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Background
In Africa, 70-80% of hunger and poverty are concentrated in rural areas [1]. Climate change adds an extra burden to this situation that is already severe with disastrous consequences on food security for the populations [2]. Thus, rural communities, particularly those in the Sahel, who live in an environment that is already fragile, are more vulnerable because of the importance of natural resources and rain-fed agriculture in their economies [3]. Senegal, particularly the agro-ecological zone of the groundnut basin, is in this situation where 70% of the population depends on agriculture and livestock and where the natural vegetation is replaced by crops on most of the land [4] with the resultant diminishing soil fertility. In this area, agriculture, mainly of rain-fed type, is heavily dependent on agro-climate parameters such as rainfall, temperature, sunlight and wind that experience significant variations over the years [5]. This amplifies the vulnerability of rural populations that are in a vicious cycle of poverty. In the face of this situation, major projects have been implemented in Senegal to promote adaptation through the dissemination of climate-smart technologies and practices. Despite these efforts, the food security situation is still precarious and even critical for the rural population. One of the reasons for this situation is that many different planning approaches and tools are used leading often to low participation of the local populations in the assessment of their own ability to adapt to climate change [6]. In fact, the degree of participation of the rural population in the planning, monitoring and evaluation of adaptation capacities was often incomplete and inadequate. In many cases, the populations were not involved in decision making. Participation was often limited to analyzing vulnerability and giving researchers the choice to determine and plan adaptation actions and choose tasks to be undertaken by communities. Consequently, there is a lack of consistency between the situation of vulnerability and adaptation actions [6]. Recently an holistic approach called climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is being promoted and consists in the use of climate information and context-based technologies and practices with the aim to improve productivity (food and nutrition security), increase resilience of the people and ecosystems (adaptation) and reduce greenhouse gases emission/sequester carbon when possible (mitigation) [7]. However, the rate of adopting climate-smart technologies...