Reports, Policy Briefs, and Factsheets:

Towards a Common Vision for Climate Security in Senegal (workshop report)

Description:

Ethiopia faces compounding climate, peace, and security challenges that are intensifying pre-existing socio-economic vulnerabilities and institutional weaknesses. The impacts of climate variability, prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, and land degradation, are particularly severe in rural areas reliant on natural resources, leading to rising displacement, food insecurity, and local conflicts over land and water. Climate-induced stressors are also reshaping urbanization trends, migration patterns, and social cohesion, further straining fragile governance systems. In this context, CGIAR’s Focus Climate Security team, in collaboration with UNECA and other key partners, convened a two-day workshop in Addis Ababa to foster a common vision for integrated action across the climate, peace, and security nexus. Bringing together over 45 national and international experts from government, UN agencies, NGOs, and academia, the workshop explored opportunities for evidence-based policy alignment, long-term investment in resilience, and locally grounded responses. Through participatory methods, including a Three Horizons exercise, participants outlined institutional reforms, anticipatory early warning systems, and durable solutions for displacement that center equity, inclusion, and sustainability as core pillars of Ethiopia’s climate-secure future.

Bridging Climate Change and Human Mobility— Collective analysis for a deeper understanding of climate mobility in the East and Horn of Africa

Description:

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Snowflake held a two-part hackathon in London in collaboration with University College London (UCL) (6-7 October 2023) and in Nairobi (23-26 October 2023). The hackthons presented a unique opportunity for IOM to enhance key technical processes related to data collation, compilation and analysis, with direct implications for future use of IOM’s mobility data for climate mobility research.

Furthermore, the exercises yielded valuable insights into into the feasibility of using advanced analytics for climate migration research and the critical challenges in harnessing environmental and climate-induced disaster data. Issues such as spatial and temporal coverage limitations, incompatibility and incomparability among climate data sources, data interoperability constraints, and the spatial heterogeneity of climate data were identified.

The findings can shape future research using IOM’s mobility data to contribute to the climate mobility knowledge base and also serve as a catalyst for improving data accessibility, ultimately enhancing the analytic potential of IOM’s mobility data. This aligns with IOM’s core institutional priorities and commitment to contributing to a better understanding of mobility driven by climate change and environmental degradatio

Climate Security Observatory - Somalia

Description:

Climate security explores whether climate change increases the risk of armed conflict and, if so, under which circumstances this relationship occurs. People in fragile and conflict-affected areas are also among the most vulnerable to climate change, making it vital to understand the climate-conflict interplay for resilience and peacebuilding. A major challenge for governments in vulnerable, fragile, and conflict-affected regions is managing these complex interactions. Currently, they lack effective tools to implement climate strategies that address social grievances driving conflict and adapt to changing dynamics. In response, conflict-sensitive approaches to climate action are gaining support as mechanisms to ensure transitions to carbon-neutral economies and climate-resilient societies are equitable and aligned with peacebuilding goals. This report summarizes six intersecting pathways between climate, peace, and security in Somalia developed through a multi-methods approach. It also assesses Somalia's current policy landscape to evaluate whether it currently evidences strategic and operational linkages across key policy sectors for climate, peace, and security, and puts forward a set of policy and programming recommendations to orient climate action to mitigate underlying drivers of conflict and contribute to a sustainable peace.

How does climate exacerbate root causes of conflict in Somalia? A climate security pathway analysis

Description:

This factsheet gives answers on how climate exacerbates root causes of conflict in Somalia using a pathway analysis. Four main pathways are identified, namely, 1) resource access and availability, which illustrates how climate impacts affect natural resource availability, leading to different forms of resource-related conflicts; 2) livelihood and food insecurity, which examines how climate change impacts agricultural production and livelihoods in Somalia; 3) disaster and conflict displacement, which delves into the compounding effects of climate-induced and conflict-driven displacement on insecurity dynamics in Somalia; and 4) fragility, conflict and exploitation, which examines how climate change exacerbates existing socioeconomic inequalities, political representation, power dynamics and grievances within the country.

An econometric analysis on the direct and indirect effects of climate variability on conflict. The case of Kenya.

Description:

This study shows that in Kenya climate variability is associated with higher conflict risks. Decreased rainfall is linked to more frequent violent conflicts through an increase in the percentage of stunting children, with each unit increase in below-average rainfall anomalies associated with an 8% increase in foreseen violent conflicts per grid as mediated by malnutrition. More specifically, below-average rainfall anomalies computed over 12 months prior to the households’ interviews are associated with an 18.8 percentage point increase in the households with at least one stunted child. Moreover, malnutrition contributes to an increase in violent conflicts, with a one percentage point increase in malnourished households associated to a 0.4% increase in average foreseen violent conflicts.  Below-average rainfall anomalies computed over 12 months do not directly affect conflict risks, but only indirectly through malnutrition, implying that, when considering long-term periods, nutrition insecurity may become a dominant channel mediating the climate-conflict relationship in Kenya. • Findings also suggest that climate variability, when considering shorter time periods, is likely to have a significant direct effect on conflict risks through channels other than malnutrition.

