Approximately 80 experts from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, research institutions and universities of the WASCAL mandate region participated in the workshop. The workshop was opened by Dr. Laurent Sédogo, Executive Director of WASCAL, Dr. Dr. Dietrich Pohl, Ambassador of the German Embassy in Ouagadougou, and Prof. Filiga Michel Sawadogo, Minister of Secondary, Higher Education and Scientific Research.

Currently, the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NHHS) face many challenges to maintain their data collection stations and to provide conclusive meteorological and hydrological data. The network density of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services is low in many West African countries and below standards recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Frequent failures in equipment lead to gaps in the data records. The NMHS stated problems concerning data archiving, quality control and analysis including deficiencies in staff number (mostly affected by personnel retirement) and capacity building.

Dr. Laurent Sédogo, Executive Director of WASCAL, stressed the importance of working together in the effort to combat climate change: “It is only together that we can handle the issue of climate change. Not every single country has the scientific capacity, the human capacity, and the technical capacity to tackle climate change. For the northern countries climate change may be a scenario of the future, but we in West Africa, we already live the reality of climate change.” “WASCAL aims to assess, connect and enhance the existing national observation networks”, explains Dr. Boubacar Barry, director of the WASCAL Competence Center. “Such cooperation would benefit all participants.” WASCAL will provide the networks with a number of stations to fill the gaps in the network. Training of staff members will further contribute to a successful running of the stations. WASCAL’s data infrastructure will serve as a shared dissemination platform. Based on the data provided by the national services, WASCAL in return will be able to improve models, climate change scenarios and offer climate service to stakeholders for the West African region.

The workshop followed two regional workshops organized by WASCAL in August 2010 during which the Directors and representatives of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services presented the history and the current situation of their respective organizations, on tasks, weaknesses and strengths as well as their expectations of how WASCAL can support and strengthen the West African observation networks on climate and water resources. “Following up with the results from the workshops in 2010, we now established a timeline and agreed on a communique to line out the further steps towards the establishment of the Regional Hydro-Climate Observation Network. Another important result was the drafting of a joint Data Sharing Policy, which regulates the rights and regulations concerning data exchange” summarized Dr. Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla, Coordinator of the WASCAL Observation Networks.

Contact

Coordinator Observation Networks: Dr. M. B. Sylla, sylla.b(at)wascal.org, syllabamba(at)yahoo.fr

Press and Public Relations: Jelana Vajen, press(at)wascal.org

The Mmofra Foundation Climate Change Awareness Park for Children was inaugurated by the Minister of Lands and Mineral Resources of Ghana, Mr. Nii Osah Mills, in presence of the ambassador of Germany in Ghana, Mr. John Ruediger, the Executive Director of WASCAL, Dr. Laurent Sedogo, the Chairperson of the Mmofra Foundation Board of Directors, Mr. Christian Reindorf, the Director of the Foundation, Prof Esi Sutherland, a representative of the British High Commission in Ghana and several other personalities.
Education is an essential element of the global response to climate change. It helps young people understand and address the impact of global warming. In view of the above, the German Embassy in Ghana funded a Climate Change Awareness and Education project developed by Mmofra Foundation in collaboration with WASCAL MRP Climate Change Education / University of The Gambia. The Project seeks to extend the impact of Mmofra Foundation’s unique community children’s park and to give the students of the WASCAL MRP Climate change and education hands-on experience in the area of education and awareness raising concerns on climate change.

In his address during the ceremony, Dr. Sedogo expressed WASCAL’s appreciation to the Germany embassy for funding and giving the opportunity to students to have a hands on experience and support their journey to raise the awareness of younger generations. He also mentioned that the initiative also provided WASCAL a platform to extend its activities to the broader community through partnership with a nongovernmental organization – the Mmofra Foundation. During the ceremony, the children actively participated in the amusement and entertainment of the audience through performance of sketch which were very educative and informative.
The exhibition for the climate change awareness park for children was officially launched by the Hon.Minister. The items displayed for the exhibition were conceptualized by the WASCAL students. They also served as the facilitators and guides throughout the exhibitions. The things that were displayed at the exhibition were in a chronological order in which visitors moved from the general information about the climate to the causes, effects, adaptation, mitigation and the way forward of climate change. The last two features to be seen were the aquaponics and the biofuel toilet. The project climate change awareness park for children which has been officially launched will contribute to raise public awareness especially children on climate change. It is of great importance that the child, future leader be aware that when the last tree dies the last man will die.

By the students MRP & Climate Education, UTG.

