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Impacts of drought and responsesof rural populations in WestAfrica: a systematic reviewDenis Gautier,1* David Denis1,2 and Bruno Locatelli1,3

Edited by Louis Lebel, Domain Editor, and Mike Hulme, Editor-in-Chief

In West Africa, climate variations and droughts have always affected livelihoodsbut have also triggered adaptation strategies. A better understanding of the impactsof drought and the responses of West African populations is indispensable forresearchers and decision makers in the current and future context of multiple soci-oeconomic and environmental changes, including climate change. We conducted asystematic review of the literature on drought in West Africa. In this paper, wehighlight controversial issues and identify knowledge gaps. Although drought hasbeen widely considered as a major problem in West Africa, there is a need to frameit within a set of multiple threats faced by local populations and to understand howdroughts act as a trigger in economic, societal, and environmental contexts. The lit-erature on responses to drought focuses on agricultural and individual responses,while diversification, migration, and tree-based or livestock-based responses areless frequently addressed. More research is needed on the effectiveness and on theunexpected effects of responses of populations, states, and NGOs, as well as on theinteractions between different responses. To understand the complexity of impactsand responses, the context in which they occur and how individual and collectiveactions interact within households or communities needs to be taken into account.Ecosystems and agriculture offer many goods and services that are suitable foradaptation and the different landscape components should be analyzed together.Such historical, contextual, and integrated analyses would better inform new poli-cies and projects for adaptation to climate change. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2016. doi: 10.1002/wcc.411

INTRODUCTION

Populations in West Africa have long lived witha dry climate that varies from year to year as

well as in the long term.1 These variations haveaffected food security, as evidenced by famine inthe 17th century2 but have also triggered adapta-tion strategies, such as temporary or permanentmigration.3 However, as shown by the droughtsin the 1970s and the 1980s, the efficiency of theseadaptation strategies may be limited.4 Since theearly 1970s, international attention has focusedon the impacts of drought on local populations inthe Sahel and on the risks of famine and malnu-trition.5 When droughts affect the region, theresponse of the international community is oftenrapid food aid but the long-term implicationsof such aid, that is, its effect on the capacity of

Additional Supporting Information: Additional method and data-set details.

*Correspondence to: [email protected] BSEF, Centre de Coopération Internationale en RechercheAgronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), Montpellier, France2AgroParisTech - Ecole doctorale ABIES, Paris, France3Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Lima, Peru

Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of inter-est for this article.

© 2016 Wiley Per iodica ls , Inc.

rural people to cope without external aid, areoverlooked.6

Farmers and herders in the Sahel have alwaysfaced unpredictable variations in seasonal rainfalland made decisions to cope with short-term climatevariability.7 Climate change adds an additional bur-den on communities: the last IPCC report describesthe Sahel as a hotspot of climate change with tem-peratures expected to increase by between 3�C and6�C by the end of the 21st century compared to thosein the late 20th century, while changes in precipita-tion are uncertain.8 Gradual changes in practices bycommunities have been observed, and these may bepart of a process of adaptation to longer termchanges, whether climatic or not.9 Other arid regionsalready face similar issues or may face them in thefuture, making the experience gathered in the Sahelvaluable in a wider context of climate change.10

Sustainable ecosystem management and thecapacity of farmers and herders to adapt to climatevariations needs to be supported by sound policies.10

Local rural development projects have been imple-mented by NGOs and national extension services,and regional cooperation agencies have been createdto respond to drought urgency and to reduce the vul-nerability of local populations in the long term. Atregional level, the Permanent Interstates Committeefor Drought Control in the Sahel French acronymCILSS was founded in 1973 and includes AGRHY-MET, an institute specialized in meteorologicaland hydrological monitoring in relation with foodsecurity. This monitoring effort, while useful forreactive actions, still need to be better incorporatedinto regional development and environmentalinitiatives.11

One regional initiative is a mega project calledthe ‘Great Green wall,’ whose aim is to fight Saheldesertification with a forest corridor. This idea wasborn in the 1950s (with local implementations inNiger, Algeria, and Mauritania) and reemerged in2002 during an African Unity summit. This regionalinitiative is being transformed into national programsfor rural development, which may improve thecapacity of local communities to cope with desertifi-cation and droughts. At the same time, West Africancountries are developing national adaptation planssuch as the NAPAs and the NAPs under the UNframework convention on climate change, whichhave led to the design of adaptation projects on theground. Converting regional and national policiesinto local projects requires adjustment to local con-texts: failure to take local practices and knowledgeinto account may increase the vulnerability of localpopulations.12

Decision makers need a better understanding ofthe impacts of droughts and of the responses ofpopulations in West Africa in the current and futurecontext of multiple socioeconomic and environmen-tal changes, including climate change.13 At a timewhen many adaptation initiatives are being devel-oped in West Africa, existing knowledge on theimpacts of drought on socio-ecological systems in theregion needs to be evaluated to understand howpopulations cope with or adapt to drought, and toidentify the factors that can influence their vulnera-bility, including barriers to adaptation.14 This paperresponds to this need in the form of a systematicreview and summary of published research ondrought in West Africa.

