Senegal has one of the most stable economies in West Africa, but still has high rates of poverty and unemployment. The country struggles with maternal and infant mortality, malaria, poor access to health, water, sanitation and hygiene services. Each year, the country sees cases of malnutrition spike in the summer months, especially among young children.
Action Against Hunger’s teams in Senegal work with the Ministry of Health to train community health workers to treat malnutrition. As the country faces long, recurring periods of scarce rainfall, our innovative early warning system help herders to find places for their livestock to graze.
Of People Work in Agriculture
Of People Are Experiencing Hunger
In the Sahel region of West Africa, livestock accounts for 40% of the agricultural GDP, but climate shocks make decent pasture harder to find. To solve this problem, we created the Pastoral Early Warning System, an innovative system of real-time alerts that help herders find better grazing land.
Our system uses satellite imagery of biomass and water combined with mobile surveys of people on the ground who share market prices, trends in animal diseases, and reports of bushfires. We analyze the data and send alerts to approximately 100,000 herders via radio, text, and community bulletins.
