The paper presents secondary research focusing on a country in the confluence of the Sahel Sub-Region and SIDS, in West Africa. In this sense, it is essential to draw attention to the complexities of analyzing countries grouped in different Regions that present high levels of socioeconomic, market, fiscal, and environmental diversity. For Africa, many regional studies are focused on the Sahel Sub-Region and the SIDS, individually. There is little literature crossing the analysis between these two Regions, which share each a lopsided amount of challenges and risks in the search for climate-resilient development. Cabo Verde, being at the confluence of the Sahelian region, and presenting archipelagic territoriality, is at a unique position to support the contextualization of the critical role of climate adaptation into development in the developing world. Besides, as the human impact of climate-related events – especially drought events – are challenging to quantify. Studies on this matter are undoubtedly needed, notably to support the reporting of political aspects related to the achievement of SDG target indicators (UNISDR, 2019).

The paper presents qualitative descriptive approach relying on data and information from Cabo Verde official government sources regarding the drought response and the disaster risk governance framework created to support the 2017-18 drought emergency, especially addressing the Inter-Ministerial Task Force – named the Technical Steering Team (ETP) –This structure was created to manage the drought emergency response nationwide. The paper bases its analysis on the integration of multi-level climate change adaptation policies, to analyze the shifting elements underlying assumptions in the historical national drought response. Methodologically, the research relies on the method of data and text analysis as an essential approach comparing information from different sources gathered from more than 100 individual journals and search engines, donor reports and international organization´s reports (GFDRR, IPCC, OCHA, WHO, WMO, WORLD BANK, UN-OHRLLS, UNISDR), after initially skimming over 300 articles from relevant international journals, in a attempt to give visibility to a broad range of environmental, social, and comprehensive territorial characterization of Cabo Verde. Notwithstanding, the list of reviewed material is not exhaustive, though an effort has been made to conduct a wide-range coverage, based on available information.

This study relies on Components 1 and 2 of the Mainstreaming Adaptation and Disaster Reduction into Development (MADRiD) program methodology (UNISDR, 2013). It calls attention to the necessity of increasing high-level political commitment for integrating Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation into overall economic and social planning processes; and to promote the establishment of sustained human resources capacity development to successfully advocate for the integration of risk reduction and climate change adaptation into socioeconomic development planning and emergency life cycle. In this sense, the analysis is based on an emergency program created for response and mitigation of a severe drought happening in the 2017-18 period –accompanied from cumulative impacts of droughts events since 2013 –, in a West African country, Cabo Verde. Particular references to other countries, in a given region, are made wherever deemed necessary.

Constrained by limited official information and data, an extensive search of the academic and grey literature was undertaken to include social, fiscal, and economic aspects of vulnerability and resilience in Sahel and SIDS. While the research had a national and sub-national scope; the paper presents the analysis and discussion in the regional, continental, and global perspectives when necessary. The present study asseverates that the understanding gained from a detailed analysis of ongoing disaster and emergency events, as well as Government, civil society, and stakeholders’ response and behavior, offers enormous possibilities to carry out better risk reduction and disaster management planning. The knowledge generated might be helpful to shed some light on innovations happening locally in the developing world in order to replicate and even upscale actions to adapt to future impacts of natural hazards and human-induced hazards regionally, as well as to identify adaptation and disaster reduction mainstreaming opportunities into development, as a manner to enable climate-resilient pathways globally.

Furthermore, we assessed the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR) database and government information to present recent drought events in the country, to provided country-level estimates on drought events, people killed and affected and economic damage to substantiate the findings of this study. Additionally, the research depicted the situation in the country and put the national government response into context. Then, the set of tools and procedures, based on the framework followed two conceptual models commonly used by national, regional and global mechanisms: (i) Risk = f (Hazard, Vulnerability); and, (ii) Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, to frame the nature and severity of current and projected drought situation, based on international criteria. This approach served as an integrated analytical framework built on a scientific consensus to make the best use of secondary data from official government agricultural surveys and market monitoring – namely food consumption surveys, nutrition surveys, the Household Economy Approach (HEA).