REVIEW APPROACH ANDCONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

We reviewed published literature on the impacts ofdrought and the responses of populations in WestAfrica through a systematic search of internationaldatabases referencing mostly peer-reviewed papers.The review considers three types of drought15: mete-orological drought (months or years with below nor-mal precipitation), agricultural drought (periodswhen dry soils lead to crop losses), and hydrologicaldrought (periods with low flow and low levels inwater bodies). For our systematic review, the searchtook the following form (see Appendix S1, Support-ing Information, for details): we used ‘geographicalkeywords’ (groups of names of regions and countriescombined with OR) AND ‘exposure keywords’ (suchas drought, water scarcity, or climate variability)AND [‘impact keywords’ (such as food security orfamine) OR ‘response keywords’ (such as adaptation,response)]. Ten databases were searched, most werein English but some also in French (with translatedkeywords): Web of Knowledge, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Wiley, CAB Abstract, Econlit, Agricola,Agris, Francis, and Pascal. More than 3000 articleswere found, among which 241 were selected as theymatched the focus of the review. The analyzed paperspresented information from 13 countries, mainlyfrom Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Senegal,and Ghana (Figure 1).

Two conceptual frameworks were used for ana-lyzing the papers (Figure 2). First, following theIPCC,16 we defined vulnerability to drought as ‘thedegree to which a system is susceptible to, or unableto cope with, adverse effects of droughts’ and weconsidered that vulnerability was a function of expo-sure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (see

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definitions in Figure 2). Second, as many papers usedframeworks that differed from IPCC’s, we consideredthe more generic DPSIR framework (Drivers, Pres-sures, State, Impact, and Responses) to classifypapers that did not include concepts of vulnerabilityand adaptive capacity but focused on observations ofexposure (P in the DPSIR framework), impacts(I) and responses (R). Our simple conceptual frame-work thus combined the IPCC concepts with part ofthe DPSIR sequence (Figure 3).

By reading the full texts of all papers, we identi-fied the topics covered by each paper and organizedthem in four groups, which correspond to the fourfollowing sections: (1) Exposure to drought events(sometimes combined with other types of exposure),(2) Impacts of drought (and sensitivity of differentsectors to drought), (3) Responses to drought (includ-ing elements of adaptive capacity in some papers),

and (4) Factors influencing vulnerability components.We found some overlaps between subgroups oftopics: for example perceptions or social context canbe barriers to adaptation, but we chose to create aspecific topic on barriers to adaptation because of thefrequent use of this term in the literature. A detailedlist of all the impacts and responses cited in the litera-ture can be found in Appendix S1, SupportingInformation.

EXPOSURE TO DROUGHT

The Increase in Rainfall since the Dry1970s and 1980s is Subject to DebateRainfall in the whole region was particularly low inthe 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s,18 although the causesof this phenomenon are still the subject of debate, for

FIGURE 1 | Geographical distribution of the research sites of the reviewed papers (the number of papers reviewed per country are showninside or next to the red circles).

Exposure (nature anddegree to which system is

exposed to significant climatic

variations)

Potential

Impacts(impactsthat may

occur,

withoutconsidering

adaptation)

Drivers

Pressures

State

Impact

ResponsesVuln

era

bility

Sensitivity (degree towhich a system is affected,

either adversely or

beneficially, by climate -relatedstimuli)

Adaptive Capacity (ability of a system toadjust for moderating damages, taking advantage

of opportunities, or coping with consequences)

FIGURE 2 | The two conceptual frameworks used in this review (left: IPCC vulnerability framework16; right: DPSIR framework17) and thedefinition of vulnerability components.

WIREs Climate Change Impacts of drought and responses of rural populations in West Africa


example, rainfall forcing due to changes in sea sur-face temperature versus the effect of changes in landuse caused by human activities in West Africa.1,19 Anincrease in total annual rainfall has often beenreported since the late 1980s and early 1990s, forexample in Burkina Faso,18 but this trend is notobserved everywhere in the region, for example inNiger.20 Given the high level of spatial variation inrainfall, it is possible that trends may be upward inone area and downward in another, in addition tothe bias created by the sparse and irregular networkof meteorological stations, which leads to nonsignifi-cant results.21 While some papers focus on long-termannual rainfall trends, others have shown that peopleare in fact more affected by much shorter term cli-mate variations including short periods of drought atcrucial periods in the agricultural calendar.22,23

