As the EU continues work and investment in the conflict-stricken Mali,
supporting locally-evolved and adapted solutions can help solve one of
the sources of violence, food insecurity, writes Roland Bunch.
The road north from Segou, Mali, is a breathtaking experience: few other drives show how fertile farmland gradually turns into forbidding desert. The well-kept highway shoots through the Sahel, offering increasingly dry vistas. Segou’s maize fields are soon replaced by millet, which is more resistant to drought, then by thorny scrub. By the time you cross the Niger River at Timbuktu, you have officially entered the Sahara Desert. Nothing but sand and rock remains.
Today, Mali mostly evokes war. Al Qaeda’s push for southern Mali, stopped by French forces, had at least one effect which its commanders surely did not expect: the outside world has become acutely interested in the western Sahel. Large flows of fresh aid money, including 5 billion from the European Commission, have been pledged.
But as I was driving up that road in late 2011, militant Islamists were the last things on my mind. A drought had hit the country earlier that year – and that wasn’t supposed to happen.
The Sahel used to experience droughts roughly every ten years. There had been one in the mid 1970s, and then a terrible one in 1984-85 (that one prompted Bob Geldof to organise Live Aid). Other droughts came in 1994 and in 2003 – par for the course. But then things speeded up. Drought came in 2005 and 2009. Just two years later, we were experiencing yet another.
Over the centuries, the peoples of the Sahel have evolved complex customs to help them survive these occasional catastrophes. Tradition dictates that people must share their food with the least fortunate. Strict rules govern the use of water. Transgressions are harshly punished.
Read: EU should support local solutions to Sub-Saharan droughts | EurActiv
The road north from Segou, Mali, is a breathtaking experience: few other drives show how fertile farmland gradually turns into forbidding desert. The well-kept highway shoots through the Sahel, offering increasingly dry vistas. Segou’s maize fields are soon replaced by millet, which is more resistant to drought, then by thorny scrub. By the time you cross the Niger River at Timbuktu, you have officially entered the Sahara Desert. Nothing but sand and rock remains.
Today, Mali mostly evokes war. Al Qaeda’s push for southern Mali, stopped by French forces, had at least one effect which its commanders surely did not expect: the outside world has become acutely interested in the western Sahel. Large flows of fresh aid money, including 5 billion from the European Commission, have been pledged.
But as I was driving up that road in late 2011, militant Islamists were the last things on my mind. A drought had hit the country earlier that year – and that wasn’t supposed to happen.
The Sahel used to experience droughts roughly every ten years. There had been one in the mid 1970s, and then a terrible one in 1984-85 (that one prompted Bob Geldof to organise Live Aid). Other droughts came in 1994 and in 2003 – par for the course. But then things speeded up. Drought came in 2005 and 2009. Just two years later, we were experiencing yet another.
Over the centuries, the peoples of the Sahel have evolved complex customs to help them survive these occasional catastrophes. Tradition dictates that people must share their food with the least fortunate. Strict rules govern the use of water. Transgressions are harshly punished.
Read: EU should support local solutions to Sub-Saharan droughts | EurActiv
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