Senegal is among the African countries considered highly exposed and vulnerable to climate change impacts due to its location on a wide coastal strip in the Sahelian zone. The fight against climate change and its growing impact on livelihoods is therefore one of the urgent challenges facing the State of Senegal. However, while the relevance and coherence of adaptation strategies are often clearly articulated in policies, project development, and design phases, the real issues, needs, and priorities of local actors are not yet clearly defined. Moreover, guidance for the consideration of local and endogenous knowledge and good practices into national policy development are not widely available. Frameworks for integrating adaptation action as provided in national policies, strategies, and frameworks (including the NDCs) into locally led adaptations are also not sufficiently accessible to the stakeholders that need them the most. This paper presents the status and trends of climate action in Senegal. It further underscores the need for more research to identify gaps and opportunities in current climate action strategies, initiatives, and practices to support and enhance effective and sustainable adaptation efforts.

Senegal is a country of 196,722 km2 located at the western extremity of the African continent. The Sodano-Sahelian climate is tropical in the south and semi-desert in the north, with a dry season from November to June and a hot, humid season from June to October. Average annual rainfall follows a decreasing gradient from the south to the north of the country, from 1,200 mm in the south to 300 mm in the north, with varying climatic zones: a humid zone in the south, a wooded savannah in the centre and a semi-desert zone in the north.

Demographic projections estimate Senegal's population at 17.7 million in 2022, compared with 16.2 million in 2019 and 13.5 million in 2013 (ANSD, 2022). ^[1] The intercensal population growth rate, although still high, remained mostly stable in recent years at a level of 2.7% between 1976 and 1988, and 2.5% over the period 1988-2002 and 2002-2013, resulting in a doubling of the population every 25 years. The Senegalese population is characterised by its disproportionate youth (one in two Senegalese is under 20 years old) and its predominance of rural areas (53.1% of the total population in 2019). The urban population is estimated at 46.9% in 2019 (7,606,700 urban against 8,602,426 rural).

In Senegal, the poverty rate was estimated at 37.8% in 2018/2019 (EHCVM 2018/2019)^[2] with major disparities between areas of residence (urban/rural) and regions of the country (Dakar and the rest of the country). The rural population is more affected by poverty, with more than half (53.6%) known to live below the poverty line. In urban areas it affects two out of ten people (19.8%). Senegal's Human Development Index (HDI) for 2022 is 0.512, which places the country in the "low human development" category and ranks it 170nd out of 188 countries and territories worldwide.

Senegal´s economic growth rate decreased from 6.2% in 2018 to 4.4% in 2019 due to the slowdown of activity in the primary (4.5% against 8.1% in 2018), secondary (3.7% against 6.5% in 2018) and tertiary (4.6% against 5.4% in 2018) sectors. The continued dynamism of the primary sector (7.9%), the secondary sector (7.5%) and the tertiary sector (5.3%) in 2018 favoured economic growth despite recorded deceleration that same year (ANSD, 2022).^[3]

Indeed, a large part of the Senegalese economy is based on production systems which, once affected by environmental crises, will weaken a country already facing a fragile socio-economic situation. For example, the loss of biodiversity, the reduction of vegetation cover, deforestation, water, and wind erosion, salinisation, and acidification have led to soil degradation, reducing its suitability for cultivation.

Senegal is among the African countries considered highly exposed and vulnerable to climate change due to its location in the Sahelian zone and its wide coastal strip (Mc Sweeney et al., 2010; MEDD-GCF, 2020).^[4][5] Increasing temperature trends and disrupted rainfall patterns, often punctuated by extreme weather events, are generating increasing climate risks that expose and render fragile the foundations of the national economy and natural and human capital^[6] (USAID, 2017; Baarsch et al., 2017). The deterioration of the productive bases of the national economy, in particular agriculture, livestock, and fisheries, which employ a significant proportion of the working population, especially in rural areas, illustrate the economic challenges of climate change in Senegal. Projections of the economic impacts of climate change made by the Planning Department of the Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Planning (MEFP) show that with an increase of temperatures between 1°C and 2°C by 2050, there could be severe consequences on economic growth and a drop of around 25% in productivity.