Drought Is One Type of Exposure, but ItInteracts with Other TypesThe literature reports that populations face severaldifferent types of exposure, natural (e.g., cropsattacked by insect pests), social (e.g., conflicts), eco-nomic (e.g., rising prices of inputs) (see Appendix S1,Supporting Information). The harm to a populationcaused by a climatic event will vary depending onother types of exposure. Drought can act as a triggerfor a community already facing other types of

exposure, be they economic, societal, or environmen-tal.13 For example, in the Afram plains in Ghana,drought events are said to have a considerable impacton farming communities because the farms are small(due to population pressure and land policies), lim-ited access to agricultural inputs (because of financialinsecurity, and to the end of subsides due to struc-tural adjustment programs), and environmental deg-radation (deforestation to produce charcoal andbushfires) associated with declining fertility.24 Asmany West African societies have long adapted todrought, they may only be affected by exceptionaldrought events (their spatial extent, duration orintensity) or when other changes affect their abilityto face drought.11,25 As a result, although famine isoften considered to be a direct result of a drought—with no other type of exposure taken intoconsideration—it has been demonstrated in Côted’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Senegal that it is above all asocial construct in which power inequalities modifythe impact of drought on people.26

IMPACTS OF DROUGHT

The Impacts of Drought Are OftenStudied In EcosystemsDroughts have an impact on ecosystems. For exam-ple, remote sensing has shown that the annual

Climate trends 79

54

51

50

40

30

27

22

Factors influencingvulnerability components

Institutional, social and historical context

Household strategies and decisions

Barriers to adaptation

Perceptions

76

59

38

20

86Agriculture

Diversification

Migration

Trees and Forest

Land-use changes

Livestock

Social networks

Food management

61

30

14

12

Exposure

Responses

AdaptiveCapacity

Sensitivity

Impact

Ecosystem 38

36

16

14

11

Agriculture and food

Water

Livestock

Conflicts

Combined non-climatic exposure

Climate variability

Drought causes

Expected effects of climate change

FIGURE 3 | Simple conceptual framework for classifying the topics covered in the reviewed papers and the frequency of the topics in thereviewed papers (the numbers indicate how many papers treated a given topic, the lengths of the bars are proportional to these numbers).



rainfall amount is positively correlated with the pro-duction of aboveground phytomass27 even thoughhuman activities and grazing pressure have beenshown to play important roles in the degradation ofthe plant cover.28 Species richness decreased in thesecond half of the 20th century19 and both tree den-sity and the plant cover decreased significantly duringthe droughts in the 1970s and 1980s,19,29 but noncli-matic factors (such as changes in land use due tohuman activities) could also explain these trends.30

Although there is a consensus on the negative conse-quences of drought for the regeneration of treespecies,31 the general impacts of drought on the for-est as a whole are still controversial.29 Bush fires aregenerally said to be one negative consequence ofdrought,31 like in Ghana, where a large proportionof forests and agroforests (mainly cocoa plantations)were destroyed between 1982 and 1984.32 Droughtsalso have an impact on non-timber forest products,31

the composition of rangeland grass33,34 and onproductivity,35 but combined with other factors, suchas human activities through grazing pressure, asdemonstrated in northern Senegal.27 Droughts canalso trigger a complete ecosystem shift, for example,the drying of Lake Faguibine in Mali.36

Droughts are responsible for a reduction inavailable water and for degradation of water quality,resulting in health problems, such as bilharzia ordiarrhea in Ghana,37 or limiting some activities suchas herding, beer brewing, and dry season cultivation,or fishing.24 In some countries, including Ghana,droughts can also cause electric power shortages bylimiting available water in hydroelectric dams.38

Droughts have an impact on rangeland produc-tion and on the water needed to water animals andthus, indirectly, on livestock37 and milk produc-tion.39 Drought can reduce the size of herds throughanimal mortality,40,41 or because herders have to selltheir animals to cope with the consequences of thedrought.4,41 This has happened to a large extent inmajor droughts, for example in 1983–1984 when75% of the herds in the Sahel died or were sold.42

When animals are weakened by a drought, they arealso more sensitive to the epizootic diseases thatoccur during subsequent wet periods.43

Droughts can also exacerbate conflicts overscarce resources, particularly water. Drought-induced changes in natural resources can create con-flicts concerning access, for example the drying oflake Chad resulted in tension over the newlyemerged lands.44 In addition to conflicts about ten-ure or resource management that oppose commu-nities and even states, most conflicts occur within

one community or between communities and aremore frequent during drought years.45 Poor or mar-ginalized groups are more prone to using violencewhen faced with difficult climatic situations becauseof a lack of opportunity and also a feeling ofinjustice,46 as demonstrated by a meta-analysis(of the whole continent of Africa).45 The linksbetween droughts and conflicts are the subject ofdebate: for example, conflicts can be explained bystructural factors (e.g., agricultural encroachment onpastoral lands and political corruption),47 which arethe same factors that affect people already vulnera-ble to droughts.48,49

The Impacts of Drought on Agricultureand Food Are Also Widely StudiedThe impacts of drought on agriculture and food arethe second most quantitatively and thoroughly stud-ied, after the impacts of drought on ecosystems(Figure 2). Crop failure due to drought has beenwidely reported in West Africa, particularly in the1970s and 1980s.19,39 In 1983 and 1984, the wholeSahel was affected by a rainfall deficit that reached80% of mean annual values in Nigeria,50 leading tofailed food production.4,51 However, low productionis not always due to an abnormal annual amount ofrainfall but sometimes to intraseasonal climate varia-bility, as reported in northern Nigeria in the1979–1983 period.50 Droughts do not only reduceyield but also the quality of the grain and hence thesales price, as pointed out by Nigerian farmers.37

