Episode 385: West Africa: What Does the Climate Crisis Look Like?

In this episode of The International Risk Podcast, Dominic Bowen speaks with Ibrahim Aboubacar Hama about climate change and its impact on food security, livelihoods, and stability across West Africa. Ibrahim shares what climate change looks like on the ground, and why national strategies often don’t match lived reality.

The discussion examines whether government frameworks like Senegal’s agenda can keep pace with a food security crisis that’s projected to nearly double during the lean season, and why bridging the gap between science and affected communities is still one of the region’s biggest challenges. We also explore the lingering fingerprints of colonial-era resource extraction and what the rest of the world consistently gets wrong about the crisis unfolding in West Africa.

The conversation explores:
-What climate change actually looks like for communities on the ground
-Why strategy on paper often fails to reach the people who need it most
-The lingering economic and institutional legacy of colonial-era extraction
-Why bridging the gap between science and society is important

Ibrahim Aboubacar Hama is an Environmentalist and Communication Specialist with extensive experience designing and managing climate change adaptation projects across West Africa, with expertise spanning social mobilization, gender equity, stakeholder engagement, and conservation education.

The International Risk Podcast brings together global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers to explore the forces transforming our world — from geopolitical instability and organised crime to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare. 

Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and one of Europe’s leading experts on international risk and crisis management. He advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across Europe on how to prepare for uncertainty, navigate crises, and build strategic resilience in an increasingly volatile world.

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Episode 385 transcript : West Africa: What Does the Climate Crisis Look Like?

[00:00] DOMINIC BOWEN: The world is already living with the effects of climate change. We’re seeing it in Europe, we’re seeing it in North America — Europe has already had three heat waves this summer alone. But nowhere is it more visible or more urgent than in West Africa, where shifting rainfall, coastal erosion, and worsening droughts are all coming together in countries that have been struggling with food insecurity, conflict, and fragile health systems for decades.

I’m Dominic Bowen, host of The International Risk Podcast, where we unpack the topics that really matter. To help us explore these issues today, we’re joined by Ibrahim Hama. He’s an environmentalist and communication specialist with over two decades of experience working on climate adaptation and community engagement right across West Africa.

[00:55] DOMINIC BOWEN: Ibrahim, welcome to The International Risk Podcast.

[00:58] IBRAHIM HAMA: Thank you very much, Dominic, for your invitation.

[01:00] DOMINIC BOWEN: Fantastic, I’d love to hear from you. Where are you today? What’s keeping you busy?

[01:05] IBRAHIM HAMA: Yeah, today I’m in Dakar, Senegal. At this time it should normally be the rainy season, but we’re still waiting for the rain, so that means something for us.

[01:16] DOMINIC BOWEN:  Just as you said that, Ibrahim, it’s summer here in Europe, but just as you said you’re waiting for the rainy season, it started pouring outside. It was sunny thirty seconds ago. Hopefully you get some of this rain in the near future.

But for communities, Ibrahim, that are living with shifting rainfall, prolonged droughts, land degradation, and persistent food insecurity, this isn’t a future risk. It isn’t something that many European and North American countries are considering as a future concern; it’s already impacting people’s lives. Climate change is often discussed through statistics, models, and global targets , and we talk about all of those things on The International Risk Podcast — but today I’d like to start by having you paint a picture for us. Can you help us understand what climate change actually looks like on the ground? What does it look like for the communities you work with?

[02:08] IBRAHIM HAMA: Climate change, from the perspective of communities, is not simply an environmental issue — it’s fundamentally a human development challenge. In those communities, you feel that climate change is no longer a distant threat. For example, in coastal communities here in Senegal, and in many rural communities across West Africa, people describe climate change through lived experience. Sometimes they’ll say the rainy season is shorter. Sometimes you’ll hear that floods are becoming more destructive. In pastoral areas, they’ll tell you that drought last longer, or that pasture disappears earlier. 

For coastal and fishing communities, they’ll tell you that fish migrate differently. In agricultural communities in central Senegal, they’ll tell you that the farming calendar no longer works as it used to.

So climate change is affecting food production, livestock, fisheries, household incomes, nutrition, migration, education, gender equality, many countries and communities are experiencing multiple shocks at once. This is the reality. This is what we see, what we discuss, and what communities report to us every single day.

[03:38] DOMINIC BOWEN: It’s tempting to understand climate change through a single disaster, every time there’s a major flood, storm, or heat wave, journalists often ask, “Is this caused by climate change?” It’s tempting to draw that direct link, but I think it’s far more powerful to look at the impact of climate change as something that progresses slowly, over many years, sometimes decades, and to look at how land, livelihoods, animals, and even the choices families have to make evolve over years, not over a single event.

I’ve been fortunate to have lived and worked in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, and in places like Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, and Liberia, where I’ve seen communities change how they live. More recently, I’ve spent a lot of time in Ukraine since 2022. Watching how communities, families, and individual people, colleagues and friends I’ve made over the years, have had to evolve is incredibly insightful, and sometimes incredibly painful.

