Biannual report 2021-22

BIANNUAL REPORT

SAHEL AND WEST AFRICA

Club Secretariat 1

CONTENTS

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01

LESSONS LEARNED

02

LEARNING BY DOING

03

SWAC STATS

A LOOK BACK AT FOUR YEARS OF PRESIDENCY

MONITORING AND EVALUATION IN 2021-22

KEY FIGURES FOR 2021-22

p.6 p.8 p.11

04 MANAGING OUR RESOURCES

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05

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INFORMING ACTION

06 CONNECTING THE DOTS

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07

WIDENING THE CIRCLE

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08

FORTY YEARS ON...

AND THE END OF AN ERA

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ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

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ABORNE

African Borderlands Research Network

ACLED

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project

AfCFTA

African Continental Free Trade Area

AfDB

African Development Bank

AUDA-NEPAD

African Union Development Agency

CH

Cadre harmonisé

COP26

26th United Nations Climate Change Conference

COP27

27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

DAC

Development Assistance Committee

DSNA

Dynamic Social Network Analysis

EAT

ECOWAS Agricultural Trade

FNS

Food and Nutrition Security

HDP

Humanitarian-Development-Peace

IOM

International Organisation for Migration

ITF

International Transport Forum

M&E

Monitoring and Evaluation

MAPTA

Mapping Territorial Transformations in Africa

NDC

Nationally Determined Contributions

OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

PREGEC

Charter for Food Crisis Prevention and Management in the Sahel and West Africa

RPCA

Food Crisis Prevention Network

SDC

Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation

SCDi

Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator

SDGs

Sustainable Development Goals

SIGI

Social Institutions and Gender Equality Index

SWAC

Sahel and West Africa Club

UNCCD

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

UNECA

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

WAP

West African Paper

WATHI

West Africa Citizen Think Tank

WB

World Bank

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01

LESSONS LEARNED

A LOOK BACK AT FOUR YEARS OF PRESIDENCY

The duty and urgency to act The Sahel and West Africa region is undoubtedly facing a major food crisis that grew enormously during my mandate. From approximately 9.4 million people in need of food and nutrition assistance in 2019, this figure reached 38.3 million during the 2022 lean season (June-August). Our region is facing an overlap of crises with food, security, health, socio-economic, political and climatic overtones. This context obviously requires multiple and integrated responses and therefore questions our ability to act in a holistic and systemic manner. In this approach, emergency interventions are certainly useful to alleviate the suffering of the moment, but the most important thing should be our ability to anticipate and prevent. This should encourage us to work collectively to change the paradigm and to act differently in the face of these interconnected crises. This is why I welcome the Club’s decision to endow its Secretariat with a programme dedicated to food systems and, in my new capacity as Special Envoy of the African Union for this theme, I am already looking forward to future collaboration.

Re-territorialising public policies In recent years, I have learned that we need to put our understanding of the rural exodus into perspective and that the in-situ transformation of rural towns into small and medium-sized cities is a powerful force in the dynamics of urbanisation. The African urban transition that is taking place before our eyes could have the consequence of facilitating a better networking of the territory, through a regrouping of basic services making them more accessible to populations far from the capitals. This would lead to greater territorial equity and therefore social cohesion.

Given that the standard of living of city dwellers is higher than that of the countries in which they live, African cities become de facto development interfaces. It should be noted that West African cities and the countryside are intimately linked, forming what could be called the ‘rurban’. Public policies must therefore get rid of the binary prism opposing the urban and the rural. Finally, cities have a strong potential for climate action, cross-border co-operation and regional integration, and a role to play in the face of transnational political violence.

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Co-constructing modes of governance and management of public life in line with realities More recently, I had the honour of sponsoring the “Sahelian Consultations”, a joint reflection exercise carried out with many think tanks in the region. The point of view of non-governmental actors is valuable because it allows us to deconstruct practices that have been rendered obsolete by powerful structural and cyclical dynamics. Their perspectives make it possible to identify new forms of governance in public life. For we must face the fact that the time of the monopoly of governance held by the central state is now over. It is in endogenous, contextualised approaches that are open to all, and therefore more in tune with realities, that we must draw the inspiration for the desired positive trajectories.

A relevant Club in times of global uncertainty In addition to the escalating security tensions that are putting the Sahel to the test, my mandate has been marked by the Covid-19 pandemic that has spared no one. The Russia-Ukraine conflict, although geographically distant, has invited itself into the region, aggravating the problem of agricultural input supplies. All these crises affect the region economically, socially, and politically, with soaring inflation and high living costs being palpable examples. Even if these crises have nothing to do with the droughts of the 1970s, they are a reminder that the reasons that motivated the creation of the Club are still relevant today.

Observing, understanding, and anticipating are part of its DNA. It is therefore time to act collectively, using the Club’s platform, to prepare the region to better prevent such crises - and to resist them. The Club’s capacity to adapt and its understanding of the complex dynamics of transformation are assets that can help the region to develop more centred ambitions. Beyond knowledge, it is up to Members and partners to work together tirelessly to give shape to such ideals and

above all to make them a reality. By staying the course, the relevance of the Club will always remain.

It is now time for me to hand over the reins to Rosine Sori Coulibaly to take up this challenge. As the Club’s new Honorary President, she brings her experience and vision as a Sahelian and West African, her knowledge of regional and international political networks, and her strength of conviction. The Club is in excellent hands.

Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki Honorary President (2019-22)

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02

LEARNING BY DOING

MONITORING AND EVALUATION IN 2021-22

Approach and process In 2020, the Secretariat began to build its capacity in monitoring and evaluation (M&E), working to design a strategy that met the expectations of Members and compatible with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s results-based management framework. This collective exercise culminated in the implementation of M&E plans to better assess the influence of the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC)’s work.

The overarching objective is to contribute to improving the living conditions of populations in the Sahel and West Africa through strengthening their capacity to analyse and understand West African challenges and contributing technically to the adaptation of public policies to better address these challenges. To document these results, three evaluation exercises were conducted during the 2021-22 biennium. Through online 1 surveys and targeted interviews, they involved no less than 690 respondents and 31 interviewees. The feedback was analysed, leading to several feedback and strategic reflection sessions.

Results

Uses and perceived usefulness of SWAC's work Trends from interviews and surveys show that the work produced by the SWAC Secretariat is useful to Members and partners and supports their policy, strategic and technical decision-making.

The statistical and factual data, the results of aggregated research and the level of granularity of the analysis produced, provide them with knowledge that they can use to feed, evaluate, and adapt to their policies.

Undeniably, the political dialogue it generates contributes to the framing and sequencing of their interventions. This is particularly true of the data produced by the Food Crisis Prevention Network (RPCA)’s Cadre harmonisé (CH) which is the most frequently ‘used’ by Members and partners, but not the only such example.

The agility to combine long and short-term analysis, the wide thematic spectrum covered, the spatial visualisations and the innovative methodologies are considered as «trademarks» which constitute the DNA of the Secretariat and make it an influential player in this sphere.

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Approach Three factors hindered the full achievement of the objectives set for monitoring and evaluation: From a methodological point of view, documenting the capacity building of beneficiaries (in terms of understanding, sensitivity, use, etc.) remains feasible and relevant. Once this is done, however, it is much more difficult to assess to what degree and in what ways these changes contribute to influencing public policies. The literature review of Members’ and partners’ strategies did not provide the expected results to objectively assess SWAC’s level of influence on policy, despite the Secretariat being invited to contribute to multiple elaborations or reflections on their Africa-related strategies. As a result, this approach was adjusted during the biennium.

Finally, on the monitoring-evaluation cycle, what seems most interesting to evaluate is the influence exerted by the SWAC over time to gauge its capacity to “resonate” with public policy. However, reporting requirements on a biennial basis are not well adapted to this time scale.

For these reasons, the SWAC Secretariat will focus on the production of capitalisation documents to review and analyse, over time, how SWAC's work has inspired debate and policy over time.

1 Not all thematic areas approached the exercise using the same methodological tools.

2 The results presented here are a summary of the general trends that emerged from the three online surveys and the two rounds of targeted interviews. While they encompass all of the work provided by the Secretariat, they are particularly relevant to the "Security" and "Regional Governance of Food Security and Nutrition" programmes.

The Secretariat continues to work towards a fully integrated culture of monitoring and evaluation, and continues to make progress in this area despite limited resources.

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Performance and efficiency In 2021-22, the Secretariat has decided to monitor and quantify progress on certain cross-cutting dimensions of its work:

In the area of communication, the database of contacts invited to participate in dialogue events or to receive the SWAC’s work grew by 43% during the biennium, including 209 new civil society contacts and 310 new women’s contacts from all organisations.

209

NEW CIVIL SOCIETY CONTACTS

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SWAC STATS Key figures for 2021-22

In terms of policy dialogue, the SWAC’s level of participation in international events and the number of dialogue meetings organised by the Club increased by 123% and 84% respectively compared to the previous biennium. This strong increase is largely due to the democratisation of the use of webinars since the Covid-19 pandemic.

310

NEW WOMEN’S CONTACTS

*Does not include MAPTA which went live in the second half of 2022.

Finally, on gender, the Secretariat produced more than double the number of women’s or gendersensitive analyses in this biennium than in 2019-20. The number of dialogue events dedicated to women and gender grew by more than 40% over the same period.

Please see the ‘Zoom on Gender’ section for more information on the Secretariat’s work on gender.

“When you are designing public policies, the most important thing is to be informed. In all the organisations where I have worked, I have been able to benefit from the objective contribution of the SWAC’s productions, which are well disseminated. With a broad thematic and geographical spectrum, the work allows me to confirm my intuitions or put them into perspective. Today…the Club is the main provider of knowledge for the Coalition's ‘knowledge’ pillar. ” Jérôme Spinoza Deputy Secretary General of the Coalition for the Sahel

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MANAGING OUR RESOURCES

Having seen the Covid-19 pandemic dramatically change how we manage our expenditure – particularly in 2020 – the 2021-22 biennium saw SWAC slowly return towards a typical functioning of the Secretariat, and the management of its resources.

2021-2022

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INFORMING ACTION

The Secretariat produces and collects data and information to generate evidence-based analysis and feed policy dialogue. The lack of or the poor quality of statistical data can be compensated by the investment in innovation, such as processing multiple sources, applying spatial modelling techniques or using complementary methodology such as Social Network Analysis.

