Peace in the ground: How land degradation in the Sahel impacts Europe and what the EU can do about it

Abstract

The deterioration of security and humanitarian conditions in the Sahel region has widely acknowledged implications for the EU, and the strategic importance of tackling them has been established in EU strategies. Local land degradation sits at a nexus of the many challenges as it is a driver of poverty, famine, conflict, migration, poor governance, loss of biodiversity and climate change. A local framing of the issues makes it possible to identify the actions that can address them. The vast number of people engaged in land-based livelihoods offers the potential to halt and even reverse degradation. The main limiting factor for this is the lack of targeted financing. The EU can be a leader in this process through (1) integrating ecosystem health into existing programming; (2) designing new projects targeting sustainable land use; (3) supporting the development of monitoring systems that enable funding, including from carbon markets; and (4) lowering administrative barriers to partnerships.