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© IRD / Olivier Barrière Arable land denshering around Elahé, Amerindian village Wayana in French Guiana Indigo 44480  

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Africa’s monsoon challenge

Scientific newssheets

Ocean, climate, impacts, Water and soil ressources - Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Togo

September 2009

The monsoon sets the pattern of life of 300 million West Africans. The intensity and duration of the rains it brings govern all crop cultivation and water resources – and hence food security. In a period of less than four months, from June to September, it brings the greater part of the rainfall for the whole year. However, it has lost its intensity over the past decades, plunging the Sahel into a succession of famines.

As part of the international programme AMMA1, IRD research scientists and their partners have been making long-term observations on this erratic monsoon system in order to predict the consequences. The observation system AMMA-CATCH (Couplage de l’Atmosphère Tropicale et du Cycle Hydrologique ), launched in 2002 to study the coupling between the tropical atmosphere and the hydrological cycle, has brought to the fore certain characteristics and paradoxes of the water cycle associated with the African monsoon: a significant change in the season cycle and a decrease in the number of substantial rainfall events, but an increase in surface runoff and flooding in a greener Sahel.

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Sleeping sickness: tsetse flies counterattack in urban areas

Scientific newssheets

Health - Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo, Ghana, Archipelago of the Canaries, Nigeria, Central Africa, Democratic republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea

June 2009

Sleeping sickness is a parasitic infection which affects humans and animals alike in Africa. True to its name, it disturbs the sleep cycle: the patient sleeps during the day and stays awake at night. Sensory disturbance, motor coordination anomalies and mental confusion develop. The whole ...

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Access to abortion in Africa and Latin America : a question of public health and social inequality

Scientific newssheets

Health - Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Cape Verde, Tunisia, South Africa, Egypt, Congo, Malawi, Swaziland, Algeria, El Salvador, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua

May 2008

Abortion is a serious public health problem in many countries of the South and it reveals many social injustices. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in Latin America 3.7 million women resort to unsafe abortions each year. In Africa, an estimated 4.2 million women put their lives ...

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Sub-Saharan Africa : the population emergency

Scientific newssheets

Human and social sciences - South Africa, Angola, Archipelago of the Canaries, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central Africa, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Democratic republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Chad, Togo, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Kenya, Reunion, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

December 2007

The population of Sub-Saharan Africa is continuing to grow at twice the rate recorded in Latin America and Asia. This exceptional population growth is a major handicap for efforts to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Objectives (MDO) in most of the countries lying South of the Sahara. With ...

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