Contact

Dr. Musa Sowe
Director Master’s Research Program Climate Change and Education
Email: msowe(at)utg.edu.gm

The establishment of WASCAL as an international organization is an important step towards the goal to install WASCAL as a permanent research facility in West Africa which will serve as a regional climate service center. “Research projects are usually limited in time. As a consequence, researchers but also their findings and research infrastructure often leave the study region after finishing the project. With the establishment of WASCAL as a regional international organization we want to ensure access to research findings and infrastructure in West Africa in the long term”, explains Prof. Dr. Paul Vlek, Executive Director of WASCAL and Director at the Center for Development Research in Bonn. Moreover, by recognizing the WASCAL agreement, the participating West African countries will start to contribute financially to WASCAL’s budget from 2013 onwards. “In the future WASCAL will be a common resource for the West African States, funded by the participating countries and international donors”, Vlek states further.

This year’s Regular Annual Board Meeting of the WASCAL Governing Board was hosted by ZEF in Bonn. Chairman of the Governing Board Prof. Dr. Modibo Haidara and Executive Director Dr. Sédogo were especially delighted to welcome Dr. Henry Mwima, Director of WASCAL’s sister organization SASSCAL (South African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management) as a visitor to the Board Meeting. During the two day event WASCAL Senior and Junior Researchers presented the Governing Board with their research in a poster session.

Following the Board Meeting, the Members of the WASCAL Governing Board proceeded to Berlin to participate in the Africa Days of the BMBF which took place in Berlin on March 16-18, 2014.

Having joined WASCAL from the beginning of January 2014, Dr. Sédogo will officially take over the mandate of the executive director from his predecessor and founding Director of WASCAL Professor Paul Vlek on February 14, 2014. “Climate Change is one of the biggest challenges in Africa’s development agenda. I share the vision of WASCAL to take science and technique and put it into practice and on the development agenda in a way that will touch local people. At the same time, WASCAL strives to foster development on the level of policy-making. It will be a big challenge for WASCAL to bring together the local and national levels of decision and policy making regarding sustainable land management under climate threats. That is why I was very happy to be selected as executive director,” says Sédogo.

Vitae
Dr. Laurent Sédogo graduated with a PhD in sustainable management of natural resources from ITC in Enschede and Wageningen University, The Netherlands in 2002. Before this he had obtained a Master of Science in GIS at Wageningen Agricultural University.

Dr. Sédogo worked with institutions dealing with land degradation and desertification control at the national level and the regional level (Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). He held a variety of political offices, starting with the post of Minister of Farmers’ Cooperatives from 1988 to 1990. After completing his PhD he returned to the political office as Minister of the Environment and Quality of Life until 2008, followed by the post of Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fishery. He was a Member of Parliament until joining WASCAL in January 2013.

Laurent Sédogo was Vice President of the Governing Council of UNEP and Member of the Governing Council of the OSS (Sahara and Sahel Observatory) and is a member of the Centre for Sustainable Development Initiative.

Link to full vitae

Watch a video interview with Laurent Sédogo on the Center of Development Research’s youtube channel

The objective of the contest is to identify locally developed farmer innovations which can complement existing extension packages after further scientific evaluation. Local innovations have the advantage that they are generally adapted to the conditions in which a farmer operates. Therefore, they are likely to be easily adopted by fellow farmers.

How Bukari Hassan tackled his termite problem

This year’s regional winner of the Farmer Innovation Contest in Upper East Ghana tackled a termite problem by luring carnivore ants as a natural deterrent for termites. Termites used to kill Bukari Hassan’s young tree seedlings until he started to lure what he refers to as ‘Tiger Ants’ using bones – left-overs from the butcher or his own family’s meals. The ants feast on the bones and scare the termites away allowing his trees to grow until they are strong enough to defend themselves. This way Mr. Hassan managed to solve his number one problem of growing trees. Meanwhile he has established a small forest with trees that provide him with fruit, nuts, medicine, firewood and timber. This is good news for Upper East Ghana, where tree cover generally decreases. Mr. Hassan was awarded a motorcycle.

Co-awardees

Together with Mr. Hassan, eight other farmer innovators in Upper East Ghana received district awards (water pumps or house roofing sheets, each with an approximate value of 200 Euros). They all found new ways to address pressing problems such as poultry and other livestock diseases, pest infestations of grains during storage, or limited accessibility of materials for the intensification of production.

Laudatio

In his speech on Farmer’s Day on December 6, 2013, Dr. Tobias Wünscher, ZEF senior researcher and coordinator of the contest stressed that “our winners provide clear evidence that farmers are more than adopters of externally developed technologies. They develop their own solutions for their very own problems with the limited resources that are available to them – this is what makes these innovations so special“!

There will be at least two more rounds of the contest in 2014 and 2015.

Contact: Tobias Wünscher

Expert-Workshop “Mobile pastoralism, environmental change and conflict in West Africa ”
A group of experts on African pastoralism met in Bonn for the workshop “Mobile pastoralism, environmental change and conflict in West Africa ” (April 12, 2013) to discuss anthropological case studies from Côte d´Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali , as well as future research and cooperation between them. The workshop was organized by the WASCAL partner Dr. Gilbert Fokou from the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d´ Ivoire (CSRS) in Abidjan, and supported by the VW Foundation.