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, considering different social systems and in line with the adaptation, resilience, and carbon storage targets outlined in the NDC. SCALA seeks to catalyze further the private sector engagement in the implementation of these practices.
SCALA conducted a systems-level assessment to identify specific adaptation, resilience, and carbon storage technologies aligned with the NDC targets and assess their feasibility and adoption at the local level in the Groundnut Basin and the Niayes zone. The study highlights the significant climate challenges impacting groundnut-millet and market garden farming systems in Senegal's Groundnut Basin and Niayes regions. Farmers face multiple risks, including decreased rainfall, shortened rainy seasons, and rising temperatures, which reduce yields, especially for groundnuts and potatoes. To adapt, farmers were supported to prioritize 22 agroecological practices—six of which significantly enhance resilience, including composting, live hedges, crop rotations, and resilient crop varieties. However, gender inequalities and limited access to finance pose barriers. The study recommends large-scale composting, promoting climate-resistant seed varieties, strengthening agroforestry, increasing financial support supported by partnerships, and improving women’s access to land and resources. SCALA’s work also highlights that collaborating with universities to improve data collection on agroecological practices and economic relevance could effectively advance the agroecological transition.
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.
The full report, which captures the participatory mapping of actors in the millet/groundnut and market gardening system and identifies the challenges and barriers currently preventing an environment favorable to agroecological transformation in Senegal, is available at this link.
SCALA also supports strengthening the national monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) to facilitate the tracking of NDC implementation and its achievement. A series of technical workshops were organized using tools such as the Ex-Ante Carbon Balance (EX-ACT) tool, National Determined Contribution Experts Too (NEXT), and the NDC Tracking to support the above process. Sectorial experts were supported in identifying NDC indicators in the AFOLU sector and identifying data gaps, sources, and improvement plans. A study on infrastructure needs to improve the archiving system for environmental data is ongoing. The above process is key to improving the reporting on NDC under the Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) and preparing for the NDC update in 2025.
Furthermore, SCALA is collaborating with private and public sector entities to mobilize funds to promote climate-smart agriculture in Senegal. In 2024, SCALA supported La Banque Agricole (LBA) in finalizing a GCF project proposal with the aim of contributing to increasing agricultural productivity and improving resilience to reduce vulnerabilities and GHG emissions due to deforestation and poor agricultural practices.
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Moving ahead, SCALA in Senegal aims to:
- Raise awareness on best agroecological practices prioritized by farmers, and challenges for their adoptions at the local level considering social classes and financial constraints
- 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.