To address these challenges, the government of Senegal launched a development strategy called the Senegal Emerging Plan (PSE) for the period leading up to 2035, which is well aligned with sustainable development goals (SDGs). This plan integrates the need to consider adaptation in economic and social development policies to increase the resilience of the country's production systems to climate change impacts. Moreover, this policy document draws attention to climate risks and stresses the need to consider unconditional commitments in the National Determined Contribution (NDC) regarding both mitigation and adaptation to climate change, whilst integrating them into national medium to long-term budgetary programming.

Senegal is making noticeable progress in implementing adaptation policies according to several priority sectors under the NDC. The fisheries and livestock sectors have already finalised their respective national adaptation plans and stakeholders are developing climate resilience projects to mobilise funding. The agriculture, infrastructure, food, and health sectors are supported by the National Adaptation Plan – Global Environment Facility programme (NAP-GEF) to carry out vulnerability and adaptation studies in five target regions of Senegal (Ziguinchor, Kédougou, Kaffrine, Matam, and Saint-Louis), which should lead to national sectoral adaptation plans and a funding mobilisation strategy. Other sectors such as coastal zones, water resources, and biodiversity are being supported by partners and financiers such as Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Lux-Development (Lux-Dev), etc., to launch the process of developing their sectoral national adaptation plans.

Several initiatives have been identified as opportunities to address climate challenges such as:

Achieving the vision of climate-resilient action requires collaboration to develop a shared vision among diverse stakeholders and coordinated cross-sectoral planning to ensure policy coherence. Several national institutions and private organizations exist in Senegal whose mandates and activities touch on climate change issues with considerable synergy to adapt to climate change in vulnerable productive sectors. These include government institutions, the private sector, the research community, and civil society, as well as bilateral and multilateral donor partners. The national framework for the implementation and governance of climate action and adaptation policy commitments made under the UNFCCC guidelines is organized and managed through the following structures and institutions:

Climate financing in Senegal is provided by several sources including the state budget, multilateral, bilateral, and the private sector.  In terms of multilateral funding, the Global Environment Fund (GEF) is the largest provider of grants to Senegal (CSE, 2020).^[8] Out of a total of 94 projects (national and regional) approved for Senegal by the Global Environment Fund since the GEF first Phase, USD 473.04 million in grants have been awarded. Several other multilateral actors including UNDP, World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), European Union, IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) also support the sector. Until recently, bilateral assistance was mainly provided by the Netherlands. As of 2016, the Netherlands withdrew from the environment sector to cover other areas of concentration. However, some countries remain active in the sector such as Luxembourg, France, Japan, the United States, and Germany.

Moreover, as part of the implementation of the Priority Action Plan of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE) 2014-2018, several sectors’ finances take adaptation and climate action into account. The agriculture sector with USD 412.5 million to support family farming, the water and sanitation sector with USD 386.4 million, disaster risk management with USD 61.3 million for the climate resilience project, and the rainwater management and climate change adaptation project (PROGEP) with USD 72.9 million. In addition to this funding for adaptation activities, index-based agricultural insurance developed by the Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Agricole du Sénégal (CNAAS), the Caisse Nationale de Crédit Agricole du Sénégal (CNCAS), and the Couverture Sanitaire Universelle (CSU) in the health sector with USD 72 million contribute to the resilience of communities against the negative impacts of climate change. Private finance is still quite marginal compared to the country's needs and potential. Efforts are underway to accredit national private entities to the Green Climate Fund to accelerate the process of private sector involvement in the mobilisation of climate finance. In addition, there is an emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in climate space.

However, it should be noted that local authorities and communities that could develop strategies to adapt to the impacts of climate change do not have access to these sources of climate finance due to a lack of capacity to mobilise funds or organise themselves to propose fundable or grantable projects. To address this issue, the National Plan for Local Development (PNDL) and the Centre for Ecological Monitoring (CSE) are currently working on capacity building in climate finance and climate risk management for local authorities to support the process of implementing locally driven adaptation with the involvement of vulnerable and marginalized communities. The aim is to help better integrate climate change adaptation issues into the local planning process and to build local institutional capacity for project development that facilitates access to climate finance and the inclusion of community-developed adaptation technologies.

