Agriculture, biodiversity, land degradation and fragility in G5 Sahel
Description of project
As part of the Bank's strategy to address fragility and build resilience, RDTS was mandated to work with sectors that were particularly related to fragility. In order to develop awareness raising and provide technical assistance on how to ensure that the Bank's sector specialists and colleagues in selected countries/ministries were fragility aware and trained on how to ensure fragility-sensitive programming, RDTS aimed to increase the knowledge on how fragility impacted certain sectors and developed knowledge products accompanied by trainings on how to work in a fragility-sensitive manner.
The specific focus of the study was justified by the facts that: (i) the G5 countries were heavily impacted by fragility, (ii) the agricultural sector in the G5 countries was impacted by fragility and was impacting fragility, (iii) the African Development Bank led the Alliance for Sahel work group on Agriculture and Rural Development, (iv) The AfDB had a large agriculture portfolio in the G5 Sahel countries, and (v) the AfDB aimed to develop a baseline against which the objectives and indicators for rural development, agriculture, and food security could be assessed for effectiveness in the G5 countries. It was expected that the study would inform Bank agricultural operations in the G5 Sahel countries. Moreover, the study would be used to lead and impact the work of the Alliance for Sahel working group that the AfDB was heading, thus informing the broader development community and governments on the African continent, and in particular, the G5 Sahel countries.
Services provided
• Africa-specific study was conducted on how agriculture, land degradation, access to water, drought impacted fragility and resilience in Africa, and vice versa.
• Sector-specific study was conducted on how the African Government agricultural policies and implementation impacted this thematic in the G5 countries.
• Study was conducted on how AfDB was currently addressing this thematic via its agricultural strategy.
• Policy recommendations were provided from a fragility perspective.
• A knowledge and information base was developed against which progress and effectiveness in the rural development, agriculture, and food security subsector were monitored and assessed against the selected objectives and indicators in the G5 countries (See appendix 1). This involved (i) establishing an evidence-based methodology and effective data collection system and reporting forms for capturing information on the indicators, (ii) using the above methodology to identify qualitative and quantitative information, designing baseline socioeconomic surveys, and collecting baseline information relevant to monitoring those indicators, and (iii) identifying sources of verification. The survey used existing data sources as much as possible.
• Training material was developed for agricultural sector specialists to ensure that their design and implementation of agriculture strategies and projects were fragility-sensitive.