The consequences of production losses includerises in food prices,4,52 food scarcity, and reductionin food consumption, with consequences on humanhealth (including diseases and mortality, childhoodmalnutrition affecting child growth and brain devel-opment).19,53 Tens of thousands of people died54 andmassive migrations took place during the 1983–1984drought in the Sahel.42,55

The link between droughts and famine is not asimple cause-effect relationship and consequentlyneeds to be carefully analyzed. The 2005 famine inNiger revealed the complexity of the political, social,and economic processes that exacerbated the effect ofdrought on the famine, for example because of unex-pected effects of external assistance and the oppor-tunistic behavior of local businesses.56 Althoughdroughts may be a trigger, famines usually have well-documented political and socioeconomic roots,57 forexample in northern Nigeria after the droughts in the1970s.26,58



RESPONSES OF POPULATIONSFACED WITH DROUGHT

Agricultural Responses Are By Far theMost Frequently ReportedThe most frequently reported agricultural responsesare changes in cropping systems and patterns,37

crop diversification or changes in crops andvarieties,59 exchange and selection of seeds,60

changes in sowing dates or in the agriculturalcalendar,61 changes in the location of fields,23 theadoption of water saving and soil conservation tech-niques (stone bunds or ‘no tillage’ for example),62

and finally agricultural intensification.59 Becausemost Sahelian States have neglected rainfed agricul-ture since the 1970s, most agricultural strategies tocope with droughts have been developed by farmersthemselves, with the support of NGOs and, in somecases, of extension services.63 Most changes in agri-cultural practices that reduce vulnerability todrought are actually driven by nonclimatic factors.For example, practices for enhancing productivityand diversification strategies are often explained bypopulation growth, land scarcity, and new marketopportunities rather that climate variability, asdemonstrated in Northern Burkina Faso.64 Laborshortage in agriculture caused by income diversifica-tion and outmigration strategies can be a barrier tothe implementation of agricultural responses andmay lead to the total or partial abandonment ofagricultural fields.65

Diversification Is One of the MainAdaptation Strategies to ClimateVariabilityDiversification is frequently studied as a livelihoodstrategy and less frequently as a way to adapt to cli-mate variations. Nonetheless it has been argued thatit is a major adaptation strategy59 and can take threeforms: permanent diversification (e.g., associatingfarming and herding), seasonal diversification (e.g.,gold mining or wood gathering during the dry sea-son), and ‘crisis’ diversification (for example sellingwood, livestock, or shea nuts to compensate for abad harvest). Permanent or seasonal diversificationcan be considered as an anticipatory adaptive strat-egy, whereas crisis diversification is a reactive copingstrategy.

The most frequently reported diversificationstrategy is mixed farming, which is, associating live-stock herding and cropping. While herding and crop-ping have long been two complementary activities,

exerted by different social groups,66 today they arebeing combined to such an extent that some farmersnow own more animals than herders3 and in someareas, even the distinction between herders and farm-ers is no longer applicable.55 In addition to the multi-ple roles played by livestock in society (as capital orsavings, as a source of income to buy cereals, etc.),3

associating livestock with cropping reduces the vul-nerability of the production system because livestockand crops are not sensitive to climate variations inthe same way.67

There are many other ways of diversifying (seeAppendix S1, Supporting Information), includingtrade, crafts, and artisanal works, irrigated cultiva-tion of vegetables, processing food or beverages, sell-ing forest products or natural products (wood,charcoal, NTFP, wild animals and fish), etc. Manydiversification options affect adaptation to climatechange because in rural households, nonfarm incomeaccounts for a large share of total income68 in timesof drought, as observed in Burkina Faso during the1983–1984 drought.69 It has also been shown thatpeople living in the drier parts of Burkina Faso havemore diversified livelihoods,39 and that the diversifi-cation process was stimulated by the droughts in the1970s and 1980s.70

There was a debate in the 1990s about whetheror not Sahelian people practiced sequential diversifi-cation. Sequential steps in diversification weredescribed as economic diversification within thefarming system, animal ownership, off-farm incomesources, and finally migration and remittances.3 Con-versely, diversification was described as an inten-tional mix (also called ‘bricolage’) of agriculture,livestock, migration, and trade.71

Seasonal and Permanent Migration as aResponse to Drought and As an Effect of ItHerders’ mobility (over short distances or for trans-humance) is a ‘prime strategy in Sahelian countries’72

to access and manage resources; and labor migration(as far as coastal cities) makes it possible for farmersto work when the cultivation season is over.54,72