This study focuses on a Sahelian archipelagic country, Cabo Verde. A lower-middle-income country located in the Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of 543,767.00 people (2018), and rising population density (134.9 people per sq. km of land area in 2018), with a sustained annual population growth of 1,2% (1,9% when considering urban population growth), between 2015-18 (World Bank, 2019). According to the most recent Government estimates, Cabo Verde´s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita reached current USD 3,450.00, in 2018, and its absolute poverty line reached 35% of the population in 2015 (World Bank, 2019). Moreover, Cabo Verde is at the confluence of two sub-regions marked by high exposure to risks and vulnerability – the Sahel and SIDS (Figure 1).

As a member of the Sahel, it presents peculiarities marked by low rates of human development, recurrent drought, high food prices, and market distortions (Bora, Ceccacci, Delgado, and Townsend, 2011; Algamal, 2011; Simon, Mattelaer, Hadfield, and Morin, 2012; Couttenier and Soubeyran, 2013; Hendrix, 2014; Porkka, Gerten, Schaphoff, Siebert, and Kummu, 2016; FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO, 2017). All recent decades, commenced in the early 1970s, have witnessed reports on drought, which is seen by many authors to be both widespread and persistent, having a significant impact on development (Agnew and Chappel, 2000; Hall et al., 2014; Masih, Maskey, Mussá, and Trambauer, 2014; Miyan, 2015). Furthermore, a combination of factors including violent extremism, abject poverty, demographic explosion, high food prices, low agricultural production, as well as the inability of affected households to recover from the incessant and recurrent food and nutrition crisis, usually exacerbates the Region’s socioeconomic vulnerability, posing immense challenges for 150 million people across the Sahel (Bora et al., 2011; Porkka et al., 2016; OCHA, 2013; 2017; 2018). In this sense, conflict and drought are the primary drivers working in tandem to usually leave more than 23 million people food insecure in West Africa (OCHA, 2017; 2018). As for June-August 2018 over 10.6 million people were in phase Crisis and above (Cadre Harmonisé phase 3, 4 and 5) of the projected food insecurity situation in the Sahel and West Africa (CILSS, 2017; FAO/ECA, 2018; FAO, 2018). In Cabo Verde alone, estimates showed 68,810 people facing different levels of food and nutrition deprivation in 2017, with a worst-case scenario of 139,000 people affected by the end of 2018 (GoCV/FAO/CILSS, 2017; GoCV, 2017/2018).

Cabo Verde, as a country in the mid-Atlantic, with a surface area of 4,030.00 sq.km, made up of ten islands and nine islets, is located between latitudes 14º 28’ N and 17º 12’ N and longitudes 22º 40’ W and 25º 22’ W, 600 km far from the Senegal coast in West Africa (Figure 2) (GoCV, 2007).

As a SIDS, it shares disproportionate challenges for sustainable development and heightened vulnerabilities for natural and environmental events. On top of that, a wide range of natural disasters, market, fiscal, and socioeconomic asymmetries expose the country to highly probable global changes, which threaten the population and the country’s long-term economic growth and resilient development. In recent years, Cabo Verde has suffered from: (i) extreme rainfall events that have led to several floods across the country including those in São Nicolau (2009), Boavista (2012), São Miguel (2013, with damages estimated at 2.6 million USD), and Santo Antão (2016, with damages estimated at 7 million USD) (GoCV, 2016); (ii) a volcanic eruption in 2014-15, in the island of “Fogo”, which displaced all 994 people living in the caldera, and resulted in damages and losses estimated at US$ 28 million, mainly affecting the agricultural sector; (iii) hurricane Fred, in 2015, which caused damages estimated at 2.5 million USD; and finally, (iv) an intense drought event in 2017-18 that might have affected up to 70,000 people (13 percent of the population), according to Government’s estimates (Escudero and Reid, 2018; GFDRR, 2017).

Cabo Verde, an archipelagic country of volcanic origin in the Sahel sub-region (Figure 3), is characterized by a dry tropical climate with two distinct climatic seasons – a long dry season and an erratic temporal and spatially concentrated rainy season.