In Senegal, the joint and coordinated implementation of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE), the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which is currently being translated into National Sectoral Adaptation Plans (NAPs), offer good opportunities and prospects for meeting the challenges and impacts of climate change. In parallel to this institutional mechanism shared by a set of ministerial sectors at the central level, there is a growing body of initiatives that advocate for a territorialisation of climate action, including integrating actors into the planning and implementation processes of local policies within territories.

However, the analysis of the implementation process of climate action and adaptation policies in Senegal highlights a certain number of gaps and barriers related to: i) poor integration of climate risks in the planning of sectoral development policies; ii) inequalities in access to climate financing between priority adaptation sectors and vulnerable territories; (iii) the weakness of technical and scientific capacity to transfer and take ownership of innovative adaptation strategies with a high impact on communities; (iv) the low consideration of communities and local actors adaptation needs; and (v) the lack of a framework to monitor and evaluate performance in climate policies implementation, such as the MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, Verifying) system.

Moreover, although the relevance and coherence of adaptation strategies are often very clearly demonstrated in the project development or design phase, their effective integration into local development policies is a major challenge from both a technical and political point of view. From a technical point of view, the complexity of integration is linked to the fact that climate consideration is reduced to a qualitative aspect that informs central decision-makers rather than a quantitative assessment of possible effects on development policies at the local level. These gaps highlight the need for a different, bottom-up approach that allows the adaptation needs (climate actions) of the most vulnerable local communities to be adequately integrated into the planning and implementation processes of local development plans to align with Act III of decentralization, which enshrines the territorialization of public policies. This requires a shift from the status quo of top-down approaches towards a new model where local actors have more power and resources to adapt to climate change impacts (GCA, 2021).^[9]

Locally led adaptation (LLA) is the process by which individuals, communities, networks, organizations, private entities, and governments set their own agendas, develop solutions to climate change adaptation and provide the capacity, leadership, and resources to make these solutions a reality (GCA, 2021; WRI, 2021).^{[10] [11]} The value and relevance of paying special attention to local actors and communities for successful climate adaptation was explicitly mentioned in the chapters of the latest IPCC report as a determinant of climate resilience at the local level. LLA can unlock, support, and leverage the enormous potential and creativity of communities to develop and implement solutions to their day-to-day needs (Westoby et al., 2019; WRI, 2021).^[12]

In addition, LLA can play a key role in providing free and equitable access to resources for local communities (AAC, 2022).^[13] Shifting power to local stakeholders can catalyse effective, equitable, and transparent adaptation. Moreover, in the process of LLA, local actors decide which local adaptation technologies to implement, which approaches to advocate for and which actors to mobilize to achieve their objectives (Diouf et al., 2014; Dramé A., Kéma A., 2016).^[14][15] From this perspective, local capacities are supported to design, implement, monitor, and maintain measures, local knowledge and ownership of projects are high, and funding is managed by local actors to support long-term sustainable outcomes and institutional capacities (AAC, 2022).^[16] Finally, LLA can enable national, regional, and local governments to provide climate planning and improved institutional capacity. These changes can directly benefit the target populations and create conditions for the flow of climate adaptation finance from national to local governments, thereby improving the health and well-being of vulnerable communities.

Experiences in adaptation with local actors and indigenous communities show that in most cases local stakeholders lack the financial resources and technical capacity to implement the various components of locally driven adaptation activities (MEDD-MEPCI, 2020).^[17] These barriers therefore question the coherence between top-down adaptation strategies and local adaptation needs and development plans.

For example, the process of planning and implementing priority adaptation options contained in the NDC and NAP does not clearly define a framework for integrating a locally led approach to adaptation, even though the guidance recommends considering local and endogenous knowledge and practices developed by communities in adapting to climate change. Success in planning and implementing adaptation depends on the active participation of local actors.

Research is therefore needed to better understand the challenges and opportunities for advancing climate solutions focused on country-specific priorities that are consistent with endogenous adaptation practices and the needs and priorities of local communities.  In view of the climate change related challenges faced by the people of Senegal, research is needed to collect and analyse information that can illustrate the potential for the development and implementation of climate adaptation through locally driven adaptations. Such knowledge would inform and support the efforts of policymakers in Senegal to balance climate action with the goals of job creation and sustainable economic development. In addition, it would also support national, local, and international decision-makers and partners in designing and implementing effective, long-term strategies to address the dual challenges of climate change and sustainable development in Senegal, without unnecessarily undermining or restricting its policy space or the ongoing adaptation efforts of local communities.