Migration is thus an important routine strategy butalso a way to cope with drought, for example, duringthe 1973 drought when outmigration reached 40%in some villages in Burkina Faso.73 In times ofdrought, migration is conceptualized both as aneffect and as a response23 because beyond the posi-tive effects of migration, for example, reduced con-sumption74 and remittances,59 household productioncapacity is reduced due to the loss of its labor force74



and loss of human capital if educated people leave.74

Poorer households are more affected by these nega-tive consequences and migration is often chosen as alast resort.73 Despite the very high number of envi-ronmental migrants in West Africa, droughts werecited as the direct cause of migration by only 4% ofmigrants.73

Forest and Tree Resources: ImportantAssets for Coping with DroughtDifferent parts of trees can be consumed, processedor sold, routinely, or only when the harvest is notsufficient3 particularly during droughts75: wood,fruits, seeds, flowers, or leaves,76,77 but also otherresources such as grasses33 and wild yams, whichgrow in the forest and are an important source ofcalories and nutriments, especially for children.78

Data on the importance of forest products for nutri-tion vary from 4% of caloric intake in a drought yearin northern Burkina Faso39 to 21% of the diet.79

Methodological issues may explain this notable dif-ference. Some groups may be reluctant to answerquestions about the food they eat during a faminebecause eating it is often perceived as degrading andit may be a signal of extreme distress.75,78 In additionto human consumption, herders often make intensiveuse of the leaves of trees as animal fodder.66,80 Woodor charcoal can also be sold in response to a droughtthat affects crop yields and which helps people toobtain the cash they need to buy some cereals fortheir own consumption. A ‘desperation strategy’ canlead to illegal cutting of trees.81

As community woodlots,82 trees in degradedareas,83 or agroforestry32 provide importantresources for coping with dramatic climate events,their management can be part of anticipatory adapta-tion strategies to climate change. For example,assisted natural regeneration in the form of regreen-ing using coppicing of drought-resistant species inthe Maradi region of Niger is generally presented asa success story.77 The success of this adaptation initi-ative has been mostly in the hands of rural commu-nities but this is rarely the case in a region wheremany reforestation programs depend on externalassistance and funds77,83 and fail when NGOs leavethe project because local people have not been suffi-ciently involved or lack the motivation or the meansto continue the activity.31 Actually, the increasingurban demand for food and energy, as well as theglobal demand for agricultural lands may threatenthe ability of these forest-based adaptive strategies toface drought.

Important, But Overlooked, the Role ofSocial Networks in Response to ClimateVariationsTransactions such as gifts and transfers, loans ofmoney or food, or exchange of labor are almost nevermentioned as responses to drought even though socialsolidarity is an important pillar of community adapt-ive capacity. Women’s organizations that provideaccess to credit,84 increase negotiation power,59 orenable the installation of an irrigation scheme85 showthat women have become more autonomous thanksto their willingness to create social organizations.Such organizations are also a way to cope with dryspells and to diversify production. For example,Farmers’ groups and the exchange of labor make itpossible to introduce water and soil conservationtechniques.61 Nevertheless, the organizational level isoften reported to be low. Farmers generally invest lim-ited time and effort in this kind of community-levelactivity and families remain the nexus of livelihooddecisions and negotiations on labor allocation, amongother subjects. However there are notable exceptions,particularly in contexts of major environmental chal-lenges like in the central Plateau of Burkina Faso andparts of south-western Niger where the large amountof labor required to restore highly degraded soils ledfarmers to organize themselves in associations anduse large-scale strategies for adaptation.86 In thesesites, the existence of farmer associations is reportedto be the main driver of land restoration and protec-tion with stone bunds.87 These associations often relyon support provided by soil and water conservationprojects, particularly for transporting stones.88

Social relations as responses to drought can alsohave negative effects on people. For example, the poor-est people may remain vulnerable because of their ina-bility to reciprocate, making wealthier householdsreluctant to help them.84 They may then fall into a pov-erty trap if they have to borrow money from moneylenders by pawning or mortgaging their land orproduction,89 especially if the following harvest is bad.The influence of climatic events on social relations andpower relations remains largely uninvestigated. Thecontext may play a determining role in the evolution ofsocial relations toward the abandonment of social obli-gations in times of need4,43 or, on the contrary, the con-tinuance of social networks even in times of drought.75

Purchasing and Storing Food AreEmergency Responses to DroughtThe purchase and storage of food is rarely describedas a response to drought despite the fact it is one of



the most common ways to cope with food shortages,as demonstrated during the 1983–1984 drought inBurkina Faso.69 As households generally have nosavings,75 they have to sell their assets, mainly live-stock, if available.43,52 If the situation worsens andthe household has no animals to sell, family membersare obliged to migrate, find wage labor, or sell otherassets4,69 which, in the case of productive assets, mayjeopardize the following harvest.

