Story
Burkina Faso
World Bank–Supported Project Increases Productivity and Reduces Conflicts in Sahel
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ocated in the heart of West Africa, Burkina Faso is endowed with natural habitats such as gallery forests, sacred forests, nature reserves, and wetlands. Particularly notable sites include the Pics de Sindou, the Karfiguela Waterfall, the Sacred Dafra Pond, and the Tengréla Lake. Many of these sites are threatened, in addition to species such as panthers, elephants, crocodiles, and pythons. Over the years, high pressure on the natural resource base and the environment caused rapid degradation. Deforestation alone claims an estimated 10,000 hectares per year. A World Bank–funded project focusing on lowland areas in selected subwatersheds in Burkina Faso has demonstrated how communities can improve the productive capacity of rural resources. Through sustainable conservation of biological and agricultural diversity and rehabilitation of soil and water resources, the Burkinabe were able to simultaneously generate income and environmental benefits.
and by rewarding, while continuing to strengthen, individual and collective know-how.
The Sahel Integrated Lowland Ecosystem Management (SILEM) Project pioneered the concept of biodiversity in production landscape. It created and catalyzed community dynamics for the sustainable management of natural resources at the microwatershed level by implementing incentives, creating an investment framework consistent with the country’s priorities,
Around 160 villages benefited from investment funds to support various natural resource management activities that included soil and agriculture techniques, water conservation technologies, livestock and fishery management, reforestation and forest management techniques, and natural resource protection.
L and for Life . POVERT Y
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