In August 1994, the Government of Senegal and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM), a seven year 36 million US Dollar program with purpose of increasing the participation of the local communities and private sector in the identification, planning, management and conservation of natural resources in selected 50 Communautés rurales out of the 320 in the country. The major natural resources of interest to the program are soils, water, vegetation and fauna.

Senegal's current population is 8.8 million growing at a rate of 2.7% per year. About 60% of its population live in rural areas where economic activities are essentially based on agriculture and natural resource related activities. The country has made significant improvements in its macro-economic environment over the past 5 years, boosting gross domestic product growth rate from -2.1 in 1993 to 4.7 in 1997. However, agriculture and natural resources management (NRM) performance is subject to negative effects of recurrent droughts and increased population pressures. This degradation has resulted in severe reduction in rural population’s revenue, increased poverty and subsequent increased migration from rural areas. Senegal's high population growth rate remains a major concern in terms of maintaining adequate social services for the population.

In order to reverse the tendency, the Government Of Senegal and USAID initiated the CBNRM program with the goal of increasing private sector incomes derived from improved management of natural resources consistent with decentralized, participatory and sustainable planning and use of natural resources. Its subgoal is to increase soil productivity.

Since the 1970s, Senegal's natural resource potential is subject to effects of recurring droughts. Many other factors negatively affected soil fertility and agricultural productivity: (1) pressures due to increasing population , (2) low-technology level for agricultural production systems, (3) weak agricultural development and natural resources management and conservation policies, (4) poor coordination among the government departments active in the NR sector, and (5) limited government resources and over centralized top-down decision-making process.

Reports on the magnitude of the natural resources degradation revealed that 7.5% of the vegetation cover disappeared between 1980 and 1990, 82% of the fauna habitat and flora were lost between 1970 and 1986, salt intrusion led to loss of productive land, and decreased agricultural production by 0.2% per person per year between 1979 and 1992. To address these problems, the Government of Sénégal launched four important initiatives between 1972 and 1994 , to improve conditions for adopting improved NRM practices in Senegal: the 1972 national regionalization law, the Convention to combat Environment desertification ratified on October 15, 1994, the creation of a Ministry of and Protection of Nature in June 1993, and the Forestry Code of April 1995. In the same period, a substantial number of NGOs (associations, GIE, women and youth groups, etc..), have become active in the Senegalese peoples' attempt to help themselves.

This attempt to set a favorable framework for sustainable management of natural resources failed to meet country expectations. Some of the laws and policies were not fully implemented, not widely understood and largely not respected by traditional land use customs. Although the "Centre d’Expansion Rural Polyvalent (CERP) were created to address the need for coordination of technical services, they were not fully operational because they were not provided with sufficient financial, logistical and trained human resources to fulfil their duties. The same deficiency applies to the CRs which were created by the 1972 regionalization law. The major shortfall is that the framework did not allow for active and early, direct involvement of local communities in resource identification, planning and management. Indeed, it favored preeminence of civil services in the resources management process.

Clearly, NRM in Sénégal required a restructuring which would (a) catalyze the involvement of local populations and organizations; (b) develop among the populations, a better understanding of the country legal and policy framework for natural resources use and conservation; (c) stimulate better coordination of services from centralized ministries; and (d) provide on-going natural resources management financing for interventions which will enable communities to conduct their activities in a sustainable way.

The CBNRM program helps the people of Sénégal by creating the right enabling conditions: an active, early and direct involvement of local communities in the planning and management of their NR base.

The CBNRM Activity has a strategy which relies on two principles:

- use a global land use management technique to deal with NRM problems,

- empower local people and structures, and provide them with the means to reinforce their capacities to take action.

The approach to implement this strategy is based on an initial skills and awareness building process for populations to take ownership. It includes extensive training in everything from literacy and numeracy to nursery management and financial management, as well as the creation of NRM Committees (NRMC) which implement the program at the CR level.

The most critical elements of the CBNRM strategy are the NRMC, the Land Use Management Plan (LUMP) and partners involvement. The NRMC is composed of democratically elected representatives of the Rural Council, local NGOs, village groups, economic interest groups, the different geographic zones of the CR, and the different socio-professionel categories of the CR, in order to ensure full community representation and participation in the NRM process. The attributions and mode of operation of the NRMC, as a technical advisory type body of the Rural Council, must be accepted and approved by the latter. An executive office is created within the NRMC. Its role is to perform administrative and financial management functions. The executive office can call on any NRMC member for assistance. In addition to the Executive Office, two other groups exist in the NRMC: the technical committee responsible for NRM issues and the one in charge of information diffusion and communication concerning NRM technologies and the CR’s Land Use Management Plan (LUMP) promotion. An important effort is made to render the NRMC, an important and innovative creation of the CBNRM program, (and now part of the Senegalese decentralization implementing legislation) an efficient, operational and sustainable consultative body of the Rural Council.