When the food reserve is expected to be insuffi-cient, notably after a drought year, householdsreduce their consumption of their stores of grain byhaving family members migrate, preparing commonmeals, reducing the size of each meal, or reducing thenumber of meals per day.75 A household may chooseto reduce food intake rather than sell assets, becauseof the risk of jeopardizing their future activities byselling some essential production assets89—orbecause of a preference for saving, lack of cash orother urgent need, or overestimating the length of thecrisis.90 These choices may have long-term conse-quences such as delayed child development or irre-versible damage to children89 and a reduced laborforce the following year.75

Price dynamics weaken the food purchasingpower of farmers. In bad harvest years—due todrought, for example, the price of grain rapidly goesup while the price of livestock drops67 to such anextent that poor households are rapidly unable tobuy grain, or are obliged to purchase small amountsat a high cost.75 When the harvest is good, the priceof grain goes down, thereby limiting the capacity ofhouseholds to repay any loans or credits contractedduring a past drought year,4 and people are forced tosell their grain at a low price because of their imme-diate need for cash or limited harvest storagecapacity.91

CONTEXTUAL FACTORSINFLUENCE THE IMPACTS OFDROUGHTS AND PEOPLE’SCAPACITY TO RESPOND

Adaptation Practices Were Shaped byColonial and Postcolonial Regimesand PoliciesThe colonial period had a major impact on WestAfrican societies, resulting (among other effects) inthe promotion of a more intensive agriculturefocused on cash crops3 and migration for wage laborin southern countries.54 A controversial theory sug-gests that it has created a climate of competition and

destroyed the moral economy and the solidarity thatexisted in villages previously,66,92 thereby reducingtheir adaptive capacity. The marginalization of her-ders and of nomad livelihoods is thought by some tohave started at this time.93

After obtaining their independence in the 1960sand 1970s, most West African countries were social-ist and the agricultural sector was strongly supportedby governments.62 The structural adjustment pro-grams introduced in the 1980s and 1990s had manyconsequences for rural livelihoods. Subsidies for thepurchase of farm inputs or investment programs tosupport agriculture and agricultural developmentwere drastically reduced. Other consequences werethe privatization of state companies, the end of pricecontrols, and the removal of trade barriers.70,94

These measures harmed small producers.67 Marketcompetition resulting from subsidized agriculture indeveloped countries and in Asia became a threat forAfrican producers59 and integration in world foodmarkets has made farmers vulnerable to global pricefluctuations,62 while simultaneously creating pressureto privatize land.11,47 West African countries startedto be more vulnerable to food crises even in yearswhen the harvest was good because of fluctuations inthe price of food.95

By their effects on communities, agriculturalpractices, and market functioning, these historicallegacies have shaped the exposure and sensitivity ofrural communities to droughts and other threats, aswell as their capacity to react. While there is littledocumented evidence, the example of Cameroon isinstructive: yields were less affected by drought whenthere was government support for agriculture thanafter the structural adjustment programs.94

Current Threats and Opportunities inProduct, Job, and Land MarketsThe role of markets in improving farmers’ adaptivecapacity is the subject of controversy.9 On one hand,integration in markets exposes farmers to marketvariations and shocks, which create an additionalsource of vulnerability. On the one hand, marketintegration can be an advantage if it mitigates the risein food prices in times of drought or local crises4 andenables access to markets where the demand is higherin hard times—for instance, the increased demandfor meat in Nigeria, which allowed herders in Nigerto sell their cattle at a decent price during a crisis inNiger.66

Urbanization can present an opportunity forrural populations to diversify their activities andsources of income, particularly during the dry season



(woodcutting, market gardening, jobs in the city,etc.), even if the sustainability of these activitiesremains questionable.96,97 Land grabbing is a threatposed by both the international and the domesticland market that can exacerbate the vulnerability oflocal communities. In most parts of the Sahel, whichare almost entirely highly dominated by small-scalefamily farming and where the social and political costof expropriation can be very high, land acquisitionsby foreign investors represent just a small part ofland grabbing. Most land grabbing is by nationalurban elites who generally have no professional com-petence in agriculture.98 Although the average size ofthe plots acquired by these investors is small (usuallyless than 80 hectares), the cumulative effect may besignificant, particularly in the periphery of majorcities.99

Decentralization Processes Shape People’sCapacity to RespondLocal natural resources management has beenimpacted by the decentralization processes that havebeen the centerpieces of many policy reforms in WestAfrica since the 1990s, although decentralization isby no means new in Africa.100 The most recentwaves of decentralization have been presented as away to secure local rights and improve local adapta-tion, but in practice, decentralization reforms haverarely been carried through completely and there hasbeen no full transfer of authority over naturalresources to local authorities. For these reasons,decentralization has not really enhanced localresources management but has increased the margin-alization of both herders101 and women.102 Decen-tralization processes have led to the multiplication oflocal institutional mandates and the weakening oftraditional authority, which started during the colo-nial era and continued after independence.100

Power relations within the communities and theway natural resources are managed were affected bythe incomplete decentralization processes, as waspeople’s capacity to respond to drought. The multi-plication of institutions has resulted in confusion andleft room for free-rider behavior, even though localinstitutions limit the direct influence of governmentsin whom people have little confidence.92 In this con-text, customary norms and rules remain a guaranteeof access to resources for all, including land, whichwere generally gifted or lent in traditional tenureregimes but are now increasingly being purchased orrented, as witnessed in northern Ghana59 and inNiger.103