The 2021-22 biennium posed numerous challenges in this regard, as interlinked crises swept the region and the Secretariat responded with data and information for policymakers and stakeholders.

Most notably this meant we were progressively able to conduct more missions and participate in and host more events as the world began and continues to recover. As such we were able to execute 89% of the foreseen 202122 budget, as per the table which consolidates the financial reports of 2021 and 2022.

The Secretariat continued to harness its position within the OECD in the delivery of its Outputs, continuing to work alongside the Development Cluster and developing a partnership with the International Transport Forum (ITF) and Environment Directorate (ENV) during the biennium. With the OECD’s 2022 Ministerial Council statement reinforcing the need and commitment for further engagement with Africa, the Secretariat has also had the opportunity to contribute to this reflection on how the OECD and its Members can successfully engage with the African continent and contribute to its improved economic development and social wellbeing.

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As food and nutrition security (FNS) remains a permanent emergency, the Secretariat set about strengthening information available for better co-ordination and alignment in this area, adding over 500 new project and programme records into the FNS

and resilience interventions database as well as contributing to the facilitation of dialogue on co-ordination. These tools help stakeholders to work differently by strengthening synergies and complementarities. Faced with Covid-19 exacerbating the situation further, the Secretariat also collated data on the effects of the pandemic on the pastoral situation. Contributing to a new version of the “Set of instruments for the prevention and management of food and nutrition crises” also provided an opportunity to lay out the not only preventative mechanisms but holistic response mechanisms to food security shocks be they security, economic or climate related.

% EXPENDITURE

Urbanisation is transforming territories, economies and societies. Rural areas that are closer and better connected to cities and towns have more productive local economies, more access to services and infrastructure and are more resilient in the face of climate change. Analysing the intensification of rural-urban linkages is therefore crucial to informing policies across the board.

Green spaces deliver ecosystem services that boost cities’ resilience to climate change and strengthen their sustainability. For example, they can lessen the impacts of extreme weather events and help reduce air pollution in urban agglomerations in Africa. The Secretariat’s prior work shows that these spaces are being lost as urban agglomerations become increasingly compact. However, data on the availability of green spaces in African urban agglomerations is largely absent, and so the Secretariat set about trying to fill the gap by combining the European Space Agency’s WorldCover map and its own Africapolis database — and making it publicly available to actors via the MAPTA platform.

The increase in missions and events also allowed us to return to a more typical distribution of our Staff (60%) / Non-Staff (40%) costs.

In doing so, the Secretariat mapped data on the availability of green spaces in African urban agglomerations at a very fine scale, providing the foundations for simplified indicators (% availability of green space or trees in nearly 6 000 agglomerations). Future updates are already underway and will be done regularly when new data becomes available enabling actors to track developments overtime.

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The Secretariat’s Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator (SCDi), is a tool that

measures and categorises the geography of political violence over an area, shining a light on patterns of violence that are rapidly shifting across the region. It uses ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project) data from 1997 to the present. The SCDi combines the intensity and concentration of violence to identify and map four categories of conflict and their evolution at the regional and local levels.

The Secretariat strives to produce more up-to-date and granular data to better measure, understand and accompany these evolving changes. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at some of the data produced in 2021-22.

Preventing and managing food crises efficiently In a context marked by multifactorial food and nutrition crises, linked to a combination of shocks of various kinds (climatic, socio-economic, security, health), the signatories of the Charter for Food Crisis Prevention and Management in the Sahel and West Africa (PREGEC) agreed to update in 2022 the set of instruments for food crisis management adopted in 2013.

The Secretariat has assisted in the formulation of a new version of this tool, now called "Set of instruments for the prevention and management of food and nutrition crises" structured in four components:

support for prevention mechanisms direct and immediate support to populations affected by food and nutrition insecurity support for rehabilitation, livelihood reconstruction and resilience information systems for food and nutrition crisis prevention, preparedness and management crises.

“ If for example we suspect an impact in northern Nigeria of conflicts in the tri-border area, we have this indicator that allows us to clearly indicate that the two dynamics are likely to percolate over time. This indicator allows us to deliver a strong message based on facts. ”

More ambitious than the 2013 version, the Set of instruments allows for a better response to the specific needs of women, particularly heads of household, internally displaced persons, widows, divorcees, those with disabilities, the elderly and victims of genderbased violence. Some of the Set tools provide for a more balanced representation of men and women in the conduct of surveys and other data collection operations. The Set also provides users with intervention methods adapted to hard-to-reach areas of insecurity, including for internally displaced persons.

Jérôme Spinoza, Deputy Secretary General of the Coalition for the Sahel

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Visualising urbanisation in Africa The Africapolis platform provides policy makers and researchers with unparalleled data, visualisations and insight into urban dynamics in Africa. The 9 200 urban agglomerations recorded in the 54 countries of the continent since 1950 highlight the diversity and scale of ongoing transformations, providing a solid basis for the design of sustainable and inclusive territorial and urban development policies. During the biennium, in addition to the new design, the platform has been enriched with new content and features, including: four new countries, three new sections and new data and visualisations.

FOUR NEW COUNTRIES

The Secretariat is continuously improving and updating the data to further develop its relevance for policy analyses and action. The development of new parameters in the

Africapolis database will allow the integration of other data produced by the SWAC or others over time. New collaborations, functionalities and cartographic visuals will also be added to the website.

