Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • COMMENT

Avert catastrophe now in Africa’s Sahel

Governments worldwide must invest in girls’ education, family planning, agriculture and security in this vulnerable region.
  1. Alisha Graves

    1. Alisha Graves is an academic coordinator and co-founder of the OASIS Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Lorenzo Rosa

    1. Lorenzo Rosa is a PhD candidate and Ermenegildo Zegna Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  3. Abdoul Moumouni Nouhou

    1. Abdoul Moumouni Nouhou is director of the OASIS Initiative, Niger.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  4. Fadji Maina

    1. Fadji Maina is a postdoctoral research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  5. Djimé Adoum

    1. Djimé Adoum is executive director at the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, Burkina Faso.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

World leaders have a disappointing record when it comes to crises that take decades to unfold. Much greater investment in the prevention of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s could have saved millions of lives and billions of dollars 20 years later, for instance.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 575, 282-286 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03445-z

References

  1. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision (UN, 2017).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Cincotta, R. P., Engelman, R. & Anastasion, D. The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict After the Cold War (Population Action International, 2003).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Defrance, D. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 6533–6538 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Abdi, A. M., Seaquist, J., Tenenbaum, D. E., Eklundh, L. & Ardö, J. Environ. Res. Lett. 9, 94003 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Althabe, F. et al. Reprod. Health 12 (Suppl. 2), S8 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Brown, B. B., Larson, R. W. & Saraswathi, T. S. (eds) The World’s Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Sultan, B. et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 014040 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report (US Government Printing Office, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Organisation internationale pour les migrations. Migration en Afrique de l’Ouest et Centrale [in French] (OIM, 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Psacharopoulos, G. & Patrinos, H. A. Educ. Econ. 26, 445–458 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Bruce, J. & Bongaarts, J. in A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice & the Environmental Challenge (ed. Mazur, L.) 260–275 (Island Press, 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Perlman, D. et al. in Women’s Empowerment and Global Health: A Twenty-First-Century Agenda (eds Dworkin, S. L., Gandhi, M. & Passano, P.) 72–92 (Univ. California Press, 2016).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Maswikwa, B., Richter, L., Kaufman, J. & Nandi, A. Int. Perspect. Sex. Reprod. Health 41, 58–68 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Gertler, P. J. & Molyneaux, J. W. Demography 31, 33–63 (1994).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Choi, Y., Short Fabic, M. & Adetunji, J. Demogr. Res. 39, 1227–1240 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Moreland, S. & Smith, E. Int. J. Clim. Change Impacts Responses 4, 29–47 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Rosa, L. et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 104002 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Barret, D. & Kéré, A. Analyse de l’aide accordée aux pays du Sahel [in French] (FERDI, 2018).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Hartmann, B. Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control (South End Press, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Supplementary Information

  1. List of co-signatories

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links