On September 12, 2017, Senegal hosted the 32^nd meeting of the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), Médias Post reports. The meeting’s topic was “Land Use and Occupation: Atlas of Sahel and West Africa’s landscapes”, a tool for planning and help in decision-making process.      

“It is imperative to find pertinent and innovative solutions. The issue of land use and occupation has brought up major concerns in the region. Last June 15, African ministries urged the international community to develop various partnerships in order to rehabilitate 10 million hectares of degraded lands and create 10 million jobs for the youth and women. They asked African nations to also put in place the adequate conditions to foster the creation of new job opportunities, by identifying areas where access to land can be improved,” said Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Mali’s President and also of CILSS.

Moreover, the leader revealed that in line with the meeting’s topic, CILSSS has recently released with USAID and the US geology institute a book entitled “Landscapes of West Africa: A Window on a Changing World”