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Rural Areas and Agricultural Changes
The West African rural environment was long considered to be unchanging. But it is in fact at the heart of powerful transformations. The most important of these changes concerns the population and settlement.
The region will certainly be mostly urban in 2020. According to United Nations’ figures, in 2005 the urban population was 120 million or 43% of the total population. However, the rural population continues to increase; it more than doubled between 1960 and 2005, growing from 70 to 155 million people. It is expected to rise to almost 180 million people in 2020.
Defined as all people making their living from farming, hunting, fishing or forestry (including all people conducting agricultural activities, along with their inactive dependants), the agricultural population of West Africa fell from 80% of the total population in 1961 to less than 50% in 2005. The rural environment is no longer exclusively agricultural and some urban areas are still used for peri-urban agriculture and livestock farming.
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