De-marginalising frontier communities in West Africa: action research, local knowledge, and resilience against natural disasters and ecological stress

西非是世界上最贫穷的地区之一，也受到不同的气候变化相关的环境压力-如荒漠化，洪水，山体滑坡和不可预测的降雨。该地区的大多数居民依赖于对气候敏感的经济活动，并依赖自然资源维持生计（开发署，2011年）。几内亚、马里和塞内加尔的边境社区特别容易受到长期和短期环境冲击和压力的影响，这可能对他们的生计活动产生重大不利影响。然而，强调其脆弱性、不稳定性和对极端气候事件的敏感性，而不承认其在面对反复出现的环境压力时的重要和长期的复原力建设战略，就错过了实现其推动变革性适应和开辟可持续发展新途径的潜力的机会。尽管有充分的证据表明，在气候相关冲击和压力前后，地方知识库在建设抗御能力方面发挥着重要作用，但在设计气候变化和可持续发展方案和项目时，这些丰富的知识库往往被贬低或忽视。因此，该项目的总体目标是帮助将气候变化适应政策中的复原力思维和实践重新集中到当地行为者和社区本身，并通过消除塞内加尔（卡萨芒斯）、马里（卡耶斯）和几内亚（上几内亚）边境社区的边缘化，加强旨在实现西非更公平的可持续发展的努力。该项目将侧重于风险特别高的人口（妇女和以前被奴役人口的后裔）的长期复原战略。该项目旨在促进他们参与和领导基于社区的复原力行动规划和组织学习，并将他们的经验和知识在多个尺度上整合，以实现持久的发展收益。我们的项目团队汇集了非洲历史，社会人类学和文学研究方面的专业知识，这些知识在发展方法中不太常见。它旨在通过收集可用于贫困、环境可持续性、治理和脆弱性之间的发展活动的地方知识，构建一种具有变革和催化作用的协同方法。这项研究的变革性方面依赖于在边境社区的利益攸关方之间建立跨界知识网络，否则这些利益攸关方就几乎没有机会联系、分享和比较他们的经验和当地知识。本组织将与Donkosira组织合作，在每个案例研究国家为所有利益攸关方举办培训讲习班，并开发一个移动的和配套网站，上传历史和当代地方知识数据，供更广泛的地方和国际受众使用，从而促进这种跨界知识网络。

West Africa is one of the poorest regions of the world, and also subject to different climate change related environmental stresses - such as desertification, flooding, landslides, and unpredictable rains. The majority of the inhabitants of the region rely on climate-sensitive economic activities and depend on natural resources for their livelihoods (UNDP 2011). Frontier communities in Guinea, Mali and Senegal are particularly prone to the effects of long and short-term environmental shocks and stresses, which can have significant negative repercussions for their subsistence activities. However, putting the emphasis on their fragility, precarity and susceptibility to extreme climate events without acknowledging their important and long-standing resilience building strategies in the face of recurrent environmental stresses misses the opportunity to realise their potential to drive transformative adaptation and to open up new pathways for sustainable development. Despite there being ample evidence showing the important role of local repertoires of knowledge in building resilience capacity before and after climate related shocks and stresses, these rich repertoires have often been devalued or ignored in the design of climate change and sustainable development programs and projects. The overall aim therefore, of this project is to help re-centre the resilience thinking and practice in climate change adaptation policy back in local actors and communities themselves and enhance the efforts geared to achieve a more equitable sustainable development in West Africa by de-marginalising frontier communities in Senegal (Casamance), Mali (Kayes) and Guinea (Upper-Guinea). The project will focus on the longue-durée resilience strategies of populations particularly at risk (women and descendants of formerly enslaved populations). It will aim to facilitate their involvement and leadership in community-based resilience action planning and organisational learning, and integrate their experiences and knowledges across multiple scales for long-lasting development gains.Our project team brings together a unique combination of expertise in African history, social anthropology and literary studies, which are less common in development approaches. It aims at constructing a synergistic approach with transformative and catalyst effect by collecting local knowledge that can be harnessed for development activities located at the intersections between poverty, environmental sustainability, governance and vulnerability. The transformative aspect of this research relies on building knowledge networks across borders between frontier communities' stakeholders who otherwise would have little chance to connect and to share and compare their experiences and local knowledge. This cross-border knowledge networks will be facilitated by the organisation in partnership with the organisation Donkosira of training workshops with all stakeholders in each case study country, and the development of a mobile and accompanying website where historical and contemporary local knowledge data will be uploaded and made accessible to a wider local and international audience.