Capacity building on marine and climate services: contribution of the joint international laboratory ECLAIRS (Senegal-France 2012-2024)

The scientific partnership between Senegal and France on Climate issues entered a new phase in the early 2010s, largely supported by the French national research institute on sustainable development (IRD). This collaboration has given rise to a joint international laboratory (ECLAIRS: Études intégrées du climat et de l'océan en Afrique de l’ouest et réponses aux changements globaux au Sénégal), which aims to foster and support research on West African climate and ocean. Research and capacity building are at the heart of this collaboration, in a global context that requires major empowerment of less industrialized countries.

The training of PhDs in climatology and oceanography is thus feeding into the climate science training programs being developed across the country, following the recruitment of these same young PhDs. The international partnership network developed by Senegal ensures complementary collaboration on a global scale. In addition to structuring training, ECLAIRS has permitted the development of in situ observation systems and state of the art modeling approaches. A number of observation systems emerged under this partnership: (i) the Melax observatory-buoy, which tracks ocean-atmosphere coupling at the origin of upwelling dynamics, the driving force behind the system's fisheries productivity; (ii) the monitoring of the seasonal dynamics of the shelf and its planktonic ecosystem from low-cost vessels; (iii) coastal stations to study the evolution of shellfish harvested by local populations in the Sine Saloum estuary; (iv) a mobile laboratory-container for experimental studies on benthic species; (v) low cost instrument development.

This observation effort is complemented by modeling activities, which ultimately enable Senegalese academics to offer expertise on a national scale, enabling them to become a recognized interlocutor for regional and national institutions, as well as for development agencies (projects to clean up Hann Bay, install seawater desalination plants, offshore oil exploitation, etc.). After twelve years in existence, academic institutions involved in ECLAIRS have helped to structure a community and become a key player in current national development. It has gradually opened up to the issue of oceanic services, and is currently actively involved in setting up a national coastal observatory. To meet the many challenges facing West Africa, like the rest of the world, we need to be part of a regional dynamic that has yet to be structured.

Keywords : ocean, science, collaboration, observations, modeling.