The Sahel in West Africa: countries in transition to a full market economy

Abstract

A dominant image of the West African Sahel is one of periodic, and sometimes permanent crisis in terms of food production, environmental degradation, provision of public services and education, and widespread poverty. Recent research, including the West Africa Long-Term Perspective Study (WALTPS) study, offers modifications to this view. Close observation demonstrates that the Sahel, far from stagnating, is undergoing profound change, which may take the form of progress in some areas, and crisis or even regression in others. Two changes of note are the 10-fold increase of the population within the span of a century, and the opening up of the region to the world economy, as globalization advances. These two factors are radically altering West African systems of production and are forcing States and civil society to change radically and quickly. The paper argues that, as has been the case for many other developing regions of the world, intra-regional and domestic migration, urbanization and the densification of population are necessary conditions for the transformation of agriculture, and contribute to long-term regional food security and to the improvement of living standards. Encouraging free circulation of people, goods and services requires that the Sahelian nations not be considered in isolation from the rest of the continent, as it is too often the case.