Regional atlas on West Africa

288 Pages·2009·35.956 MB·English

by  OECD

West African Studies
Regional Atlas
on West Africa

West African Studies
Regional Atlas
on West Africa
Edited by Laurent Bossard
In collaboration with the Economic Community
of West African States Commission
With the financial support of France, Switzerland, Luxembourg
and UNDP
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION
AND DEVELOPMENT
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views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries.
Also available in French under the title:
Cahiers de l’Afrique de l’Ouest
Atlas régional de l’Afrique de l’Ouest
Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/publishing/corrigenda.
Cover illustration: © Daniel Krüger/Grand Krü, Berlin
© OECD 2009
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The Club du Sahel was established in 1976 at the
initiative of OECD member countries in response
to the droughts that had ravaged the Sahel and
the subsequent food crisis. In 2001, its Board of
Directors extended its geographic coverage to
encompass all of West Africa, i.e. the 15 Member
States of the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), as well as Cameroon, Mauritania
and Chad.
Now called the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC),
it is led by a Secretariat based in Paris and admin-
istratively attached to the OECD. Supported by a
network of partners and experts from West Africa
The SWAC / OECD and OECD member countries, its specifi city lies in 3
its approach combining direct fi eld-level involve-
ment with analyses of the West African context.
The SWAC promotes the regional dimension of
development, supports the formulation of joint
or intergovernmental policies as desired by the
region’s countries, and fosters dialogue with OECD
countries for a coherent understanding of the
changes and dynamics taking place in West Africa.
For more information, please go to:
www.oecd.org/swac and
www.atlas-westafrica.org
To contact us:
Telephone: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Regional Atlas on West Africa — ISBN 978-92-64-05592-6 — © OECD 2009
Authors and
Collaborators
Editorial management: Laurent Bossard
Technical co-ordination and revisions: Sylvie Letassey
Translation: Leslie Diamond (special thanks to Patricia Hirsch)
Design and layout: Marie Moncet
Authors: Editorial support:
Eniko Edith Akom Communicable Diseases Laurent Bossard Migration, Cotton, Africa and
Philippe Bastide Cocoa China, Vulnerability in the Sahelian
Zone, Transboundary River Basins,
Laurent Bossard Languages, Transport,
Demographic Trends, Coffee, Cocoa, Oil
Telecommunications
and Gas, Communicable Diseases
Daniel Duris Coffee
Marie-Christine Lebret Communicable Diseases, Demographic
Donata Gnisci Migration Trends
Philipp Heinrigs Oil and Gas, Transport, Christophe Perret Coffee, Cocoa
Telecommunications, Vulnerability in the
Sahelian Zone
Madiodio Niasse Transboundary River Basins
Frédéric Ocrisse-Aka Languages Cartography:
Dieudonné Ouedraogo Demographic Trends
Hélène Gay Communicable Diseases
4 Christophe Perret Transport, Telecommunications, Cotton,
Philipp Heinrigs Oil and Gas, Transport,
Rural Areas, Climate Change, Africa and
Telecommunications, Vulnerability in the
China, Vulnerability in the Sahelian Zone
Sahelian Zone
Marie Trémolières Migration
Cheikh Mbow Transboundary River Basins
Frédéric Ocrisse-Aka Languages, Migration
Christophe Perret Transport, Telecommunications, Cotton,
Scientifi c contributions:
Rural Areas, Climate Change, Africa
ACMAD Climate Change and China, Vulnerability in the Sahelian
Zone, Coffee, Cocoa
Yao Adzigbey Transport, Telecommunications
Nicolas Rageau Migration
Agrhymet R.C. Vulnerability in the Sahelian Zone,
Climate Change Nelly Robin Migration
Habiboulah Bakhoum Languages
Jean Bonnal Rural Areas
François Bost Transport, Telecommunications
Geneviève Braun Rural Areas
Erwin Ebermann Languages
Léonidas Hitimana Rural Areas
Stéphane Jost Rural Areas, Climate Change
Jean-François Marquet Transport
Nelly Robin Migration
Georg Ziegelmeyer Languages
Sibiri – Jean Zoundi Rural Areas
Regional Atlas on West Africa — ISBN 978-92-64-05592-6 — © OECD 2009
FOREWORD
West Africa is an ever-evolving region. An immense
space, it is a land of contrasts where, from North
to South, the desert opens on to the savannah,
the savannah gives way to the forest, the forest to
the ocean. The density of the human population
is variable with diverse peoples and numerous
spoken languages. However, these contrasts did not
lead to the creation of borders.