The country presents a sensitive environmental system with a high degree of fragility and vulnerability in front of the occurrence of extreme natural phenomena, especially the high likelihood of droughts between November and June. From its total area, only 908,8 sq. km are forest area, and only 2,6% of its terrestrial and marine areas are under protection (WB, 2019). Moreover, the relatively high population density in some islands (almost half of the population –236,000 people –, live on the main island, Santiago; and, about 25% of the population lives in the capital city, Praia), 35% of its population living in rural areas (Figure 4); the inadequacy of infrastructure and limited institutional capacity, as well as lack of natural resources, work in tandem to increase the impacts of recurrent drought events in large portions of the territory (GoCV, 2007; GoCV/MAHOT, 2013).

Since the 1970s, Cabo Verde –as well as the whole of the Sahel –, has reported several episodes of drought. For Cabo Verde, the registers indicate that the main events occurred between 1968 and 1973, followed by an extreme drought event in 1977, soon surpassed by even stronger drought events between 1981 and 1983 –when the recorded precipitation levels were 50 to 70% lower than the median precipitation of the previous period (1941-90). Even in the face of so many different types of disaster events, as previously commented by Escudero and Reid, (2018), and GFDRR (2017), droughts represent the most frequent type of event historically affecting the agricultural sector and society in the archipelago (EM-DAT Cabo Verde, 2018). Table 1 summarizes the most recent hydrometeorological events demonstrating how concentrated torrential rains and recurrent wide-range drought events damages and affected people (2009-2018).

The impacts of droughts and extreme temperatures are commonly poorly reported, especially from low and lower-middle-income countries as it is the case of Cabo Verde. The country and similar regions are usually suffering long-term impacts on the stable availability, access and utilization of secure food and nutrition, as a result of continued disruption of agricultural livelihoods and food production (Caniato et al., 2017; UNISDR, 2019; Chatzoupolous et al., 2019). Notwithstanding, the lack of precise information on the real effects of disasters events on food security and nutrition, on the social tissue and the overall national economy has been affecting the national capacity to address humanitarian and development needs, as well as the capacity of affected populations to full recover from recurrent events. As per Cabo Verde, recurrent droughts are continually reducing its agricultural productivity, and the food crises of the 20^th Century and the beginning of the 21^st Century have led to an acceleration of rural exodus and migration (both among islands and internationally –Cabo Verde has a larger native population living abroad –estimated 809,000 people –, and tops the ranking of 30 African countries where remittances matter most in GDP) (GoCV, 2014; UNCV, 2014). As a result, the country faces increasing challenges related to international and internal migration, which has been resulting both in population loss (net migration: -7,392 people in 2017), and rapid and unplanned urbanization in recent years (GoCV, 2017; WB, 2019).

The combination of insufficient reporting from drought and extreme temperatures impacts on the economy and society – mostly due to methodological difficulties and lack of technical capacity to register deaths and the severe consequences at local level –, and the historical inability of the Government to prepare for drought impacts in advance, path the way for the country to pursue the development of innovative approaches for response to hydrometeorological events. Not only aimed at promoting and measuring the progress in resilience and the adaptive capacity of communities, but also, as a manner to include these topics into development policy, further exploring the development of future channels for appropriate financial mechanisms –such as climate finance and microfinance, which can give hope to smallholder farmers to proactively manage climate risks and uncertainties, and significantly reducing their future exposure and vulnerability.

Cabo Verde, as a Sahelian archipelagic country, often exposed to agrometeorological drought and high vulnerability to climate change has already observed changes in seasonal, weather, and rain patterns. Adding to the known aridity of the islands of the archipelago, the low capacity of the government to identify the severity of drought events promptly and to prepare in advance, synthesizes Cabo Verde society and economy´s high-level dependency to international support, as crucial factors limiting the national capacity to recover from disasters and crisis (Table 2) (World Bank, 2019).

In this regard, due to the fiscal and economic limitations, the country pledged international support to finance the drought emergency plan (8,225,806 USD), as well as asked for other forms of international assistance. The proportion of resources devoted to strengthening the institutional capacity of the central and local governments to respond to drought events was marginal tough, limited to 1,31% of the total expected budget (107,527 USD) (GoCV, 2017/2018).