Climate Security Observatory – SENEGAL. Summary for Policymakers

Description:

Senegal has far fewer conflicts than any other country in the Sahel and is considered one of the most stable countries in Africa. However, the south of the country is the scene of the longest-running armed conflict in Africa between the government and separatist groups in Casamance. Although it has evolved since the early 2000s into a low-intensity war that does not pose a significant security threat, it is still a source of instability in certain areas of the south of the country, where rebels control illegal logging and timber trade. While the conflict is primarily related to lower socioeconomic development and resentment of the central government, which has exacerbated feelings of marginalization and increased separatist sentiment, deteriorating climatic conditions and the increasing number of extreme weather events may negatively affect conflict and security dynamics in the country through their impact on natural resource availability and livelihoods. This profile, derived from the Climate Security Observatory, answers: 1) HOW does climate worsen the root causes of conflict? 2) WHERE are the most vulnerable areas to climate induced insecurities and risks? 3) WHO are the vulnerable groups to climate and security risks that should be targeted? and 4) WHAT needs to be done to break the cycle between climate and conflict? 

Community voices on Climate and Security: Summary results for Senegal

Description:

This memory report presents the main findings of the ClimBeR climate security workshop held in Senegal in October 2022. This workshop brought together over 35 stakeholders from Senegal's humanitarian, development, climate and peace sectors, including government representatives, NGOs, international organizations, and research institutes, with the goal of appraising climate and insecurity linkages in Senegal and targeting programmatic, evidence-based and policy-related solutions to address them

Is climate a “risk multiplier” in Ethiopia?

Description: 

Ethiopia experiences high climate variability, conflict, and political uncertainty while widespread food and nutrition insecurities are common throughout its population. CGIAR and WFP conducted a study to better understand how Ethiopia’s climate, socio-economic, and political risks and insecurities are linked to each other. This information can orient strategies and planning of long-term peacebuilding efforts and mitigate conflict risk in a climate crisis and inform strategies to strengthen the role of food for peace. 

Assessing the relationship between climate, food security, and conflict in Ethiopia and in the Central American Dry Corridor (CADC). Quantitative analysis on the impact of climate variability on conflict in Ethiopia and in the CADC countries

Description:
In this study, we investigate the climate-food security-conflict nexus in Ethiopia and the CADC (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras). Both Ethiopia and the CADC are hotspots of high climate variabilities, high political insecurity, and conflicts and widespread food and nutrition insecurities across their populations. Therefore, the main research questions that this study aims to answer for the CADC countries: • Is climate exacerbating existing threats that could increase the risk of conflict in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia? • Are areas of high climate variability correlated to high socio-political insecurity in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia? • How can WFP programming become more climate security sensitive? Our main findings can be summarized as follows: (1) Climate exacerbates existing household level risks and insecurities that can increase the likelihood and intensity of conflict. In other words, we find evidence that climate is a threat multiplier in Ethiopia and El Salvador . (2) In addition to climate induced insecurities, there exist other important household level predictors of conflict, such as age, education, and gender of the head of the household, ethnicity, access to electricity and location in Ethiopia and El Salvador. (3) The climate security nexus – the way climate, socio-economic and political risks and insecurities are linked to each other – differs across countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Ethiopia) and conflict clusters. (4) There exist “climate insecurity hotspots” at sub-national level where high level of climate variability, conflict intensity and diversity co-occur with other existing socio-economic insecurities.

How does climate exacerbate root causes of conflict in Nigeria? An econometric analysis

Description:
This factsheet assesses how climate exacerbates root causes of conflict in Nigeria, using a two-stage econometric approach. The findings show how increased rainfall increases the nutrition security of Nigerian households and that the combined effect of extreme temperature and nutrition insecurity increases the intensity of conflicts.

This publication is part of a factsheet series reporting on the findings of the CGIAR FOCUS Climate Security Observatory work in Africa (Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe). The research is centered around 5 questions: 1. How does climate exacerbate root causes of conflict? 2. Where are hotspots of climate insecurities ? 3.What is the underlying structure of the climate, conflict, and socio-economic system? 4. Are climate and security policies coherent and integrated? 5. Are policy makers aware of the climate security nexus?

World Food Programme Climate Response Analysis: Somalia

Description:
WFP and CGIAR have undertaken an analysis of climate risks in Somalia and recommended programmes to address identified risks. Climate change is one of the key drivers of hunger in Somalia. WFP is supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the changing climate and build resilience. WFP has worked with local actors and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to perform a climate risk analysis of Somalia and recommend actions to manage these identified risks. A special focus was paid to the climate security-mobility nexus across Somalia, and how mobility and security issues through 2050 may impact food security in five key livelihood zones, selected by WFP for their extreme vulnerability to climate hazards.