Posted in Blog on Nov 04, 2026.
By Almamy Soumaré
First Published in French by Cridem here,
This is not a distant change. Rainfall is becoming more irregular, droughts more persistent, extreme heat more difficult to withstand, and floods sometimes more sudden. Bushfires are spreading into areas that are already fragile; land is being eroded under increasing pressure on water, grazing areas and soils. At the same time, new infrastructure and extractive projects are reshaping land uses, changing mobility patterns and potentially increasing pressure on natural resources.
These phenomena do not simply add up: they can reinforce one another. When flooding occurs on land already weakened by drought, heat or soil degradation, it can have greater impacts on crops, infrastructure and livelihoods.
The question is therefore no longer only how to respond when disaster strikes. It is also how to anticipate, prepare better and build responses that are adapted to local realities. This may be one of the real challenges for Guidimakha: not waiting for each new difficulty to impose its own response, but progressively strengthening the territory’s capacity to understand its priorities, anticipate change and take action.
Communes remain the first place where people experience the effects of risks in concrete terms. But water, sediment, fires, natural resources and human activities do not stop at administrative boundaries. Understanding a risk often means looking beyond the place where it becomes visible.
This does not weaken the role of the Commune. On the contrary. It is at the local level that problems are observed, priorities are expressed and responses must take shape. The challenge is to enable local action to be part of a broader understanding of the territory — without waiting for a top-down vision to decide everything.
Disaster risk reduction now has a common international framework: the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. But a global framework is only meaningful when it is translated into countries and territories. It can help guide national policies and strategies, and then regional and local approaches to preparedness, planning and risk reduction. Mauritania is now part of this dynamic through its National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (SNRRC) 2025–2030, developed with the support of UNDP and UNDRR. This strategy aims in particular to strengthen the country’s resilience, better coordinate prevention, preparedness, response and recovery efforts, and mobilize the partnerships and resources needed for implementation.
The question then becomes very concrete: how can we ensure that these frameworks do not remain at the level of texts, but can actually help illuminate the realities of a region, a Commune and a community?
These territorial dynamics also constitute, at their own scale, a concrete contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals and major international agendas: acting on water, land, agriculture, resilience and ecosystems also means giving local expression to these commitments.
It is precisely in this space — between broad orientations and lived experience on the ground — that territorial engagement becomes essential.
Within the Sendai Framework, a voluntary commitment enables actors to publicly present a concrete initiative contributing to disaster risk reduction and resilience, while sharing the experience and lessons that can be drawn from it. It is neither a new administration nor an additional obligation imposed on local authorities. Above all, it is a way of making a commitment, taking action, learning and sharing. And such commitments can be carried by very different actors: a Commune or another local authority, a civil society organization, a women’s or youth group, a company, an institution, or another territorial actor that chooses to mobilize several partners around a concrete initiative.
What therefore matters is not only the status of the actor making the commitment, but the ability to formulate an initiative, mobilize the relevant actors and contribute to risk reduction and resilience.
In 2026, Guidimakha saw the registration of the “Community Mechanism for NbS and Eco-DRR in Guidimakha, Mauritania”, for the period 2026–2028. The initiative focuses in particular on floods, droughts, heatwaves and bushfires, using an approach based on communities, ecosystems and Nature-based Solutions.
But beyond the name of the mechanism, the real question is what this commitment can enable the territory to learn and progressively build.
Making a commitment does not mean having all the answers immediately.
It can begin with very simple questions:
● Where do risks occur?
● Who is exposed?
● What resources and existing practices are available?
● What skills or data do we need?
This knowledge helps define priorities more effectively.
Data and technical expertise are not, however, the only sources of knowledge. Everyday experience of the territory, local practices and certain forms of knowledge passed down through generations can also contribute to understanding risks and imagining appropriate responses.
Some dimensions are also less visible in conventional indicators: landscape degradation, the loss of certain practices or forms of knowledge, damage to elements of heritage or collective life. Yet these can matter in how a territory experiences the effects of change or disaster. This approach also makes it possible to move away from a logic in which a Commune necessarily waits for an external project to identify the problem, propose the response and provide the resources.
A local authority can begin differently: by developing a better understanding of its own territory, defining its priorities and then seeking support that corresponds to its needs. This is where local communities, women’s groups, youth organizations, technical services, civil society, researchers and, where relevant, economic actors come into play.
Each holds part of the territory’s knowledge.
Resilience therefore also depends on the ability to bring these different forms of knowledge into relation with one another.
The State retains an essential role. It defines policies, coordinates public action, mobilizes resources and creates the conditions that enable territories to move forward. But it cannot, on its own, carry the fight against climate change and disaster risk reduction in every Commune.
Local authorities are therefore essential actors in this dynamic.
They are close to the population, understand local priorities and can help transform a local concern into organized action.
This is also the spirit of a “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach: different levels of public action should be able to work together, while resilience also mobilizes communities, civil society, young people, women, the private sector, researchers and partners.
The objective is not for everyone to do everything. It is for everyone to be able to play their part.
This may be one of the realities least known at the local level.
When a Commune decides to address a problem, it is not necessarily alone. Networks, standards, tools, technical partners and support mechanisms already exist and can help it move forward.