Taking into consideration that the severe drought and food crisis initiated in 2017 is being referred to as the worst drought since 1977, and according to the Government Drought Emergency Plan (EP), some 17,203 agricultural households (62.3% of rural households) were vulnerable to the situation of low agricultural production in the period 2017-2018. To highlight the importance of this issue, beginning in 2013, the GoCV reported a series of drought events, followed by irregular and insufficient rainy season in the period 2014-2016. At that time, these series of events were scarcely addressed by the government. As a result, the severity of the cumulative effects of recent drought (2017-18 period) event on agriculture and society is believed to be substantial – although the magnitude of its impacts on people’s livelihoods remains undervalued. Agriculture and livestock are the main sectors of economic activities for the people in rural areas –with agriculture, forestry, and fishing accounting to more than 8% of the national GDP between 2012-2016 –; the continuous recurrence of drought events, has diminished the productive base of the population year after year, reducing its participation in the GDP to 6% (2017), and 4,6% (2018) (World Bank, 2019).

According to Government reporting, the drought emergency has been affecting children, disabled people, and mono-parental families led by women disproportionately, reinforcing the prevalence of relatively high levels of undernourishment among vulnerable populations –between 14% (2005) to 12,3% (2016) of the population (FAO/ECA, 2018).

The Government Drought Emergency Plan (EP) was based on three pillars: (i) livestock rescue; (ii) management of water scarcity; and, (iii) creation of jobs for affected families. Its initial design was purely economic and focused on maintaining the levels of agricultural production. In this sense, the EP seemed to be primarily reactive, adopting a traditional crisis management approach through the provision of existent relief measures and limited existing social protection channels. However, with the worsening situation of the drought in the country, it became evident that the ongoing crisis needed an innovative approach to deal with the direct impacts on the increased vulnerability of households to external shocks. In the face of worsening developments, the EP was forced to evolve to a more comprehensive social approach, corresponding to cascade effects on different social aspects of the families, women, and children, in particularly vulnerable areas of the country. Table 3 summarizes the backbone of the government intervention strategy.

Moreover, the crisis exposed the nonexistence of formal financial risk management schemes in the country at that time, which commonly led agricultural households to employ detrimental risk mitigation strategies, such as low-risk/low-yield production techniques, selling off productive capital, skipping meals, and withdrawing children from school, retro feeding negative livelihood consequences. Considering that the social dimensions of the crisis –initially ignored –became prominent. It became clear the need to add to the initial three pillars further actions to the official government response, based on the (iv) identification of the socioeconomic impacts of the crisis –to address not only the immediate needs of the affected and vulnerable households but also future needs and demands; and, the (v) identification of actions to put in place long-term resilience and climate change adaptation programmes integrated into national policies to mitigate risks and strengthen the country’s capacity to cope with disaster events and emergencies. Figure 5 describes the pillars and strategies adopted for the drought emergency response.

Such a paradigm shift has been translated into plans and strategies in an attempt to develop a robust framework to allow future timely, effective, and sustained mechanisms for disaster management based on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), as part of the National Development Strategy (NDS), with prospects to mainstream DRR and CCA into the new Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development (2017-2021), which is also expected to be aligned with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (GFDRR, 2017). If successful, this strategy could open doors for further mainstreaming of adaptation and disaster reduction into development policy and emergency response.

One of the main aspects of innovation in this revised approach may have something to do with the adoption of an inclusive corporate social responsibility framework for all emergency operations. It is guided by proper institutional articulation and synergy between involved actors, institutional cooperation with specialized development agencies. It included the design of participatory approaches involving the beneficiaries, the central and local administration authorities, the private sector, and civil society organizations. It is valuable to mention that this last element demands further investigation since the analysis of further actions to create additional awareness among beneficiaries for sustained social engagement demands time.

The intervention strategy also included the phasing out of actions according to their nature and urgency guided by the adoption of territorial development strategies to utilize data and information collected in the field, assessment analysis, dissemination of information and the implementation of awareness-raising campaigns through official communication channels. The adopted approach sought to ensure consistency of actions and to reconfigure resource access, control, and crisis management, empowering affected populations. The primary concern relates to the creation of an adaptive culture towards the negative impacts of climate change, taking both short- and long-term approaches to allow communities to manage climate change locally. In this regard, the current development of high-level national climate-related risks and strategies were handful to significantly initiate the pursue of climate-resilient development pathways, as some of the critical elements of resilience lie in sustainable development implementation correlating benefits from progress with the other (Denton et al., 2014). Although, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to adapt to climate change (Carabine et al., 2014), the country seems to be working to develop its path.

