Senegal gets land management grant from WB
The World Bank has approved a three-year Global Environment Facility
(GEF) Trust Fund grant of USD4.8 million, to support Senegal
for a sustainable land management (SLM) Project.
According to Maniével Sène, the Task Team Leader, the project’s will
“contribute to the reduction of land degradation and the
improvement of ecosystem functions and services in the
Groundnut Basin of Senegal by adopting sustainable land management
practices through the provision of support to the research and
agricultural and rural consultation system and to producer
organisations’’.
He stated that this objective will be achieved by strengthening
research and advisory capacity to generate and disseminate SLM
messages, and by strengthening the ability of producer
organisations (POs) to link to agricultural technology systems,
apply new SLM practices, and participate in the formulation of
sector policies.
The main part of the grant will serve to strengthen the capacity of
producer organisations to integrate SLM in their production
systems and of POs’ leaders to integrate SLM in the
formulation of sectorial policies, to support the adoption of SLM
practices, and to provide financial resources to implement SLM
sub-projects.
The project will also convert 20,000 hectares of land to sustainable
management, meeting specified targets for improvement of soil quality.
Justifying the decision to integrate the grant to the IDA/IFAD
Agricultural services and producer organisations project (PSAOP2) Manievel
Sène argued that “the GEF grant will have more leverage in influencing the
policy dialogue and mainstreaming SLM into the agricultural sector if
integrated into the PSAOP2 instead of being a stand-alone project”. He recalled
that all components of the SLM project are the same as PSAOP2’s.
The capacity of the Senegal Agricultural Research Institute (ISRA) will be
strengthened to specifically generate and disseminate SLM-targeted
research and knowledge. ANCAR (the National Rural and Agricultural
Advisory Agency) and ASPRODEB (the Senegalese Association for
Grassroots-level Development) will participate to the implementation of the
project by supporting farmers to develop SLM practices in the Groundnut Basin.
Through the National Institute of Pedology, the grant will also enhance the
capacity of sectoral ministries, such as Agriculture and Livestock, for
policy formulation, planning, coordination, monitoring and evaluation.
The target areas are communities located in the most heavily degraded area in
the country, the Groundnut Basin (GB). This zone is one of the areas in
Senegal where land degradation is more severe, mainly because of
inappropriate cropping practices. Maniével Sène mentioned that the basin
is where synergy is more expected with many other IDA financed rural development
projects.
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