Before the arrival of the fi rst Europeans, political
confi gurations in West Africa varied greatly from
vast empires to micro-societies which did not go
beyond the village or groups of villages. Within each
political space, governments were more concerned
with the management of the population than the
demarcation of its territory through the setting
up of borders. Concentrations of power were thus
shifting.
Today the region is made up of shared intangible
Foreword borders established less than fi fty years ago.
Granted these borders are still recent, but most
Normand Lauzon. of the population was born after their creation.
Director of the SWAC / OECD Therefore much of the population has the 5
Mohamed Ibn Chambas. sentiment of belonging to a nation, but for as much,
President of the ECOWAS Commission regional roots remain. The vigour of trans-national
languages such as Hausa, Arabic, Yoruba, Bambara,
Fulah, Wolof, Akan, Fon, Gourmantché as well as
many others, are a reminder that in West Africa,
there must be compatibility between the local and
the regional levels, the State and the region and
between borders and integration.
With the recent global changes, regional integration
is now at the top of the African political and
economic agenda. To protect itself and capitalise
on its potential, it is imperative for West Africa
to better defi ne the shared interests among the
countries of which it is composed.
The Atlas is both a driver and a result of strategic
thinking and regional synthesis. Its conception
has stimulated dialogue among experts generally
working independently. This has been an
opportunity for the SWAC Secretariat and the
ECOWAS Commission to develop a global vision of
West African regional issues; to carry out strategic
thinking based on solid evidence related to subsid-
iarity issues. We believe that the Atlas can provide
Regional Atlas on West Africa — ISBN 978-92-64-05592-6 — © OECD 2009
FOREWORD
southern and northern technical and political chapters on relations between China and Africa,
leaders with useful information to feed into debate, climate change, as well as oil and gas, were also
negotiations and decision-making. It should also launched in order to respond to the needs of the
be a scientifi c and educational tool with which to international agenda.
promote regional action based on complementarity,
synergy and economies of scale.
This desire to “focus on current events” and to fuel
debate when it is most heated, is decisive in terms
We hope that it will enable Anglophone and
of impact. The chapters on the Sahelian zone,
Francophone West African students to go beyond
transmissible diseases and climate change have
the national framework on which the educational
been used by the ECOWAS Commission to defi ne
curriculum is generally based, to have a shared
catastrophic risk reduction mechanisms. Several
understanding of their region and its inter-
chapters have been taken up by the press1 and
dependencies. The Atlas shall be a useful means to
discussed on television.2 At times the Atlas has
bring them closer together by providing them with
been used in unexpected ways. The map of GSM
shared references.
coverage in West Africa was used and reproduced
in numerous meetings and publications related to
The fi fteen chapters of this fi rst edition do not
food security. It illustrates the integration of the
cover all issues pertaining to the region. Work is
West African agro-food market through the instan-
underway on electricity, fi sheries, regional organi-
taneous circulation of information.
sations and borders which will appear in the
forthcoming issues as well as chapters focusing
All of this demonstrates a need for analytical,
on the urban environment, livestock rearing and
strategic and educational syntheses to which the
tourism.
6 ECOWAS Commission and the SWAC Secretariat
strive to respond.
As we have done over the last years, the Atlas will
focus on topical issues and feed into the West
African international agenda. The chapter on The work carried out up to now owes much to the
migration began in early 2006 after the dramatic specifi c fi nancial support provided by the French
events in the Spanish enclaves in Morocco. It Co-operation, Swiss Co-operation, Luxembourg
fed into the preparation of a common position Co-operation and UNDP. We are also grateful to
on migration of ECOWAS member States. The other SWAC donors – Austria, Belgium, Canada,
2005 food crisis raised the issue of structural Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom
food insecurity. Thus, the chapter on the vulner- and the United States whose regular fi nancing has
ability of the Sahelian zone (April 2006) confi rmed, enabled much of the SWAC Secretariat team to
demonstrated, and mapped out this situation. The contribute to the Atlas between 2005 and 2008.
Notes
1. Notably “Gas and Oil”, “Climate Change” and “Africa and China” in « Diplomatie » magazine: www.areion.fr/publishing/www_Diplomatie/
edito01.html.
