droughts as a ‘side issue’ and instead place it ‘at the centre’. In his view, “the current political fragmentation means that no one is accountable for action or inaction on drought.” This certainly gives food for thought ahead of COP 17, which will take place next August.