In parallel, the Secretariat has updated the African urbanisation portal it runs on the OECD website, making the most of the OECD’s wider audience. The portal provides quick access to key information, expert voices and data.

1 COUNTRY PROFILES

Mauritius

2 DATA EXPLORER

Seychelles Comoros

THREE NEW SECTIONS

The increasing use of Africapolis by researchers working on a range of topics beyond urbanisation, including health, food and environment highlights its relevance for better understanding urbanisation in Africa and its implications across sectors.

3 DATA VISUALISATION Madagascar

All 54 African countries are now covered

NEW DATA and VISUALS Historical demographic data from 1950 Socio-economic indicators

VISITORS FROM 175 COUNTRIES

AFRICAPOLIS USERS

Interactive visualisation of population and agglomeration growth

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Mapping Territorial Transformations in Africa (MAPTA)

Continuing health monitoring

The Secretariat launched the Mapping Territorial Transformations in Africa (MAPTA) platform, which offers a spatial and temporal visualisation of the analyses and data from its reports. MAPTA is an interactive tool for advocacy and policymaking.

The Secretariat set up a monitoring system as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic appeared.

During the last biennium, four notes were produced and previewed to Members and funding partners. They provide an overview of the supply of vaccines through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms, including the COVAX facility, and show the diversification strategies of countries in the region in the supply of vaccines.

It aims to provide a dynamic view of the evolution of several dimensions of insecurity and facilitates a comparative understanding of territorial vulnerabilities. The Security tab, for example, allows us to decipher the particular role of borders in the spread of conflicts in North and West Africa. The Climate tab enables users to visualise the availability of green spaces and the compactness of urban agglomerations across the continent. The data and maps available on the platform should be regularly updated and are free to download. A gendered approach will be favoured if the data exists in a disaggregated manner. The data is used to analyse conflicts, gender or environmental issues.

They analyse the obstacles to widespread vaccination and the accounting of pandemicrelated infections and deaths, highlighting the difficulties of reporting on actual developments in the pandemic - including more recent waves related to the spread of the Delta variant among young populations. In the absence of reliable statistics, estimates show that the number of infections is seven times higher and the excess mortality rate six times higher than that recorded by the authorities.

Africa remains the least vaccinated continent in the world, and this significant delay is due to a number of factors, including a lack of vaccine supply, misinformation, inadequate testing and weak health systems.

GREEN SPACES

L‘Afrique de l’Ouest rend l’usage du masque obligatoire

Despite the lack of vaccine supply, approximately

73 million

URBAN GREEN SPACE

0%

50%

“ MAPTA is an easy tool to use, allowing me to extract data for my own use. I wish this exercise was conducted for the entire OECD. ” Catherine Gamper, Climate Change Adaptation Specialist at the OECD Environment Directorate

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Plus d’un tier des ménages ouest-africains ne disposent pas d’une installation de base pour le lavage des mains

100%

vaccine doses were left unadministered in West African countries between February 2021 and March 2023 because of a late campaign rollout (due to a lack of supply) and most notably misinformation and disinformation

Les dépenses du filet de sécurité sociale restent trop faibles

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CONNECTING THE DOTS

Once the data and information collected have been analysed, they can be used to decipher the changes and crises underway, in support of regional public policies and international strategies.

Changes in rainfall levels, increasingly frequent extreme temperatures and rising sea levels are already having a severe impact on African territories. Faced with these great variations and vulnerabilities that characterise climate change and its effects, African cities must continue to prepare, especially as they will have a leading role to play in a context of rapid demographic growth and urbanisation in countries where both economic and social systems are already fragile.

The effects of climate change vary from one country and one city to another. While it is a shared global challenge, responses to climate change, in terms of both adaptation and mitigation, depend on local actions and their co-ordination with national governments.

For the African continent, which is highly exposed to the effects of climate change yet contributes less than the other continents to global emissions, a fair transition, particularly regarding energy, must be conceived in accordance with the announcements made at the European Union-African Union Summit and at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.

Geographical disparities and opportunities are not yet sufficiently informed which hinders systematic and effective climate action. The environmental data produced and mapped for the 9,200 urban agglomerations that emerged between 1950 and 2015, as identified by Africapolis, is helping to bring together local and national knowledge to inform more integrated climate and urban policies.

Spatial data and analysis illustrates an evolution of violence from urban areas to rural ones on the periphery of urban hubs and secondary cities in particular. This is the result of a drop in violence in North Africa (mainly urban) and the development of extremist groups in West Africa. Local, place-based, and contextualised policies are therefore critical to address the origins of political violence, now and in the future.

Based on the information on food and nutrition prospects produced by the RPCA (co-managed by the Secretariat and CILSS), SWAC, the European Union and the Global Network Against Food Crisis co-organised on 6 April 2022 in Paris a High-Level meeting on “Food and nutrition crises in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions: Time to act now and better mobilise in West Africa for the future”.

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Strengthening intersectoral synergies and integrated assistance packages is necessary for more effective emergency responses. Food and nutrition assistance alone will not solve these crises and must be combined with responses that are aimed at addressing the root causes and taking into consideration the structural transformations in the region, notably urbanisation.