The Influence of External Interventionson Local Responses Is the Subject of DebateAdaptation programs designed by the state or byNGOs that target populations do not always matchthe local population’s priorities104 and can reducetheir adaptive capacities. For example, many WestAfrican states promoted irrigation to improve foodsecurity and increase food production but many irri-gation programs appear to have been badly designedand today more than 30% of systems are degraded,resulting in land salinization,105 and in difficulties fortheir neighbors.24

Large-scale adaptation programs, for examplethe National Adaptation Programmes of Action(NAPAs), are being developed, but are often basedon a simplistic discourse about environmentaldegradation,104 have a short-term focus,106 are dis-connected from other policies,106 or propose mea-sures that are inappropriate.23,104 Large-scaleprograms and emblematic measures, such as theGreen Belt, are criticized for focusing on very visibleactions, which are generally not innovative, and fornot taking local priorities and the needs of the localpopulation into account.104

In addition to the adaptation measures proposedby states or NGOs, the international community hasput forward ideas on how to cope with droughts. Oneexample was food aid during the droughts in the1970s and 1980s, which effectively limited mortalityin rural populations.4,64 However, despite its immedi-ate benefits, food aid was criticized for unequal distri-bution of food,6 for creating new social inequities,67

for corruption and misallocation3,40 as well as forbeing responsible for the destabilization of the localeconomy and existing food-aid system.6,67

How external interventions affect localresponses is the subject of debate. Some projects onlybenefit a small proportion of the population andincrease existing inequality,38,61 while othersimprove equity (including gender equity) and some-times reduce the workloads of the most vulnerablepeople.107 External interventions not only affectrural populations but also shape their perceptions:too many actions may encourage people to rely onexternal aid and discourage them from becominginvolved in spontaneous or organized local strate-gies. On the other hand, it has been shown that localpeople turn natural resource management projects totheir own ends, and so reap social benefits fromthem.108,109 Moreover, some external interventionsare necessary, for example when local people requiremore information about climate and adaptationissues.110



DISCUSSION

The responses most often reported in the literatureare not necessarily those that are most frequentlyused by people but are those that are most widelystudied. For example, the focus on agriculture andon individual responses may reflect a particular inter-est or approach by the scientific community. Oneresearch gap in the reviewed literature is related tomultiple exposures, as droughts are frequently con-sidered to be the main risk faced by populations inWest Africa and other risks that affect the systemsunder study are rarely taken into consideration. Asmall number of articles did report that populationsare exposed to several different kinds of risk, somenatural (e.g., crops attacked by insect pests), somesocial (e.g., conflicts), some economic (e.g., risingprices of agricultural inputs), and pointed out thatthe social, political, and economic context is impor-tant in understanding the impacts of drought, forexample, climate-induced conflicts.

Further research is also required on the ways inwhich the context influences the impacts of droughtsor the responses of the population. Too few studiesanalyze the institutional, environmental, political,and social context of rural communities and particu-larly the role of power relations at different scales.Such studies are needed to rebut the widespread dis-courses that simplify the causal relations betweendroughts and their outcomes in the Sahel, for exam-ple those that depict crop failure and famine in theSahel as a direct consequence of droughts and over-look the social construct and the role of power rela-tions and politics in mediating vulnerability andresponses to drought. There is evidence that smalland politically unrepresented ethnic groups suffermost from environmental and drought-related con-flicts.46 To be successful, climate change adaptationpolicies need to consider the political dimensions oflocal adaptation, existing power structures, and con-flicts of interest.111

Many population responses are designed toface exposure to multiple exposures and not onlydrought. For example, intensification of agriculturethrough increased use of inputs is as much a responseto the lack of agricultural land, food insecurity, andopportunities to sell production surplus to expandingmarkets112 as to climate variability.70 And the use ofshort-cycle cereals or a mix of different varietiesenables better management of the labor force in acontext of outmigration of young people and of thefailure of labor markets.60

Another research requirement is analysis of theeffectiveness and of the unexpected effects of the

local population’s responses and of projects imple-mented by NGOs or governments. Many responsescan have perverse effects, for example, migration orthe sale of productive assets to buy food. Govern-ment and NGO projects need to be assessed in termsof their usefulness to local populations, which is notalways clear.38 The perverse effects of food aid havealready been highlighted, that is, that food aid under-mines local food systems and creates long-term pro-blems for farmers, causes dependency and limitsincentives for adaptation.3,113

Yet another gap concerns collective action foradaptation, as most studies focus on households orindividuals. The complexity of West African tenuresystems and social organizations is not enough takeninto account, for example, the role of solidarity net-works in times of drought and collective adaptiveresponses. Social networks and tenure systems asendogenous factors influencing coping strategies arethe subject of far fewer studies than demographicstructure and the socioeconomic status ofhouseholds,6 although their roles have been high-lighted by some scholars.114–116 As increasing foodand energy demands from growing cities create newpressures on and rivalry for customary lands, optionsfor adaptation will depend on how social interactionsand tenure systems evolve in this context.

