Alassan Tamissou Tchani was born as construction finished on the Komde Dam near his village of Ouaké in the north-west of Benin. Growing up, he expected the new dam would ensure a plentiful water supply for his community and the cattle they rely on for their livelihoods for years to come. Although not yet 40 years old, Mr Tchani has watched the dam shrink forcing him and his neighbours to diversify their farming activities or migrate in search of work. It’s a worrying trend that he hopes can be reversed following his participation in a locally-led adaptation project to combat the impacts of climate change.

Mr Tchani says he was the first in the community to start market gardening to bring in money in the increasingly long dry season and enable him to cover the health costs and schooling of his nine children. Today many of his neighbours have followed suit, scooping or pumping water from the dam and laboriously distributing it over their fruits and vegetables by hand. Following community consultations, an improved system has been put in place using a solar powered irrigation system to evenly distribute the precious supply with less effort from the farmers and more efficient application of water.

“The execution of this project has reduced our hardship and our fuel costs. We will also be able to reduce water usage on site with the new and improved plant watering system,” explained Mr Tchani, standing next to his growing crops of chilis. “This project will increase our production and as a result, it will increase our income.”

Climate change is impacting rainfall totals and patterns across West Africa, a region where many communities still rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture for their food and income. The Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility is being designed or implemented in some 13 countries in the West Africa region, including in Benin. To date 24 adaptation investments across nine communes have positively impacted the lives of 71,000 people like Mr Tchani. Scale up of LoCAL to reach 30 communes in Benin is presently underway.

At first, when the local government first raised the possibility of new investments to improve community resilience to climate change and secure livelihoods, Mr Tchani was sceptical - until the local government asked for farmer’s ideas and inputs.

“They told us that they wanted to make life better for us market gardeners. A project was put to us – but we didn’t really believe it,” said Mr Tchani. “We made a number of recommendations – at the implementation stage we were involved.”

With engagement from the community, a new solar-powered water pump was installed to channel water from the dam to the vegetable gardens. The success of the project is encouraging Mr Tchani and the other market gardeners to consider other improvements that could be made.

“We would like a device to be put in place, under the supervision of the town hall, to periodically remove sand from the dam,” said Mr Tchani, who hopes the improvements will dissuade younger generations from leaving the village in search of work in neighbouring powerhouse, Nigeria. “It would also be advisable to build water troughs for livestock [and] the perimeter will also need to be fenced off.”

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