Cities and the links to their rural surroundings will therefore remain crucial and at the forefront of data production and analysis within the Secretariat. An even better understanding of these linkages will place the Secretariat in a position to anticipate the economic, developmental, and societal transformations that are occurring in the region, fulfilling the mandate set out by SWAC Members and contributing to the overall objective of improving the living conditions of the Sahel and West African population.

Transformations in food systems In April 2021, the Secretariat published a Maps & Facts entitled “Transforming Food Systems in the Sahel and West Africa: Implications for People and Policies.” This edition analyses the implications for people and policies of the triple challenge facing food systems in the region:

ENSURING FOOD SECURITY FOR ALL ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE ENSURING INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT Food systems are becoming more complex and are undergoing profound changes due to population growth, urbanisation and the resulting changes in consumption patterns. While the food economy remains vulnerable, it also represents new business and employment opportunities. The Secretariat facilitates a shared understanding of these challenges and works towards the formulation of innovative public food policies through a comprehensive approach to promote sustainable and resilient food systems at the regional level. These analyses of structural changes have made it possible to highlight the specificities of the region and to contribute to the international food agenda. Thus, ahead of the United Nations Summit on Food Systems, the Secretariat brought together the Club’s Members and financial partners on 18 May 2021 to present its reflections, discuss the challenges specific to the region and exchange views on the African contribution to the process of developing the common position facilitated by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD).

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ONE-THIRD OF WEST AFRICAN CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE ARE STUNTED

SWAC is a valuable partner for the GIZ ECOWAS Agricultural Trade (EAT) programme due to its strong analytical understanding of the food-trade, food and nutrition security and development dynamics, which is grounded in a long experience working on the region and on cross-sectional insights.

It achieves sustainable results that will also be there five years from now.

It has an influence on a variety of GIZ work, notably on food and nutrition security early warning and agricultural policies.

According to the Global Nutrition Report, nearly onethird of West African children in 2020 were stunted, with a strong link between stunting and household wealth. Average stunting rates for children living in the poorest households are more than twice those of children living in the richest households. The largest gap is in Nigeria, where the prevalence of stunting is three times higher in the poorest households.

Inadequate access to health care, poor nutrition education and poor quality diets are determining factors. Nutritious foods are beyond the financial reach of a large majority of poor households in the region, and there is wide variation between and within countries in terms of affordability. More appropriate metrics, including measures of food affordability, would be needed to address food security and nutrition issues more effectively.

WOMEN AND THE FOOD ECONOMY IN THE SAHEL AND WEST AFRICA

Arne Schuffenhauer, GIZ, EAT Program Lead

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The economic power of Africa’s cities Africa’s cities are the most rapidly growing cities in the world; they are the youngest and they are changing fast. Their impact on the continent’s economic, social and political development in the coming decades is likely to be profound. Africa’s urban transition presents immense opportunities to accelerate progress towards 2030 and 2063 development agendas and for promoting continental integration in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), while posing significant challenges for African policymakers in planning, managing and financing urban growth at both local and national levels.

A collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the 2022 report Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics: The Economic Power of Africa’s Cities provides a new perspective on Africa’s urban economies that is unique in its breadth and level of detail. Based on data collected from more than 4 million individuals and businesses in 2 600 cities in 34 countries, the report shows that urbanisation contributes to improved economic performance and living standards.

4 MILLION INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES

2 600 CITIES

34 COUNTRIES

In most socio-economic dimensions, cities perform significantly better than the countries in which they are located. The benefits of urbanisation on economic performance and quality of life extend beyond a city’s boundaries to its surrounding rural areas. In addition, transnational urban clusters are emerging along the coasts as well as in the interior of the continent, offering new opportunities for economic development.

Data promoting more sustainable policies in cities In a context of demographic growth and rapid urbanisation of the territory, African cities must continue to prepare for current and future climate risks or risk crystallising systems that are already weakened. In order to promote the resilience of cities to climate change, the Secretariat has conducted a study on the role of green spaces in the urban context and their potential to contribute to strategies for combating air pollution and heat waves, and ultimately to improve the quality of life of inhabitants. This study was published in English in the West African Paper (WAP) "Boosting African cities' resilience to climate change: The role of green spaces”.

At the 27th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP27), the Secretariat was selected by the OECD Secretary-General to represent the organisation. It was invited to speak at two sessions organised by the African Climate Mobility Pavilion, where its analysis of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of West African countries was discussed, before being published in the form of a WAP, “West Africa and the Global Climate Agenda”.

The Secretariat also organised a virtual seminar on “Using data to improve resilience and sustainability of African cities” with Luc Gnacadja, Founder & President of the Thinkand-do-tank GPS-Dev (Governance & Policies for Sust Dev), Past UNCCD Executive Secretary, Former Minister of Environment, Benin as a key panelist who set the scene on the role that data could play in reinforcing the adaptation challenges in African cities.

Urbanisation improves access to infrastructure, services and economic opportunities by raising people’s standard of living and increasing the human capital needed for the transition to a quality jobs economy. Cities are also incubators of socio-cultural change. In terms of public policy, the aim is to capitalise on the economic and social potential of African cities so that they can fully play their role as economic centres and vectors of integration on the continent.

