The Learning Route ” Strategies of adaptation to climate change to improve the resilience of rural communities, experiences from Niger ” is organized by PROCASUR in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), as part of the Program ” Strengthening capacities and tools for scaling up and disseminating innovations ” (2016-2018).
Within the framework of this program, the theme of Climate Change has been identified as a priority area of intervention. In West and Central Africa, and particularly in the Sahel, climate change has had serious consequences, as evidenced by periods of erratic rainfall, violent winds, droughts and floods, all of which have greatly reduced agricultural production in the area. These shocks have led to recurrent food crises in the area.
Projections predict a worsening of the situation in the coming years. They threaten to increase the vulnerability of the Sahel’s populations, who are largely dependent on natural resources and agriculture, thus blocking sustainable economic and social development in the sub-region.
To cope with these climatic hazards, it is urgent to develop adaptation strategies and risk reduction practices based on local approaches to increase the resilience of the most vulnerable populations in order to guarantee their living conditions.
To this end, various initiatives and experiences are being developed in the sub-region, notably in Niger. This country can be considered a “laboratory” for innovative solutions to climate change adaptation, thanks to its many initiatives focused on building the resilience of the population to meet the challenges resulting from climate shocks.
To implement this Route, PROCASUR has identified best practices and innovative solutions from the Family Farming Development Program (ProDAF) and Care Internationale’s Adaptation Learning Program for Africa (ALP), which have been developed in the Maradi region of south-central Niger.
These initiatives have evolved over the last few years, launching local innovations to strengthen the technical, economic and social capacities of households, communities and local authorities to cope with climate change and its consequences. They have thus contributed to building the resilience of rural communities and improving their production activities to ensure sustainable living conditions.
Host experiences
The overall aim of ProDAF is to contribute to sustainable food and nutritional security and crisis resilience for the populations of the Maradi, Tahoua and Zinder regions. The development objective is to sustainably increase the income of 240,000 family farms, their resilience to exogenous shocks, including climate change, and their access to local, urban and regional markets in these three regions. Two main pillars contribute to achieving these objectives: i) strengthening sustainable family farming and ii) improving market access for small-scale producers.
ProDAF capitalizes on the lessons learned over decades of IFAD interventions in Niger, through the scaling-up of actions carried out by previous projects such as PPILDA, PASADEM and PPI Ruwanmu.
ALP for Africa is a Care International initiative that aims to increase the capacity of vulnerable households in sub-Saharan Africa to adapt to climate variability and change. Since 2010, ALP has been involved in working directly with communities in Kenya, Niger, Ghana and Mozambique to identify, develop and improve approaches and strategies that can help communities build adaptive capacity and resilience to cope with climate risks, an approach known as ABC. ALP seeks to identify successful ABC approaches, working directly with communities and learning from other organizations practicing ABC, and supporting the integration of these approaches into development policies and programs.
