Environmental monitoring in the circum-Sahara - Regional socio-economic summary 2012

Environmental monitoring in the circum-Sahara - Regional socio-economic summary 2012

Since it was created in 1992, the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) has focused its efforts on the development and implementation of observation, early warning and monitoring-evaluation systems for environmental programs of action. The ROSELT/OSS network and the National Environmental Monitoring Systems – NEMS, made the Organization play a leading role in environmental monitoring.

The socio-economic dimension was integrated in the « ecological observation » in 2003, since then, the environmental monitoring system has contributed to developing a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach that is genuinely integrated in the selected observatories, and more broadly, in the environmental monitoring activity. The socio-economic component is now fully integrated, especially in terms of use and exploitation of natural resources.

The methodology and tools developed within this framework provide an assessment of the ecosystems and populations’ vulnerability in its area of action and make it possible to think ahead about the environmental risks and changes in order to mitigate their impacts.

This regional « socio-economic » summary and the supporting documents (relevant maps, graphs and figures), were produced based on the outcomes of environmental monitoring in 11 countries: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Egypt, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia.

It portrays the specificities of the observatories in the circum-Sahara area and describes their evolution based on a methodology on the use of indicators developed by the OSS and its partners."