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Networks, borders and conflicts

“The scarcity of urban green spaces is not a huge issue the Sahel is currently facing, whereas many cities in OECD countries are starting to prioritise green spaces to reduce the exposure of urban areas to climate related risks and mitigate climate change. The data obtained from Ghana is as useful in informing policy discussions in an OECD context as they are in the Sahel. Vice-versa, through a closer collaboration, we hope to be able to inspire action for urban areas in the Sahel by demonstrating what some cities in the OECD context have been putting forward. I would therefore hugely encourage us to continue collaborating and exchanging on this and related issues.”

Catherine Gamper, Climate Change Adaptation Specialist at the OECD Environment Directorate

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In the security field, the Secretariat uses Dynamic Social Network Analysis (DSNA).

This methodology makes it possible to understand the great complexity and extreme volatility that characterises conflict dynamics through a relational prism. DSNA facilitates an assessment of the social capital of individuals or groups by observing their relationships with other actors in the network and their impact on the evolution of violence (see Conflict Networks in North and West Africa).

The Secretariat has also favoured a spatial approach to security issues for many years, combining case studies and regional perspectives to deliver territorialised policy options. Thanks to the SDCi, which maps violence over time (from the end of the 1990s to the present day) and in space using ACLED geospatial data. This flexible tool facilitates comparative studies between conflict zones (Lake Chad, Liptako-Gourma and Libya). It was further developed in the report Borders and Conflicts in North and West Africa launched at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022 during an event entitled «Are border areas more violent? Mapping Political Violence in North and West Africa».

This report in the West African Studies series looks at the violence in crossborder spaces that has intensified in the last two years and the development of the transnational dimension of violent groups, adding another key spatial dimension into its analysis.

These and other aspects of the Secretariat’s work informed the Secretariat’s contribution to the 10th Meeting of Special Envoys for the Sahel, which took place on 16-17 March 2022 at Casa Africa in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, on the theme of “Lessons learned from working with our partners and proposals for the future in the Sahel”.

The SDCi allows policy makers to identify key areas of violence and track their evolution over time and across the region… the SWAC approach is quite unique among large international partners, who tend to focus on short-term, country-based programmes. This sustained interest in the region has allowed us to build a relationship of trust... the results of which for the policy-making community are clear.”

Olivier Walther, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida

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WIDENING THE CIRCLE

The lessons learned from these analyses feed into a rich and inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue, in line with the priorities of the Club’s Members and financial partners and the international development agenda. In 2021-22, the Secretariat focused on widening its close circle of partners by targeting areas of stakeholder engagement to increase the impact of its work. With the world opening once again post Covid-19, we took our work on the road, conducting 42 missions over the course of 2021-22 (mainly in 2022).

Continuing and furthering the discussion on a narrative on the Sahel and West Africa in multiple contexts involved working to ensure the Secretariat’s work reaches a variety of actors including high-level dialogues, but also ensuring greater involvement of non-state actors in strategic dialogue, too — such as the world of academia.

At a high-level, the Secretariat co-organised numerous policy dialogues during 2021-22, from tackling gender-based discrimination in social institutions to the meeting on food and nutrition crises in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions. It also supported the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by moderating a consultation on mobile livestock systems and took its work on security to numerous high-level fora such as the Coalition for the Sahel seminar and the Munich Security Conference.

“SWAC is a valuable partner for the ECOWAS Agricultural Trade (EAT) program due to its mandate to work with ECOWAS and in the West African region, combined with a longterm relationship with regional institutions such as the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) to further strengthen engagement, and collaboration. Its existing multi-actor dialogue platforms ensure crosssectional, lasting, and sustainable impact”.

Arne Schuffenhauer, GIZ, EAT Programme Lead

The biennium also saw the Secretariat further its close relationship with the research community, where amongst other events, it presented Africapolis to the ‘African Urbanities’

by ETH Zurich and hosted the annual meeting of the African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) at the OECD. There, the community exchanged views on security and cross-border trade to, amongst other objectives, shed light on the debates surrounding free trade and the opening of borders that it entails.

Harnessing its position within the OECD and its Development Cluster, the Secretariat organised and participated in numerous events over the course of the biennium – presenting its work to the OECD Council and acting as a partner in the organisation of the 2021 Africa Forum alongside the OECD Development Centre, the Republic of Senegal and the African Union. There were also four RPCA meetings organised by the Secretariat as well as numerous DevTalks and Development Assistance Committee (DAC) events which the Secretariat contributed to.

The Secretariat is also involved in an ongoing manner in helping outline the way forward in formalising an Africa-OECD Partnership, notably contributing to consultation with key stakeholders in constructing the OECD’s initial partnership with the African Union.

By continuing to diversify the Secretariat’s readership and network, the reach of its work is widened to achieve a more integrated and systemic understanding of Sahelian and West African issues by Members and partners.

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Mobilising and acting collectively in the face of food crises Anchored in a base of fragility and uncertainty across climatic, economic, social and security issues — food and nutrition crises continue, year after year, to unsettle Sahelian and West African countries.

In addition, the leaders of the region and their partners have collectively committed to operationalising the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus; as a priority in the frontline security countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria). Since then, the Secretariat and CILSS have been leading a working group to support the regional organisations and governments concerned. A Guidance Note and a Methodological Guide for conducting inclusive HDP diagnostics for use by countries have already been produced.

