By Oumar Sankare
BAMAKO, Mali (AA) – An international conference on climate change in West Africa began on Tuesday in Niamey, capital of the West African country of Niger.
The three-day conference comes amid climate disasters, including floods, and food insecurity, affecting nearly 28 million people in the Sahel region and West Africa.
Keda Ballah, Chad’s minister of agricultural production and industrialization, chaired the conference’s opening session.
Experts from member countries of the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) are attending the meeting to debate climate events and disaster risks in West Africa and the Sahel.
“There is an increase in extreme climate events, in particular devastating floods, quasi-structural and increasingly worrying food and nutritional insecurity affecting nearly 28 million Sahelians and West Africans,” said Ballah.
While adaptation options and strategies have been identified, Ballah said there are several gaps in the implementation process.
He pointed to poor consideration of adaptation and resilience issues in sectoral and cross-cutting public policy documents and planning at all levels.
He added that there is a “weakness in technological adaptation capacities and mobilizing external resources.”
The CILSS was created in 1973 following major droughts that struck the Sahel. With 13 member states, the group has centered its activities on basic food security and the use of natural resources.