Cool by Design: Combining Ancient and Frontier Tech for a Climate-Resilient Sahel

THE QUESTION

Can adapted ancient passive cooling and water-storage technologies provide affordable, off-grid relief from extreme heat and food spoilage for vulnerable communities in the Sahel?

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LOCATION: Senegal, Chad, wider Sahel region
SECTOR: Climate, Humanitarian
TECH: Ancient Technologies
TIMELINE: January 2026 - Present
PARTNERS: TBD
PIONEERS: Mana Farooghi, Izza Soubiane

The challenge

Communities in the Sahel face compounding crises of extreme heat, water scarcity, and food insecurity as temperatures regularly exceed 40°C. Heat stress affects the elderly, children and outdoor workers most severely, and causes thousands of excess deaths each year across West Africa. Faster food spoilage leads to post harvest losses of 20-50% of perishable crops, impacting the livelihoods of ordinary people. Unlike traditional desert-dwelling populations in Persia, Morocco, or Yemen, the Sahel was historically sparsely inhabited by nomadic pastoralists who moved seasonally rather than developing long-term architectural adaptations to extreme heat. Population growth, urbanization, and displacement have now pushed settlements into hot, arid areas where homes built from corrugated iron roofs and cement walls amplify indoor heat. For example, studies in N'Djamena recorded indoor temperatures 6–8°C hotter than outside during peak hours. Refugee settlements in eastern Chad hosting over 1.2 million displaced persons face even harsher conditions with makeshift shelters offering little protection. Existing refrigeration and water-cooling solutions rely on expensive, polluting diesel generators that are off-grid incompatible and inaccessible to vulnerable populations. Without low-energy passive cooling and water storage technologies, climate vulnerability could increase heat-related mortality by 30–50% in some Sahelian regions by 2050 while continuing to undermine food security and safe water access.

The solution

The pilot revives and adapts millennia-old desert technologies to create culturally adaptable, off-grid solutions for the Sahel. Examples of these include badgirs (windcatchers); yakhchals (evaporative "fridges"); qanats (subterranean water channels); and vernacular cooling systems. The approach uses passive cooling, water management, and traditional building techniques to reduce heat and preserve food, water, and medicines. Built from local materials and supported by local skills, finance, and climate programmes, it offers an affordable, off grid, and culturally appropriate solution to extreme heat - reducing heat-related illness and mortality while lowering post-harvest losses to improve nutrition and income for smallholder farmers and market vendors.

The pilot will involve communities in design and construction using traditional skills, ensuring local ownership and long-term maintenance rather than dependence on external technical support or imported equipment. The pilot will provide real data on temperature reductions, water efficiency, and durability under extreme weather, informing cost-benefit analysis for scaling across Chad, Senegal, and similarly affected areas. International financial institutions and humanitarian agencies can integrate these lasting, replicable alternatives into large-scale shelter and climate adaptation programmes. The pilot will assess which ancient technologies suit specific Sahelian soils and climates, what modifications are needed, how households perceive and adopt adapted building practices, what cultural or gender-specific barriers exist, and what financing or policy support enables replication at scale while strengthening rather than displacing existing earth-based architectural traditions.

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Our learnings and stories so far

This pilot hasn’t started to publish yet, but there are plenty of other blogs to read below. Check back soon!