One decade of institutional scientific output and impact in West Africa : the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL)

Abstract

In the frame of climate change, Africa belongs to the regions with low capacities to cope with the negative effects. Local capacities in education and research need to be strengthened to increase the regions’ social-ecological resilience and provide long-term environmental security for people. Foreign investors in this endeavour are often interested in the output and impact of their investments in order to identify the potentials for further improvements and commitments. In our study, we have focused on an international institution that is actively contributing to improve climate change research in West Africa, called WASCAL (West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use). Taking the 10-year anniversary of WASCAL as the occasion for an assessment of the scientific output, a comprehensive systematic literature review for the time span 2012–2022 of peer-reviewed scientific publications related to WASCAL was conducted. In total, 315 high-quality papers published in 149 different peer-reviewed journals were identified. Globally, WASCAL is well connected, shown by joint publications from 58 different countries. Within West Africa, especially Burkina Faso (107 publications) and Ghana (86 publications) were represented with high levels of (co-)authorships. One of the main research areas of WASCAL is climate modelling which was reflected in the findings. Relatively underrepresented in the frame of WASCAL-related publications were studies from social sciences. In addition, more research should be conducted on the multifaceted topics of food security and urban planning. WASCAL could also contribute further to the emerging research field of tropical medicine and parasitology due to the threat to human health and food security resulting from environmental and climate change.