In addition to the knowledge gap on collectiveresponses, information is lacking on the internaldynamics and the complexity of households. Despiteimportant studies on this issue,117–119 households areoften conceptualized as homogeneous entities,38

whereas each household member has his or her ownsocial network, assets, and objectives that may con-flict with the objectives of other household mem-bers.43 There is evidence that household strategiesrely mainly on household members with marginalaccess to resources, such as women or young peo-ple.75 Moreover, after a drought, budgetary struggleswithin households may lead to the transfer of wealthfrom household heads to their wives and dependentmale members43 but also to cooperation betweenhousehold’s members.110

Our review of the responses cited in the litera-ture revealed that poor households have fewer oppor-tunities than wealthy households. The latter are ableto take advantage of price dynamics, are more likelyto benefit from a loan, or have more diversified liveli-hoods.52,68 A framework could help understand thedifferent choices made by wealthy and poor house-holds, and help distinguish between pull and push fac-tors in the choice of a response.52,120 Pull factorscorrespond to opportunities a household can inten-tionally use to its advantage, while push factors



correspond to situations in which the household actsout of desperation and take decisions under pressure(adapted from91). For example, concerning diversifi-cation, poor households diversify because they arehighly vulnerable and need to spread risk across dif-ferent activities and also because they need cash foressentials, while wealthy households diversify to max-imize the profitability of their strategies120; butwealthy farmers can also focus on full-time farmingto maximize their profits and because their largeassets make them less vulnerable.75

Some studies use a comprehensive approachbased, for example, on perceptions61 or on past live-lihood trajectories.25 Comprehensive approachesmake it possible to reveal the influence of ideology,cultural values, or self-perception in the choice of aresponse.113,121 For example, some pastoralists willnot diversify their activity to include gardening orwaged labor because they perceive themselves strictlyas herders.113 Meanwhile, most studies on decision-making are only based on correlations betweenresponses (or vulnerability) and variables, and haveproduced few significant results.

CONCLUSION

This review of the impacts of drought and theresponses of rural populations in West Africa high-lighted certain controversial aspects of the currentstate of knowledge and identified some knowledgegaps and avenues for future research (Box 1). WestAfrica has been widely associated with drought as amajor problem, however, it is important to framedroughts in a set of multiple threats faced by localpopulations. Droughts often act as a trigger in con-texts of economic, societal, and environmentalchange. The literature on responses focuses on agri-cultural and individual responses, whereas diversifi-cation, migration, and tree-based or livestock-basedresponses are less frequently addressed. In additionto technical agricultural responses that are welldescribed, social capital and networks are often iden-tified as an important part of the response to droughtin West Africa, but their roles are overlooked eventhough they may be crucial for the most vulnerable.Research is needed on the effectiveness and the unex-pected effects of responses implemented by popula-tions, states or NGOs, as well as on the interactionsbetween different responses. To grasp the complexityof impacts and responses, it is important to considerthe context in which they occur and to analyze howindividual and collective actions interact withinhouseholds or communities. There is a pressing need

to identify the social, cultural, and institutional struc-tures and mechanisms at play in rural communitiesthrough which the impacts of droughts may beamplified due to resistance from economic and politi-cal elites. An integrative approach including the envi-ronmental and social spheres is thus recommended toanalyze and propose sustainable adaptation strate-gies. Ecosystems and agriculture offer many goodsand services that can usefully be adapted and the dif-ferent landscape components need to be analyzedtogether. Such historical, contextual, and integratedanalyses could better inform new policies and pro-jects for adaptation to climate change.

BOX 1

KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

• The role of the goods and services from thebroad landscape, beyond agricultural produc-tion, in buffering the impacts of drought,and facilitating responses.

• The reasons why there are few locally drivencollective initiatives for the sustainable man-agement of trees and woodlands, despite therole these resources play in the coping andadapting strategies of households.

• The effect of social relationships, political–economic dynamics, and power inequalitiesin the outbreak of famines and their impactsafter the droughts has ended.

• The importance of social capital and net-works in livelihood responses to droughts,particularly for the most vulnerable.

• The social, cultural, and institutional struc-tures and processes through which theimpacts of droughts are amplified orreduced.

• The consequences of migration as a short- orlong-term strategy to cope with drought thataffect both the place of origin and the desti-nation of the migrant.

• Ways to better integrate local responses todrought in sectorial or territorial policies andin national or local adaptation plans.

• The role of institutions at different levels incollecting environmental and socioeconomicbaseline data and in monitoring the impactsof drought.

• Collaboration among scientists, governments,NGOs, and local institutions to share informa-tion on droughts, their impacts, and theresponses of populations to them.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Funding partners who supported this research include the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the GermanFederal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), the project‘Forest and Adaptation to Climate Change and Forests in West Africa’ (ACFAO), co-funded by the FondsFrançais pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM) and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees andAgroforestry (CRP-FTA) with financial support from the CGIAR Fund.

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