1. ANSD. (2022). Projections de la population sénégalaise. Recensement Général de la Population, de l’Habitat, de l’Agriculture et de l’Elevage (RGPHAE) de 2013.

2. Enquête Harmonisée sur le Conditions de Vies des Ménages Senegal 2018-2019. (2022). The World Bank Data. https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/4297

3.  ANSD. (2022). Op. cit.

4.  MEDD-GCF. (2020). Programme Pays 2018-2030. Ministère de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (MEDD) et Fonds Vert Climat (FVC). Rapport final, 124p.

5.  McSweeney, M. et al. (2010). The UNDP Climate Change Country Profiles: Improving the Accessibility of Observed and Projected Climate Information for Studies of Climate Change in Developing Countries. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26232858

6.  USAID. (2017). Senegal Climate Change Risk Profile.

7.  Gouvernement du Sénégal/ Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement (PNUD). (2014). Plan Climat Territoire Intégré (PCTI) pour la zone du Ferlo, de la région de Dakar et la région de Fatick. TACC Senegal (Territory Approach to Climate Change), Ministère de la Gouvernance Locale, du Développement Durable et de l’Aménagement du Territoire.

8.  CSE. (2020). Rapport sur l’état de l’environnement au Sénégal. Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE), Ministère de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (MEDD), 277p.

9.  GCA. (2021). Principles for Locally Led Adaptation Action. Statement for Endorsement, Global Commission on Adaptation, 2p.

10.  Ibid.

11.  WRI. (2021). Principles for Locally Led Adaptation Action. Statement for Endorsement, World Resources Institute (WRI), 2p.

12.  Westoby, R., McNamara, K. E., Kumar, R., & Nunn, P. D. (2019). From community-based to locally led adaptation: Evidence from Vanuatu. Ambio, 49(9), 1466–1473. doi:10.1007/s13280-019-01294-8

13.  AAC. (2022). Locally led adaptation: IPCC WGII climate change 2022 report. Adaptation Action Coalition. 1p.

14.  Diouf B, Lô H M, Dieye B, Sane O, Fall Sarr O (Editeurs au compte de la Plateforme Nationale C-CASA-Sénégal). (2014). Pour une agriculture intelligente face au changement climatique au Sénégal: recueil de bonnes pratiques d’adaptation et d’atténuation. Document de travail No 85, 181p. Programme de Recherche du CGIAR sur le Changement Climatique, l’Agriculture et la Sécurité Alimentaire.

15.  Dramé A., Kéma A. (2016). Connaissance endogène: Les bonnes pratiques d'attenuation et d'adaptatio aux changements climatiques en Afrique de l'ouest. Enda Energie, 94p.

16.  AAC. (2022). Op. cit

17.  MEDD-MEPCI. (2020). Analyse du processus de planification et de budgétisation au Sénégal pour une meilleure prise en compte de l’adaptation aux changements climatiques. Projet d’Appui Scientifique aux processus de Plans Nationaux d’Adaptation (PAS-PNA). Rapport provisoire, 30p.

Dr. Ibrahima Sy

Dr. Ibrahima Sy is a Senior Climate Change Fellow at APRI.  He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal. He is an Associate Researcher with the Centre for Ecological Monitoring (CSE) in Dakar. Dr. Sy previously worked at the University of Strasbourg as an Associate Professor and at the Swiss Centre for Scientific Research in Côte d’Ivoire as a Research Fellow. He has also coordinated research projects in Mauritania, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire in collaboration with national institutions like the CSE and CR4D (Climate Research for Development). Dr. Sy’s areas of interest include Water Sanitation, Spatial Epidemiology, Public Health Environmental Policies, Climate Change, and Sustainable development.  Dr. Sy completed his PhD in Health Geography at the University of Strasbourg, France.

The author would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Olumide Abimbola (Executive Director, APRI) for overall guidance, Dr. Grace Mbungu (Senior Fellow and Head of Climate Change Program, APRI) for project leadership, and Bouchra Tafrata (Project Coordinator, APRI) for administrative support. We would also like to acknowledge the support of ENDA Energie for their continued support in the project implementation activities.