The challenge is to know that they exist and understand when they can be useful. For example, a local authority can begin by developing a better understanding of its risks, strengthening its diagnosis, improving its planning, and then preparing projects that may be of interest to partners.
Approaches such as Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) illustrate this progression: Know Better, Plan Better, Implement Better.
Likewise, international standards such as the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions can help structure and assess certain projects.
Other networks open other doors: BRIDGES around knowledge and learning between territories; ARISE around private-sector participation in resilience.
The Ecosystem Restoration Integrated Program (ERIP), led by Conservation International in partnership with UNDP, also provides resources, tools and capacity-building opportunities to advance ecosystem restoration efforts.
The principle is simple: The network does not replace the Commune’s commitment; it can help it go further.
Let us take a concrete example.
A Commune observes that floods regularly affect certain areas.
The first question is not necessarily:
“Where can we find the money?”
It may be:
What exactly is the problem?
Who is affected?
What are its causes?
What solutions are possible?
What can we do locally?
What support do we need?
This progression may seem obvious, but it is decisive.
Between a problem experienced on the ground and a project that may receive support, there is often a process: understand, diagnose, prioritize, plan, develop a proposal, identify partners, and then seek the appropriate resources.
Funding rarely comes at the very beginning of this chain.
It becomes more accessible when the need is clear, the priority is shared and the project has been sufficiently prepared.
In Guidimakha, many risks are linked to the relationships between water, soils, vegetation, wetlands and the ways in which the territory is used.
This opens up a space for reflection around Nature-based Solutions, or NbS.
They are not simply about planting trees.
They seek to address societal challenges by working with ecosystems while taking into account the people who depend on them.
Fire prevention, erosion control, land restoration and the management of certain water-related dynamics can therefore be considered differently, alongside other means of action.
The benefit is also the possibility of relying on recognized standards to better structure these approaches.
Guidimakha does not necessarily have to wait until it has all the answers before beginning to learn.
A local experience can be documented.
A diagnosis can reveal a new priority.
An approach can show what works — or what needs to be improved.
These lessons can then be useful to other Communes, technical services, MEDD, the State and partners.
This is how Guidimakha can progressively become a territory for learning and demonstration. Not a perfect showcase.
Not a model imposed on others.
But a space where approaches can be tested, documented and shared.
In Arr, for example, a first step in this process had already begun with a territorial pre-diagnostic carried out in December 2025. This type of experience can show how reflection can start from a local reality and progressively be connected to broader frameworks. Resilience Built with Everyone
Territorial resilience is therefore not only a matter of projects.
It also depends on the ability to create links between those who know the territory, those who make decisions, those who have expertise and those who can provide resources.
The principle of “leaving no one behind” takes on a very concrete meaning here.
Communities must be able to make their observations and knowledge heard.
Women and young people must be able to take part in the process.
Local authorities must be able to access available knowledge and networks.
Economic actors must be able to understand the risks to which their activities are exposed.
And institutions must be able to learn from what is actually happening in the territories.
This also applies to early warning systems: useful information only becomes real protection when it reaches exposed people at the right time and in a form they can understand and use. This is one way of bringing the idea of shared responsibility to life at the local level.
Guidimakha already has many things: local authorities, communities, local knowledge, experiences and priorities.
The objective is not to start everything again.
It is to better understand what already exists, better articulate what we want to improve and know which resources to turn to.
Global frameworks can provide direction.
National policies and strategies can create a framework.
Regional and communal mechanisms can translate priorities into action.
Networks can connect.
Standards can help structure.
Partners can provide support.
Funding can support sufficiently prepared projects.
But none of these mechanisms can replace the commitment of the territory itself.
This may be the main lesson to retain.
A Commune does not need to wait for a major project to arrive before beginning to prepare for its future.
It can begin by identifying a priority, understanding it better, mobilizing its actors and seeking the doors that can help it move forward.
Guidimakha is changing. Global frameworks can open doors. Institutions can accompany. Networks can connect. Partners can support. But it is in the territories that engagement becomes action.
Guidimakha is not alone in facing these challenges. International frameworks, networks and tools already exist to help territories better understand risks, strengthen resilience, develop knowledge and prepare their own actions.
Sendai Commitment – UNDRR See how a territorial initiative in Guidimakha is connected to the international disaster risk reduction framework.
MCR2030 – Making Cities Resilient 2030 Explore an approach that supports local authorities in better understanding their risks, improving planning and implementing resilience actions more effectively.
IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions – Discover the international framework that helps design, assess and improve Nature-based Solutions.
Global First NbS Summer School – Turenscape Academy Explore an international learning and practice space dedicated to Nature-based Solutions.
UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES – Discover an international coalition connecting different communities of knowledge and action to support sustainable transformations.
PRIVATE SECTOR AND RESILIENCE ARISE – UNDRR Explore a network that promotes collaboration between the public and private sectors around resilience.
Ecosystem Restoration Integrated Program (ERIP) – Access training and capacity-building opportunities in the field of ecosystem restoration.
The doors already exist. The territory’s commitment makes it possible to begin opening them. By Almamy Soumaré Practitioner certified – IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions (NbS)
Complimentary Blog– Guidimakha: From Karakoro to the Senegal River, two mining projects and a territory undergoing rapid transformation