Is there one community you’ve worked with or observed over the last decade or so? Can you tell us what’s changed, the land, the animals, the health of families?

[05:05] IBRAHIM HAMA: Definitely, Dominic — what you describe is quite common, though it can differ from one place to another. Take, for example, coastal regions in West Africa, I’ve worked with communities across several countries: Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau. What you see in those communities is that climate change alone doesn’t create disasters, it interacts with existing vulnerabilities.

That reality includes things like poverty, weak infrastructure, a lack of climate information, degradation of ecosystems tied to how people produce or build, limited access to finance, even when communities want to start new activities, they’re often limited by finance, insecure land tenure, and governance challenges. So two communities exposed to exactly the same drought can experience completely different outcomes, depending on their resilience. The climate hazard may be natural, but human vulnerability is largely created by social, economic, and governance conditions.

You see these communities’ livelihoods being affected, the way they farm changing entirely, but they understand that climate change is real, while also recognizing that other factors are compounding their vulnerability.

[06:53] DOMINIC BOWEN: That’s spot on, because climate change clearly interacts with poverty, land pressure, weak infrastructure, existing food insecurity, and water stress, and we see it push already-fragile systems past the point of survival. In Senegal, we’re already seeing saltwater intrude into aquifers and farmland, impacting some major population centers and some of the breadbaskets producing much of the agriculture needed to sustain the population.

Can you talk to us about how rising sea levels, combined with disrupted rainfall, are affecting food insecurity and other areas of society in Senegal?

[07:40] IBRAHIM HAMA: Definitely, Dominic. Food insecurity today is increasingly climate-driven,  that’s a fact communities understand, and scientists confirm it too. Climate shocks reduce crop yields for agricultural communities, reduce livestock productivity, reduce fish availability for fishermen, and generally reduce household incomes. This leads to higher food prices, negative coping strategies, and migration — you see young people taking boats trying to reach Europe. You also see conflict over natural resources.

[08:29] DOMINIC BOWEN: That’s really interesting, you mentioned people taking boats and migrating from Senegal to Europe to try to achieve a safe and reasonable life. That’s not what the government of Senegal wants, the government’s responsibility is to protect and look after its citizens, but it’s an important factor, and I think it’s something more European politicians need to understand: the safer and more developed Senegal is, the less migration European countries will have to deal with.

Senegal’s government has been fairly proactive, at least on paper, there’s the National Adaptation Plan, and there’s the “Sénégal 2050” framework, which focuses on food security, food sovereignty, and climate resilience. But let’s be clear: this year, 60% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet, and food insecurity is projected to nearly double between June and August  (the lean season in Senegal) in communities like Bambey, Goudiry, and other towns.

What is the gap between strategy, what looks good on paper and the reality that people are living, that you’re seeing on the ground?

[09:48] IBRAHIM HAMA: Thank you, Dominic. Senegal, as you said, has made important commitments — there are strong national policies and adaptation plans, we can agree on that. The challenge, as in many countries, is implementation. Several gaps remain: limited financing is a recurring issue; institutional capacity for local implementation is often weak because the governance model isn’t working; there are challenges around access to climate services; there’s a lack of coordination, many actors, many plans, many projects, but they don’t coordinate well; and there’s the issue of community participation. Some projects move forward, but communities see them as something imposed by someone else.

As we say in Senegal,to try to translate it into English : “If you do something for me, without me, it means it’s against me.” The ambition in Senegal definitely exists, but the challenge is scaling implementation, taking into account financing, coordination, capacity development, and genuine community participation.

[11:13] DOMINIC BOWEN: It’s easy to throw rocks, and it’s easy to point at plans that are in place. By some metrics, when 60% of the population can’t afford a healthy diet, when food insecurity is doubling, people might use words like “failing”, that the government is failing its people. I think even the best plans often collide with real-world constraints, in Senegal’s case, and right across West Africa, the cost of food, access, and resilience are all shifting.

Can you talk to us about why these gaps persist? Why is the food system across West Africa still so vulnerable to weather shocks and seasonal stress? We know climate change is real, we know it’s here and it’s having an impact, but this isn’t a new risk. Talk to us about why these problems persist, and perhaps most importantly if you were in charge, what would you fix? What would you prioritize? Farming? Training? Seed banks? What would you change immediately?

[12:24] IBRAHIM HAMA: From my experience, I’d focus on at least five pillars.

First: climate-smart livelihoods: strategies that help farmers and livestock keepers diversify production, for example through drought-resistant crops and improved soil management.

Second: healthy ecosystems: nature itself is one of our strongest defenses, and we should emphasize protecting it.

Third: stronger institutions: communities can’t adapt alone; governments need better planning, climate information availability, extension services that actually work, funding, coordination, and policy implementation. Everyone needs to do more.

Fourth: community participation : people shouldn’t just be beneficiaries, they should be partners. Communities need to participate in identifying problems, implementing projects, and monitoring outcomes.

And last, but not least: communication: Communication is often underestimated, but adaptation depends on sharing knowledge, building trust, and creating dialogue. Without communication, even good technical solutions often fail.

