SCALA Senegal
Introduction
Located in West Africa, Senegal has a steadily growing economy over recent years. However, poverty in Senegal is still prevalent in rural areas, where roughly 60 percent of the population resides. The other 40 percent of the population resides in urban areas, where the majority live in rapidly growing urban suburbs. Low agricultural production, limited capacity of the economy to create sustainable jobs, and inadequate resource allocation for social services contribute to poverty. While the agriculture, livestock and fishery sectors are contributing to food and nutrition security and representing 60 percent of the Senegalese rural labor force, these sectors are vulnerable to several climate-related impacts, such as drought, locust invasion, flooding, sea-level rise, coastal erosion and related health epidemics, as well as bush fires.
Country Climate Plans
Senegal developed a National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) in 2006 and submitted an INDC in 2015, which outlined the country’s plans for mitigation and adaptation. The NDC was recently revised and submitted ahead of COP26 in 2021, while sectoral NAPs are currently under development. The Plan for an Emerging Senegal (Plan Sénégal Emergent) reflects the strong political will for development based on more sustainable production patterns and food systems. Since 2019, various actors involved in agroecology in Senegal have come together under the DyTAES (Dynamique pour une Transition AgroEcologique au Sénégal) framework to contribute to the reflections of the Senegalese government to build an agroecological transition policy.
In Senegal, the agriculture sector represents 36 percent of its GHG emissions followed by land use change and forestry (22 percent). As communicated in the NDC, the emissions from the agriculture sector will increase gradually and steadily, until 2030. Henceforth, to reduce emissions, Senegal will first create synergies between local community stakeholders and the private sector to reinforce acquired knowledge and build on good practices in terms of mitigation and adaptation to scale up action.
Strongly threatened by climate change, Senegal aims to enhance adaptation and mitigation measures in the agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry sectors. Particularly in the crop production sector, the mitigation priorities are focused on the Intensive Rice Cultivation System, composting and assisted natural regeneration. Regarding adaptation priorities, the country will focus on vulnerable ecosystems and will work with vulnerable populations to increase their resilience to climate change impacts. Senegal will concentrate on promoting agriculture-livestock-agroforestry production systems, sustainable land management, use of adapted varieties, agriculture insurance, generic improve of species and animal health, promote sustainable aquaculture and restoration of mangroves field.
Barriers
The main barriers towards the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures on an institutional level are the low level of integrating NDC and NAP priorities in the planning and budgeting process and the lack of coordination and capacity in intersectoral planning. On a technical level, these sectors are facing major challenges, such as the availability of data and information to actors and the need to strengthen the information system measures for the effective monitoring and evaluation of transformative climate mitigation and adaptation actions. Senegal can achieve its goals to reduce GHG emissions and integrate adaptation and mitigation priorities with international community support and sustainable funding. The country can also benefit from transferring environmentally friendly technologies and strengthening institutional and human capacities in its climate change agenda.
Project details
In Senegal, SCALA is actively promoting the adoption of agroecological practices in the groundnut/millet and market gardening system. The main objective is to strengthen and expand the knowledge base on priority practices and technologies at the local level, in line with the adaptation, resilience and carbon storage targets outlined in the NDC, while catalyzing private sector engagement in the implementation of these practices.
SCALA is conducting a systems-level assessment to identify specific adaptation, resilience and carbon storage technologies, that are aligned with the NDC targets, and to assess their feasibility and adoption at the local level in the Groundnut Basin and the Niayes zone.
SCALA has also worked with the Directorate of Environment and Climate and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Agriculture de Thiès (ENSA) to conduct a stakeholder mapping exercise for the millet/groundnut and market gardening value chains, identifying the challenges and barriers to creating an enabling environment for agroecological transformation within these value chains. The stakeholder mapping was complemented by a capacity-needs assessment of the identified stakeholders, highlighting priority capacity-building needs for agroecological transition in Senegal. A final study assessed organic matter management and improved seed technologies, to inform capacity building interventions and concept note ideas.
SCALA is also supporting the strengthening of national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory capacities. A series of technical workshops were organized on the use of the Ex-Ante Carbon Balance (EX-ACT) tool, to improve the archiving of the GHG inventory, thereby sustainably strengthening the national monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system. At the same time, training was provided on the NDC Tracking Tool to monitor the progress of the NDC in the AFOLU sector. SCALA is collecting NDC data for reporting and tracking the implementation of policies and measures in the AFOLU sector.
Finally, SCALA supported the Fédération Nationale pour l’Agriculture Biologique (FENAB) in its submission to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to develop an organic fertilizers value chain. Opportunities for collaboration with La Banque Agricole are being explored to increase access to climate finance for local small and medium enterprises and farmers in Senegal.
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Moving ahead, SCALA in Senegal aims to:
- Complete a systems-level assessment on 24 common agroecological practices at the local level.
- Finalize an analysis of the millet/groundnut and market gardening value chains to inform private sector engagement activities.
- Develop an NDC database to support the coordination of data on NDC implementation and reporting for AFOLU priorities.
- Contribute to the review of the next NDC.
- National
- Regional
- Global
- Country Office
- National Governments
- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
- BMUV/IKI
News
This report captures the participatory mapping of actors in the millet/groundnut and market gardening system and identification of challenges and barriers preventing an environment favorable to agroecological transformation in Senegal.