Between 2018 and 2022, the number of people in need of food assistance rose from around 10 to almost 40 million. In 2022, in partnership with the European Union and the Global Network Against Food Crises, SWAC called for mobilisation.

On 6 April 2022, hundreds of institutions and political leaders gathered around H.E. Mohamed Bazoum, President of the Republic of Niger and Chairman of the UEMOA High Level Committee on Food and Nutrition Security. EUR 2.5 billion were pledged, 53% of which came from SWAC Members and partners to urgently address the current crisis and support structural policies that tackle the root causes of food and nutrition crises. In December 2022, these commitments were increased to EUR 4.58 billion. This was in addition to the political announcements and efforts made by the countries of the region and their organisations.

Sahelian Consultations The Sahelian Consultations are a pilot foresight exercise at a time when the region is facing unprecedented crises.

The exercise provided a platform for open exchange between those in the region who are reflecting upon the complex equation of development, governance and stability, underlined in the booklet "Sahel to Come: What today tells us about tomorrow". Under the guidance of Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the Consultations were steered by an Advisory Board.

Faced with the scale of the changes and challenges, governments do not and will not have the means to produce and implement all public policies alone.

The era of co-construction of these policies has undoubtedly arrived. How can this change be achieved? Plurality of actors, new alliances, hybridity of practices, reconfiguration of territories; the consultations formulated avenues of change that can be found in its proceedings, “Niamey, et les deux jours?”.

As an extension of this exercise, the Secretariat began in October 2022 to co-produce a series of virtual dialogues and round tables with the West Africa Citizen Think Tank (WATHI). These public conversations feature experts on themes crucial to the future of Sahelian societies, putting knowledge at the heart of the debate and disseminating the reflections and field experiences of invited academics, civil society actors, private sector professionals and government representatives to a wide audience. All conversations can be viewed online on a dedicated page of the WATHI website.

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International Network for African Border Research Founded in 2007, ABORNE is an interdisciplinary network of researchers interested in all aspects of international borders and cross-border phenomena in Africa. On 19 and 20 September 2022, the Secretariat hosted the annual meeting of the Network at the OECD. On this occasion, some sixty participants exchanged views on security and cross-border trade in order to promote a better understanding of border areas and to shed light on the debates surrounding free trade and the opening of borders that it entails.

Through multidisciplinary scholarly discussions and study presentations, ABORNE develops common theoretical perspectives on African cross-border phenomena. Initiatives to integrate the continent and facilitate trade are confronted with the informality of trade within these dense spaces of movement of people and goods and the deterioration of security. This has major implications for local livelihoods, regional supply chains and global trade networks.

Building synergies with the International Transport Forum (ITF) and Ghanaian researchers on gender and sustainable accessible transport African cities are urbanising rapidly. Transport infrastructure often fails to keep pace, leading to disconnected cities with low accessibility, making it hard for people to reach the places they need to be. Often, low accessibility in cities disproportionally impacts women because of their different mobility needs. Accessible cities (for all) pave the way for sustainable and resilient transport systems, yet it is often difficult to offer recommendations to cities on how to move in this direction because of a lack of data, especially with respect to gender.

The Secretariat works alongside Ghanian researchers to collect gender-sensitive mobility data in Accra and Kumasi and spatially model the accessibility of cities via different modes of transport to various services such as hospitals, schools, key transport hubs, markets, and green spaces. The work is conducted in collaboration with the ITF, also hosted by the OECD.

This fruitful collaboration has given an opportunity to do things differently in our work. We were able to train our students on new techniques regarding field data collection… and also on the ethics of research.

We have the resources to train them to become gender specialists by including gender sensitivity into research formulation and data collection.

There is now a space to incorporate new learnings into future research”.

“We have been contacted on numerous occasions by other international organisations wishing to use our work, in particular the Coalition for the Sahel, the African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE), the United Nations Centre, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the World Bank (WB), who wish to apply our indicator of the spatial dynamics of conflict.”

Dr Ernest Agyemang, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography and Dr Kwadwo Owusu, Director of the Centre for Climate Change & Sustainability Studies at the University of Ghana (Accra)

Olivier Walther, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida

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Zoom on gender The Secretariat integrates the gender dimension in a transversal way in all its programmes.

It has done a great deal of work in this area, whether it be using sex-disaggregated data, the publication of gender analysis or the facilitation of dialogue and advocacy on this issue. Events and materials on gender equality trends in the region have been compiled on a dedicated page on the SWAC website. It lists the work of the Secretariat, as well as the gender policies of SWAC Members and funding partners and the national action plans of West African countries.

The main achievements of the 2021-22 biennium include A DEV Talk on “Women and Conflict in West Africa”, co-organised with the OECD

Development Centre in the framework of the OECD March on Gender 2021 initiative.

A series of technical and policy dialogues on the Social Institutions and Gender Equality Index (SIGI) initiated in partnership with the OECD Development Centre and in collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

A roundtable on “Promoting Positive Gender Norms in Africa: Effective Approaches for Development Partners”, co-organised with the OECD Development Centre and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (DCD) as part of the OECD’s series of events celebrating International Women’s Day 2022.

A WAP on “Political Violence targeting women in West Africa”.

A WAP on “Financing for gender equality in the Sahel and West Africa”.

A podcast series entitled “Women Leading Change” which aims to better connect the Secretariat’s factual analysis with advocacy, dialogue and knowledge exchange efforts through the stories of women from civil society.