The National Drought Emergency Program (EP) was expected to run for 18 months, began March 2018 –regarding relief and humanitarian operations –, but is also aimed at achieving long-term goals of developing adaptive strategies and resilience building. The proposed long-term actions seek to mitigate the current effects of the drought event in the country and prepare the country for future events.

In this regard, this study would like to shed some light on the level of ambition proposed –especially on the challenges for future maintenance of the risk governance architecture created to respond to the drought emergency event. There is a clear risk that after the drought event ends, and the situation return to the “normal” again, the innovative risk governance scheme could be dragged into oblivion. The framework created may represent a promising step in building long-term resilience in the country, only if it survives in the long-term. It demands sustained political will and funding. In this regard, the risks are very high. Worldwide, the adaptation finance gap is enormous, and it is expected to grow substantially. By 2030, developing countries need to invest between 140-300 bn USD/year, while by 2050, the cost of adapting to climate change in developing countries could range 280-500 bn USD/year on adaptive measures (World Bank, 2010). Society and all levels of government must understand the rationale behind the costs in adapting to climate change and accelerate actions to reduce the risks involved.

The decision-making processes experienced in Cabo Verde may represent a replicable model for the building of climate-resilient pathways in the entire Region –namely Sahel and SIDS. Its persistence in time and proper allocation of already available resources seems to rise as a fundamental issue. Also, the shifting from external dependency –acting as a shaping factor, usually limiting ambition and the adoption of local solutions, keeps the affected livelihoods more vulnerable to subsequent drought events. It has to be addressed in short- to medium-term. Until there, the full integration of climate change responses into development policies and processes in Cabo Verde remains an aspirational goal. Notwithstanding, further studies to follow the development of ongoing decision-making are still needed. It is crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of overall integration and implementation of conflicting elements. So far, the development of the drought response framework represented an ambitious step for a country like Cabo Verde, constrained by the lack of human, economic, and fiscal resources for development and crisis management.

The expected decreasing income levels might bear further adverse consequences on before-mentioned aspects of the population’s well-being, such as food insecurity levels, malnutrition, health, and education. Notwithstanding, inaccurate reporting from drought and extreme temperatures events continue to hinder a better understanding of these events in the country, with damaging effects on the social tissue and negatively affecting smallholder production, increasing uncertainties, and significantly increasing local and national exposure to climate risks.

Because vulnerability has a strong correlation with communities’ capacity to adapt to changing conditions, which is by itself a function of the development and poverty levels. Cabo Verde, the Sahel and SIDS, are under unprecedented pressure due to natural and human-induced hazards and crisis. Such events are not only more frequent, but they are also more complex. In this context, a credible framework helped the government to secure international support for the drought response and elastic recovery –especially EU (European Union), aligned with funding for related interventions. However, a few gaps remained, such as:

Given the seriousness of the discussed issues, the mainstreaming and linking of policy, planning and programming frameworks for CCA and DRR within the broader context of poverty reduction and sustainable development represents an opportunity to overcome development policy and DRR gaps further. The proper allocations of such factors could allow the underlying of current and future causes of risk as well as possible timely identification of impacts as essential factors forging self-sustained climate-resilient pathways. These approaches could include DRR and CCA policies and planning at all levels (national, sectoral and sub-national); DRR programming and project design and implementation, as well as the design and development of local climate finance mechanisms to respond to disasters in particularly vulnerable areas.

