Sahel: The cost of desertification

Desertification threatens the survival of 50 million inhabitants of northern Africa, said President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi of Mauritania on CILSS Day, 12 September. The Permanent Inter-state Committee to Fight Drought in the Sahel (CILSS), which has nine member countries, coordinates scientific and technological efforts to control soil erosion and deforestation in the Sahel region. Since the 1970s, droughts have grown more frequent and the summer rainy season has essentially ended in some sub-Saharan countries, at the cost of millions of lives. The president noted that 62% of the Sahel's population lived under the poverty threshold and that soil degradation not only caused economic insecurity and hunger, it also provoked the migration of young people out of the region.