At the end of the CBNRM intervention in a CR - (i.e. after a four year period )- the NRMC will consolidate the program achievements and continue the implementation of new NRM activities within the CR on behalf of the Rural Council.

The LUMP is a guide which makes an inventory of present situation in relation to NRM problems, their causes and solutions. It also identifies opportunities for enhancing the value of existing natural resources. It is developed by the local populations by means of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods with non intrusive support from external partners. The plans define prioritized and sustainable interventions that the CR can undertake.

In the light of LUMPs, populations define public and private type sub-projects - related to water, soil, vegetation and/or wildlife - which the NRMC will finance. The CBNRM provides some financial support with significant contribution by rural population for activities that profit the CR inhabitants. In order to ensure the sustainability of such actions, the CRs must participate (minimum 20 % for equipment and 15 % for manpower) in financing sub-activities of public interest. For private interest sub-activities, the funding is ensured by the initiators for up to 15 % for equipment costs and up to 60 % for labor costs.

The CR animator serves as a relay between the NRMC and the populations. He/she helps the CERP with data collection, formulating and following up program activities. The rural community animator is recruited according to defined criteria including: being a resident of the CR, language abilities, education, good communication capability and experience in extension.

The CERP provides technical services and is administrated by the Rural Expansion Service Secretariate under the Ministry of Interior. One CERP is located in each arrondissement and is staffed with a multi disciplinary team of development agents in livestock, agriculture, water resources, forestry and home economics. The CERP provides technical assistance to the NRMC for the design and implementation of the land use management plan.

The CBNRM program provides support for NRM activities in the CRs through cost-sharing grants to cover the NRMC operating costs, funding for public and private sub-projects, training , support to communication activities and to partners (CERPs, NGOs and service providers, for instance). It is managed by a management unit (MU) headed by a Director who reports to the Minister of the Environment and the Protection of Nature (MEPN). The Director's mission is to ensure the coordination and implementation of program activities in close collaboration with the SECID (South East Consortium for International Development) three member technical assistance team.

CBNRM is in early stages of implementation. As of now, the CBNRM activity is active in 15 CR (about 170,000 inhabitants) where the LUMPS have been completed. In the first 5 CRs selected, the NRMCs are fully operational. Twelve (12) subprojects out of fourty (40) planned were started involving 2,623 persons. Thirteen (13) others were identified and are being studied for feasibility. As for training, 1,205 participant units (1 participant for 1 training activity), were achieved (295 female units and 910 male units) out of 1,402 planned. Program completion date target is 8,419 participant units. As a result of effective training and communication, the populations' NRM policy awareness and NRMC members management skills have substantially increased. Under the monitoring component baseline information was collected in order to measure results, people level impact and to inform the Conseil Supérieur des Ressources Naturelles et de l'Environnement (CONSERE) network for policy analysis. But the changes are recent, thus information on impact is limited to date.

CBNRM created a unique institutional environment by pushing the decentralization process to allow active and direct involvement of local populations in the participatory management of their natural resources. Despite to early phase, three major lessons have already been learned which are keys to the replicability of the CBNRM decentralized natural resources management model:

(1) maintainance of a delicate balance between facilitation of and non-interference in local democratic processes; thus the program has helped local populations to acquire the skills needed to create local NRMC and to make them functional, while at the same time supporting populations’ effort to develop local institutions that are truly and transparently representative of their interests;

(2) transfer of NRM authority to the regional and grassroot community levels and formulation of LUMPs by local populations;

(3) establishment of a democratically elected NRMC within the administrative framework of the CR.

The key elements of the CBNRM's approach described above, have been legitimized by the newly enacted decentralization law (effective January 1, 1997) concerning the transfer of competencies to the CRs throughout the country.

The CBNRM strategy placed the NRM responsibilities at the user level, ahead of the decentralization law. It helped provide the existing CRs with a NRM consultative body - the NRMC - and a planning instrument - the LUMP - to better manage the resources, generate revenue, strengthen local institution and forster partnership. This new strategy changed the once prevailing "civil service-led", natural resources management approach and permitted to build the populations' ownership of NRM-based activities through active involvement, effective communication and training. This empowerment and local capacity building combine with the opportunities for generating revenue for the local natural resource users will assure high probability of program success.