Climate Change and Conflict in Sahel

Abstract

This dissertation assesses the effect of climate change on conflict in the Sahel. The first chapter reviews the major types and drivers of community conflict in Burkina Faso, from 2015-2022, highlighting land use disputes and farmer-herder tensions. The study finds that climate change act as a threat multiplier of community conflict in Burkina Faso in particular land-use disputes and farmer-herder conflict. In addition, some socio-economic factors affect the occurrence of community conflicts. This result implies that policies should address the social, political and institutional weakness that allow environmental stress to escalate into conflict. The second chapter investigates the effect of climate change vulnerability on farmer-herder conflicts. For this purpose, we constructed household-level vulnerability index to climate change from our survey data. By employing mixed methods using quantitative analysis and qualitative data description, we find that quantitively vulnerability to climate change positively influences farmer-herder conflict. This finding is confirmed with qualitative data description since both farmer and herder reveal that the degree of their vulnerability explains the emergence of conflicts. Then, when elaborating policies that can reduce farmer-herder conflict regarding their vulnerability, effort should be focused on increasing farmer-herder resilience via-a-visa of climate change effect and mitigate climate change effect, promote tolerance for social diversity, and support stakeholders (who intervene in conflict management).The third chapter investigates empirically the role of migration as a mediator in the vulnerability to climate change and internal conflict nexus. By employing structural equation modelling, the study finds that vulnerability to climate change affects directly conflict and that 73.5% of the total effect operates through migration channel. This means that migration plays a partial role in the transmission of conflict in the Sahel. Since vulnerability to climate change affect directly conflict in Sahelians countries, police response should focus on reducing climate vulnerability through adaptation measures. Together, the dissertation contributes to the literature on climate security by offering empirical evidence from a vulnerable region and provides policy recommendations to address emerging climate security risks.