The Secretariat also works alongside Ghanian researchers to collect gender-sensitive mobility survey data in Accra and Kumasi (see above).

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FORTY YEARS ON...

AND THE END OF AN ERA

West Africa is very different from what it was four decades ago when I started my career, and it is not the climate, food, security, or health crises that have changed face.

The fundamental change, the one that history will remember, is the demographic growth: 300 million additional souls. It took the region just 35 years to double its entire population. In Europe, such change took over two centuries (from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century); and took place over 70 years in China (between 1900 and 1970).

Understanding the history

What is happening in intertropical Africa is without parallel in world history. The extraordinary growth in the number of inhabitants is revolutionising human geography, economies and societies and the changes are so rapid that there is perpetual disequilibrium. These imbalances are amplified by global disorders that other parts of the world escaped when their population growth was at its highest. History will remember that West Africa - and more broadly tropical Africa — as the only region in the world to have to manage its demographic transition, its integration into the world economy and the consequences of climate change simultaneously. All this without being able to resort to mass emigration to relieve its demographic growth, as Europe or China did - without any hindrance — between the 18th and the first half of the 20th centuries.

In less than twenty years, the West African population will have grown by an additional 250 million people and passed the 700 million mark. Most of the population will be urban, and several hundred cities that do not yet exist will have appeared. Most of the population will still live in the informal sector; non-agricultural employment will be dominant; 75% of people will use a mobile phone, and more than 50% will have access to the internet. It will be hotter; the frequency of floods and localised droughts will have increased, while pressure on natural resources will be higher than today. We know this is going to happen.

How can we accompany these rapid transformations? How can we prepare for the future while managing the inevitable crises caused or exacerbated by the imbalances that the acceleration of history is causing?

My predecessors have already said this, and I choose to repeat it. First and foremost, we must accept what is inevitable. That is, we must put what we know about the future at the centre of the equation. If we do not understand the profound changes that are taking place, we cannot provide support. We must also accept that in societies in demographic transition, history moves much faster than in those whose population has stabilised. These are much longer-term ambitions than the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that must be adopted. Everything is possible in 30 or 40 years. Finally, the countries of the Sahel and West Africa must be considered for what they are at this point in history: countries in the process of settlement.

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These are much longer-term ambitions than the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that must be adopted. Everything is possible in 30 or 40 years. Finally, the countries of the Sahel and West Africa must be considered for what they are at this point in history: countries in the process of settlement. From then on, the objective of long-term sustainable settlement can be envisaged and translated into ambitious public policies. Is there any greater challenge than that of accommodating 250 million additional people in the next two decades?

A Club of knowledge, and therefore policy

For the Club then, the question is «how can we help meet this challenge? The history of this unique institution gives us the answer in two words: Productivity and Proactivity.

Being productive means preparing for structural changes and mutations by producing data and analysis and doing so in a way that allows no exceptions: not contradicting ‘truths’, nor bypassing obstacles with imagination and daring or nor changing scale to suit like adjusting a pair of binoculars.

Being proactive means bringing about desirable changes through dialogue. It means exchanging knowledge and comparing points of view and carefully listening to those in charge of public policy and asking how we can help them by accepting their contradictions.

This is what the Sahel and West Africa Club has done and must continue to do, while remaining free and uninhibited. It must continue to innovate. It must also dare - harder and faster - to feminise intelligence and dialogue. Gender is not a subject, but a barrier that divides and weakens and prevents the two legs of the body from standing up straight.

The shadow of violence How can we conclude without mentioning the terrible wave of violence that is engulfing the region? Tens of thousands of deaths, millions of people facing starvation and impotent states threatened with extinction. This shadow covers the horizon of an existential threat without parallel in the modern history of West Africa. The roots of the problem are not poverty and unemployment.

If that were true, almost the whole of tropical Africa would have been plunged into chaos long ago. Are we looking at the right problem? Are we looking at the problems in the right way? Why are some countries resisting and others collapsing?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I am firmly convinced that they lie in our understanding of our territories. The fragility and management of these territories — at all scales — are at the heart of an equation that can only be approached by thinking in the long term. Too much time has been wasted on the short term.

L.B

Laurent Bossard SWAC Director (2011-23)

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MEMBERS & PARTNERS The Strategy and Policy Group (SPG) is composed of our Members who are responsible for governing and monitoring our work. They meet once a year to define SWAC’s work priorities, approve activity and financial reports as well as our Programme of Work and Budget. They also provide financial contributions for the implementation of our work programme and nominate our Honorary President.

This position is currently held by Hadizatou Rosine Sori-Coulibaly.

The SWAC Secretariat is in charge of implementing the work programme.

Austria: Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs (BMEIA) - Austrian Development Agency (ADA)

Belgium: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation

Canada: Global Affairs Canada

CILSS:

Executive Secretariat of the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel

ECOWAS:

Commission of the Economic Community of West African States

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Netherlands: European Union

France : French Development Agency (AFD)

France:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development

Germany: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Luxembourg:

Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINBUZA)

Spain:

Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (ACEID)

Switzerland:

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)

UEMOA: Commission of the West African Economic and Monetary Union

United States: U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

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swac.contact@oecd.org

SAHEL AND WEST AFRICA

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Club Secretariat