Water Shocks: Wetlands and human migration in the Sahel
Location: Avenue du Port 86C 1000 Brussels - Belgium
Time: Wednesday June 7th, 2017, 18:00-19:15
Description: The Sahel Region is a semi-arid belt extending across Africa for some 5,500 kilometres, with 10 % of its land covered by six major floodplain systems. These wetlands are the main sources of the region’s productivity outside the short wet season. Their degradation, mainly due to ill-informed developments, leads to severe water scarcity and loss of people's livelihoods. This affects the social, economic and political stability of the region and is one of the drivers of out-migration as people are obliged to look elsewhere to seek alternative livelihoods, temporarily or permanently. The EU, as one of the major partners of Africa and donor of development programmess, can play a greater role to ensure that the value of wetlands ecosystems is recognised and addressed in development, climate and disaster risk reduction strategies.
