Africa in general, and the Sahel in particular, is often identified as the region where climate change is most likely to undermine security and trigger violent conflict. This is a function of the region’s history of violent conflict and its perceived vulnerability to climate change. The extent to which this is the case, and the possible measures that might address this, are the focus of this regional dialogue.

This paper endeavours to provide a concise overview of peer-reviewed literature on the links between climate change and conflict in the Sahel, Sahara and North Africa (see section 8 for a list of references used). It makes no claim to be comprehensive but aims to provide a balanced view on the current state of knowledge as a way of triggering further debate.

The area under discussion is a huge swathe of land comprising all or part of 17 countries1: roughly 6,000 kilometres from west to east and 3,000 kilometres from north to south – from the Atlantic in the west to the Red Sea in the east to the Mediterranean in the north. It is politically, ethnically, linguistically, economically and climatologically highly diverse (see Annex 2). Degrees of political pluralism vary, as do levels of development. Whereas Sahelian countries are all among low-ranking countries on UNDP’s 2018 Human Development Index, North African countries fare better. Levels of hunger and malnutrition reflect this distribution: all the Sahelian countries, with the exception of Senegal, are listed as of serious concern on the 2017 Global Hunger Index, which is produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Hunger in most of the North African countries is of either low or moderate concern, with the exception of Libya, about which there were insufficient data to categorise the situation (IFPRI, 2017). Meanwhile an estimated 345 million people are without access to electricity. Chad, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger all have rural electrification rates of 5% or less (IEA, 2016).

North Africa and the Sahel is made up of three distinct biomes – the Mediterranean, the Saharan and the Sahelian – with correspondingly diverse climates. Rainfall is below 100mm per year in part of the Sahara, one of the driest, hottest regions of the world, with average temperatures around 30 degrees centigrade. Meanwhile the southern Sahel receives between 700mm and 1,000mm of rain per year. By contrast, parts of Tunisia receive 1,500mm per year and about 2,000 mm of precipitation per year fall in the Atlas mountains in Morocco, where skiing is possible in winter.
The region has been shaped by climatic fluctuations for millennia. During a much wetter period some 5,000 years ago, part of the area that is now covered by the Sahara was actually one of the first parts of Africa to be farmed (Benjaminsen, 2008). Meanwhile, the edge of the Sahara moves north and south in response to climate fluctuations.

The region, and in particular the Sahel, is seen as highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as a result of its reliance on rainfed agriculture, low level of development, weak infrastructure, largely non-existent social safety nets and high exposure to natural disasters. Periodic droughts have caused great hardship in 1910s, 1940s and between 1968 and 1993 (Descroix and Lambert, 2018). Serious floods have also been a major problem, striking Dakar in 2012, Ouagadougou in 2009, Bamako in 2013, and Niamey repeatedly (in 2004, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2016). Conflict and fragility in the region weakens countries’ ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change, setting in motion a self-reinforcing conflict trap.