2. « Le dessous des cartes » / ARTE (Africa and China, Oil and Gas): www.arte.tv/fr/histoire-societe/le-dessous-des-cartes/392.html.
Regional Atlas on West Africa — ISBN 978-92-64-05592-6 — © OECD 2009
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Atlas team is grateful to Thérèse PUJOLLE and
Jacqueline DAMON – respectively President and
Director of the SWAC until December 2004 – who
supported the creation of the project and launched
its fi nancing plan. For their constant support, we
also express our gratitude to Dr. Mohamed Ibn
CHAMBAS, President of the ECOWAS Commission,
to Dr. Adrienne DIOP, Director of Communications
and then Commissioner for Human Development
and Gender within the ECOWAS Commission, and
Normand LAUZON, Director of the SWAC.
The team emphasises that the chapters on rural
environment and climate change could not
have been produced without the expertise and
knowledge of the FAO and the Agrhymet Regional
Centre of the CILSS. Similarly, the Department
of African Studies of the University of Vienna
(Austria) provided valuable support to the chapter
on languages.
Haruna WARKANI, Head of the ECOWAS
Commission’s Documentation Division, played
Acknowledgements an important role as the interface with the 7
SWAC Secretariat and greatly contributed to
the dissemination of the Atlas chapters. We are
grateful to Baber TANDINA, Director ad interim
of the ECOWAS Commission’s Free Movement of
Persons Department until December 2007, Nfaly
SANOH, Director of the ECOWAS Commission’s
Free Movement of Persons Department, and
Yao ADZIGBEY (Principal Programme Offi cer for
Transport of the ECOWAS Commission) for their
contributions and constant use of the Atlas in their
work.
Collecting raw data for an Atlas – numbers and
databases, studies and academic work, technical
and policy documents – is not an easy task. Many
people devoted time and energy to helping us. We
sincerely thank them:
AMOUZOU Dovi (Economic Mission in Lagos
– DREE – Nigeria), BALAMI Dahiru Hassan
(University of Maiduguri, Nigeria), BERNARD Eric
(University doctoral student), BOLOUVI Michel (Sud
Communication, Niger), CHAM Baboucar (Banjul
International Airport, the Gambia), CHEIFFOU
Amadou (International Civil Aviation Organisation,
Regional Atlas on West Africa — ISBN 978-92-64-05592-6 — © OECD 2009
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Western and Central African Offi ce, Senegal), Naïg (ISEMAR, France), MBOW Cheik (and team of
COZIER Thierry (Delegation of the European the Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches Géomatiques
Commission, Mali), D’ANGELO Grégory (Economic –LERG- of the University of Dakar), NDIAYE Pape
Mission in Lagos – DREE – Nigeria), DIAGNE Oumar (Dakar, Senegal), NOI Eric T. (Ghana Civil
Ababakar Sadir (ASECNA, Senegal), DIOP Charles Aviation Authority, Ghana), NZEKWU Sylvia
(International Civil Aviation Organisation, Western (Contact of the Sahel and West Africa Club, Nigeria),
and Central African Offi ce, Senegal), DIOUF Ameth YAÏ Olabiyi Babalola Joseph (Permanent UNESCO
(ASECNA, Senegal), DEMBELE Ousmane (University Ambassador to Benin), OUEDRAOGO Benoît
of Abidjan-Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire), ESHUN John (Contact of the Sahel and West Africa Club, Burkina
(Contact of the Sahel and West Africa Club, Ghana), Faso), PAYA Fabrice (Delegation of the European
GANSARE Sanni (LARES, Benin), GELOES Ronan Commission, Guinea), POIRSON Anne-Claire
de (BIVAC International, Chad), GIBIGAYE Moussa (Embassy of France, Chad), PRADELLE Jean-Marc
(LARES, Benin), GILLET Nathalie (Marchés tropicaux (Embassy of France, Mauritania), RIEMBAULT
et méditerranéens, France), HARKOUK Arezki (GRDR, Paul (Delegation of the European Commission,
Mauritania), GRASDEPOT Olivier (Delegation of Chad), SOULE Bio Goura (LARES, Benin), SPASIANO
the European Commission, Cameroon), LUNEAU Valentina (FAO), TOURRET Paul (ISEMAR, France).
8
Regional Atlas on West Africa — ISBN 978-92-64-05592-6 — © OECD 2009