More generally, the government in disaster-prone countries with a highly vulnerable population, such as Cabo Verde, have to be equally active about climate change adaptation strategies and social engagement. Political choices must translate into appropriate actions, strategies, and institutions highlighting cognitive benefits in front of the costs (Ferreira Costa and Da Silva, 2013) –since the perception of costs and benefits of mitigation (global) and adaptation (local) differ among actors (Denton et al., 2014), and over time. Not only aimed at reducing disaster risk in rural and urban areas equally, but to avoid the creation of new risks by promoting better land use, stronger planning regulations, and building codes safeguarding, and protecting natural and human-made ecosystems. Actions to reduce poverty and active measures to reduce exposure to climate risks. Including, informed choices of accepting the challenge of fostering national synergies while avoiding negative feedbacks of local climate change responses may support the achievement of the Agenda 2030 in the country.

Despite all challenges, Cabo Verde seems to be working towards the development of a robust Disaster Risk Reduction Framework focused on the building of climate resilience. By approving a Post-Disaster Recovery Framework (OCHA, 2019), and a National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy (UNDRR, 2019; 2019a) –which is support by International Organizations and the International Community, under the auspices of the Minister of Internal Affairs. The financing agreement between Cabo Verde, and the World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the International Development Association (IDA), also from the World Bank group, means a 40 million USD loan for budget support, additionally to the 1O million USD for the DRR National Strategy, offering the Government the ways to implement its risk reduction policies and strategies.

The new alignment of the National Disaster Risk Reduction with the SFA (Sendai Framework for action) (GFDRR, 2017; UNDRR, 2019a), offered the first promising prospect to the mainstream DRR and CCA into the new Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development (2017-2021). Following similar orientation, the Drought Emergency Plan, advocating for long-term resilience and climate change adaptation programs. Can be read as a clear indication of a reinforced political will to design and implement better informed and funded policies to mitigate risks and strengthen the country’s capacity to cope with disaster events and emergencies, having the SDGs as a North. The combination of these changes might represent the first steps of a shifting paradigm in Cabo Verde drought and overall disaster response.

Furthermore, the design of participative channels for risk communication and awareness-raising among the populace has room to growth. Cabo Verde, as well as its counterparts in the Sahel and SIDS, can benefit from innovative approaches locally developed, boosting progress in resilience while promoting the needed adaptive capacity of communities, underlining the development of transformational actions from a reactive to a proactive people-centered approach to DRR and policy development.

Drought and overall disaster emergency assessments and plans might be designed and implemented to feed the development of National Disaster – especially Drought –Databases; to inform Plans; and, the integration of operational agriculture drought monitoring and early warning system in the region.

Although many countries face structural challenges and bottlenecks for its proper implementation, most of the solutions these countries need are already at hand. They demand support for proper public investment and financial mechanisms, such as contingency funds and crop insurance (Rojas, 2018; FAO/ECA, 2018).

In this regard, several challenges remain for the implementation of such schemes in the most vulnerable agricultural areas, which is commonly hindered by poor political choices. In the case of the agricultural sectors, while the risks of climate variability on crop production are central to ensuring financially viable farming systems and sustainable food production as well as insurance mechanisms, they are neglected and, when used they often do not reflect local reality and needs. A further transformational change in local farming settings could offer efficient ways to manage, share, and transfer climate risks, and innovative approaches stimulated by the mainstreaming of CCA and DRR into development could be helpful to modify reality in Sahelian and archipelagic countries.

The cumulative impacts of the 2013-16 drought period, in combination with the extreme events of the 2017-18 agricultural years, and the delicate economic and fiscal situation of the country, pushed a paradigm shift in drought governmental intervention strategies. The government, with support of international partners, has been developing innovative drought and disasters response framework, structured around a national permanent Technical Steering Team (ETP, in Portuguese) – an Inter-Ministerial Task Force – responsible for the management and the implementation of articulated drought and disaster response in the country. The 2017-18 drought emergency plan innovated, mostly because it offered clear orientation regarding coordination and responsibilities to fill public risk governance gaps by exploring related society-stakeholders-government interactions for disaster reduction, emergency response, and climate resilience, with creation of the ETP, and receiving appropriate funding. Something that may seem simple to accomplish in many developed countries, but in the view of the peculiarities, level of territorial development, and political limitations experienced in Cabo Verde, demanded great political effort, political consensus, and funding –a paradigm shifting resulting from a steady awareness-raising, both among the elites and the affected populations themselves. It may forge a new development pathway where society and government have the power to define climate response strategies and not become merely spectators and victims of climate change.