1970s Drought, State Crisis, and Opportunities for Transnational River Development in the Senegal Basin

During the early 1970s, the Sahel suffered from drought and famine. Previous research has emphasized how these factors weakened West African states. The drought, however, provided an opportunity for a transnational river organization in the Senegal River basin (the OMVS) to obtain financing for an integrated development program. Wall shows how the OMVS leveraged concern about famine to obtain funding. She uses digital text analysis to demonstrate institutional priorities shifting to focus on agriculture. This combination of document analysis with digital methods demonstrates how famine strengthened a multi-state organization, requiring a revision of how this event affected African political capacity.