[14:06] DOMINIC BOWEN: That’s really interesting, and I’d like to follow up on that — but first, a quick reminder to our listeners: if you prefer to watch your podcasts, The International Risk Podcast is always available on YouTube. Please search for The International Risk Podcast, and if you enjoy our content, share it with a friend or colleague and subscribe, it’s genuinely critical to our long-term success and to helping us bring you the best possible guests.

Ibrahim, I really liked what you said about the five pillars. Looking at your work, and reading and listening to your public speeches, I think you bridge the gap between science and society, between science and communities, really well. Can you describe for our listeners why that gap exists in the first place, and what you’re trying to do to bridge it?

[15:05] IBRAHIM HAMA: Bridging science and local communities is really where my own work focuses most strongly. There’s sometimes a tendency to think scientific knowledge should replace local knowledge; I don’t believe that. The best adaptation combines both. Scientific knowledge can provide things like climate projections, weather forecasting, modeling, and risk analysis, while local knowledge from communities contributes environmental observation, early-warning indicators, traditional coping mechanisms, resource management practices, and historical memory. The future lies in co-producing knowledge, we shouldn’t treat these as two separate blocks. When we bring both together, we can take full advantage of what these communities already have. They aren’t passive, they have strategies, they’re already dealing with what they face, and they should be supported to make what they’re doing more effective.

[16:23] DOMINIC BOWEN: There’s a lot of talk about the remnants of colonial history, and whether its fingerprints are still present in West Africa. We’ve seen Russia largely come in through bribery, coercion, and corruption, infiltrating many countries across the African continent. When you look at the economy and institutions in West Africa, are you still seeing those fingerprints? Take, for example, the French company Orano (formerly Areva) which extracted uranium there for decades before finally leaving in 2025. There are allegations that foreign companies, formerly French, now increasingly Russian state- or oligarch-controlled, still maintain a heavy presence across the region. Is it better that they leave, or better that they stay? What’s actually best for people living in communities across West Africa? What needs to happen when we consider not just the colonial past, but the colonial remnants that still influence land use, extraction, and often through corruption government institutions?

[17:47] IBRAHIM HAMA: Definitely, Dominic — the economic and political situation are real and need to be considered. We can see something like a rivalry between countries, sometimes deliberate, sometimes simply reflecting former colonial relationships. I think young people now feel they need change, mostly in the political arena. Communities need to be more involved, and they need to be listened to more. We’re in an era where people can access information, access the world through the internet and social media — which means people now know more, especially youth, who are pushing to be more recognized and to have what they call independence. When projects or actions seem to come from the outside, people often feel disappointed and reject them, so you see more tension. All of this is happening together: growing knowledge, rising education levels, the pressure of climate change, and resource scarcity. All of this puts people and communities in a position where they’re no longer closing their eyes to things, they’re ready to say no, and they are saying no. Things are moving in that direction.

[19:35] DOMINIC BOWEN: All of us — business leaders, political leaders, and external actors need to get much better at listening: to colleagues, to employees, to communities, to customers, to stakeholders. It’s something we all need to improve at.

So Ibrahim, help us. What do you think the world gets wrong when it looks at food insecurity, at climate change, at foreign actors involved in West Africa? What are people in Europe and North America misunderstanding? What’s the one piece of information or perspective you wish the world had when looking at West Africa?

[20:16] IBRAHIM HAMA: From feedback and analysis I’ve done, and from my interactions with partners coming from the Western world into West African countries and communities, I think one misconception is that vulnerable communities are passive victims. They’re not. They innovate continuously, they experiment, they adapt every season. What they often lack isn’t ideas, it’s investment and support. I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions.

[20:56] DOMINIC BOWEN: Thanks for explaining that, I’ve certainly observed that too in my travels across Africa, the Middle East, and the wider Indo-Pacific region. It’s not entrepreneurialism or ideas that are missing, it’s often access to resources, sometimes as basic as electricity, internet, and, sadly, food, water, and healthcare services.

Ibrahim, one question we ask all our guests on The International Risk Podcast: when you look around the world, what are the risks that concern you the most?

[21:27] IBRAHIM HAMA: I think climate adaptation isn’t only about protecting nature — it’s about protecting people. Every investment we make in resilience today reduces the humanitarian crises of tomorrow. Communities already possess knowledge and the capacity to innovate, I think the most pressing thing we need is to be fair in what we’re doing.

[21:58] DOMINIC BOWEN: Thank you very much for explaining that, and thank you for coming on The International Risk Podcast today, Ibrahim.

[22:03] IBRAHIM HAMA: Thank you very much, Dominic.

[22:06] DOMINIC BOWEN: Well, that was a great conversation with Ibrahim Hama. I really appreciated hearing his thoughts on climate change in West Africa, its impact on food insecurity, and on the people living across the region. Today’s episode was produced and coordinated by Marine Christ. I’m Dominic Bowen, your host, thanks very much for listening. We’ll speak again in a couple of days.