grantees » Babacar Diouf

Babacar Diouf is a young Senegalese geographer who, after studying in the Dakar Cheikh Anta Diop University, decided to specialize in ‘’Sea land extraction and its impacts on the environment in Dakar’’. He is active in the Lumiere Synergie Developpement(LSD). LSD is a Senegalese non-profit organization established in March 2009 that advocates for good governance in international financial institutions and the management of public affairs. Aside from planning projects, Babacar is also active in the field of agriculture, food security and environment.

Many young Senegalese such as Babacar have been struggling with worsening environmental conditions. The Senegalese capital of Dakar faces coastal erosion due to land and sea extraction for house construction, leading to salt intrusion into the productive land which has undermined rice farming. Babacar’s will to do something about this has been noticed by his nominator, who remarks that “he would like to help his people to overcome fatality by learning and educating youth and women living in (the) Fatick region”.

Babacar will use his JWH Initiative grant to follow a Master course on Natural Resource Management and Sustainable Development at the Institute of Environmental Science of Dakar. Here he will improve his knowledge on environmental policy, his skills in climate change adaptation, and his own leadership capabilities in order to help his community. Already with a clear image of his results in mind, Babacar will soon show how his community can overcome salt intrusion into their lands by building small technical facilities around the villages stop the salt intrusion and capture water for long periods after the rain season for irrigation.