Climate Change, Security Risks and Conflict Reduction in Africa: A Case Study of Farmer-Herder Conflicts over Natural Resources in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso 1960–2000

210 Pages·2017·9.54 MB·English

by  Charlène Cabot (auth.)

Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental
Security and Peace VOL 12
Charlène Cabot
Climate Change,
Security Risks and Conflict
Reduction in Africa
A Case Study of Farmer-Herder Conflicts over Natural
Resources in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso
1960–2000
Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental
Security and Peace
Volume 12
Series editor
Hans Günter Brauch
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8090
More information on this series: http://afes-press-books.de/html/hexagon.htm
More information on this volume: http://afes-press-books.de/html/hexagon_12.htm
Charlène Cabot
Climate Change, Security
Risks and Conflict Reduction
in Africa
fl
A Case Study of Farmer-Herder Con icts
’
over Natural Resources in Côte d Ivoire,
–
Ghana and Burkina Faso 1960 2000
123
CharlèneCabot
Sète
France
ISSN 1865-5793 ISSN 1865-5807 (electronic)
HexagonSeries onHuman andEnvironmental Security andPeace
ISBN978-3-642-29236-1 ISBN978-3-642-29237-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-29237-8
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016933323
©Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2017
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Coverphotos:Usegraciouslyauthorizedbytheirrespectivephographers;photograph(top)—Duringthedryseasonin
theSahel,anerosivecrustcanformandmakefarmingdifficult.Source:Senegal,2014,JoyaChowdhury;photograph
(bottomleft)—Abaobabduringthedryseason.Source:Senegal,2014,StephanDeutscher;photograph(middle)—
Cattle taking shelter. Source: Burkina Faso, 2006, Jacqueline Gounelle; photograph (bottom right)—Floods in the
Northprovince,BurkinaFaso.Source:BurkinaFaso,2006,JacquelineGounelle.Moreonthisbookisat:http://www.
springer.com/series/8090?detailsPage=titlesandhttp://www.afes-press-books.de/html/hexagon_12.htm.
Copyediting:PDDr.HansGünterBrauch,AFES-PRESSe.V.,Mosbach,Germany
Printedonacid-freepaper
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature
TheregisteredcompanyisSpringer-VerlagGmbHBerlinHeidelberg
To my parents and my grandparents. Thank you for sharing your curiosity for
the world, opening my horizons and raising me to believe in humankind.
Foreword
The international community is facing new and unprecedented
security challenges. Each new decade of this millennium has
come with its own challenges; from the droughts that led to the
foodriotsof2008,tothe‘ArabSpring’thatbeganin2010,tothe
new forms of terrorism and migration flows that are emerging.
These challenges are growing from one year to the next.
More than 219,000 people arrived in Europe in 2014, for
example.Inthefirst4monthsof2015,another36,000landedon
the shores of Greece, Italy and Malta. A majority of the arrivals
are from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria. Many others come from
Afghanistan,Gambia,Nigeria,MaliandSudan.Theyarefleeing
from conflict or the threat of conflict.
By2020,some60millionpeopleareexpectedtomovefrom‘desertified’areastonorthern
Africa and Europe, and this figure is highly likely to grow by 2045, according to the 2014
United Kingdom Ministry of Defence publication, Global Strategic Trends—Out to 2045
(London: UK MoD, 2014).
ButmigrationisnotachallengeforEuropeandAfricaalone.Everyyearbetween600,000
and 700,000 people migrate from the dryland areas of Mexico, for instance.
Ordinary people and governments everywhere are overwhelmed by these developments—
andforgoodreason.Thefutureisexpectedtogetworseduetoclimatechange.Andpressure
is growing to address real—and imagined—public fears that are anticipated from climate
change threats.
The 2009 G-8 Summit, in its L’Aquila Declaration, stated that there is a reciprocal rela-
tionshipbetweenlanddegradationandclimatechangeandstressedtheneedforactiononboth
issues.Andalthoughweknowalotaboutclimatechangeandlanddegradation,thescienceof
how these two phenomena interact and shape human action is still developing.
Thus, we know that the impacts of climate change will be different across geographical
regions,butnothowspecifically.Itmeanswecannotforecasthowthepoorurbanortherural
populations in the Sahel will respond to the combined effects of climate change and
desertification.
Rigorous scholarly works that can tease out the causes and effects of these phenomena is
vital for the design of effective policy and in order to allay unfounded public fears. Policy-
makers are demanding robust knowledge about the relationships migration and conflict have
with climate change and land degradation or desertification (as it is known when it occurs in
arid and semi-arid areas). This publication moves us in that direction.
It is provocative, and although it builds on premises that are still contested, scientists,
policymakers and the public will find its conclusions interesting. The author picks a piece of
thiscomplexissueandexplainsthesituationoffarmersandpastoralcommunitiesintheSahel
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viii Foreword
in simple and accessible language. If you want to understand or are dealing with conflicts
amongfarmingandpastoralcommunitiesintheSahelorinotherpartsoftheworld,thisbook
is an essential read.
Bonn Monique Barbut
June 2015 Executive Secretary
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
Preface I
In the winter semester of 2010/2011, in the framework of the
CycleFranco-allemandatSciencesPoandtheFreeUniversity,
Charlène Cabot attended my annual compact seminar at the
Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at the Free University
of Berlin on “Climate Change Impacts for International,
European, National and Human Security: Causal, Discourse,
ScenarioandEmpiricalAnalysesofHotspots”;shepresenteda
talk on “Climate change impacts for sub-Saharan Africa and
the political response” that impressed me both by its scientific
focus and by her concern for the issues.
In September 2011, I proposed her MA thesis on Climate
© Humboldt-Stiftung/Svea ChangeandSecurityRisksinAfrica:TheInfluenceofPolitical
Pietschmann, Berlin, 14 July Factors on the Reduction of Climate-induced or -aggravated
2015 Conflicts—A Study of Farmer–Herder Conflicts over Natural
Resources in Western Africa for the prix d’excellence of the
Deutsch-Französische Hochschule—Université franco-allemande. Charlène Cabot’s thesis
addressed the research question “how institutional design and policies influence and might
reduce conflicts, therefore avoiding the escalation of social conflicts into violence and
upholding human and environmental security”. She combined French scientific expertise on
AfricawithGermanexpertiseinthesocietaleffectsofclimatechangeonsecurityandconflicts
by focusing on “social, economic and political circumstances mediating environmental
changes and determining whether the societal challenge posed by climate change will be a
conflictive one”. She rejected any automatic link between climate change and conflict and
stressed instead that political institutions and decisions could reduce violent climate-induced
conflictsthroughintegratedpolicies.Herresultsmaybeofpracticalrelevancefordevelopment
cooperation andfor theglobal politicaldebate onwhether political factorswillbe decisive in
determining whether climate change will become an additional stressor, increasing the
probability of conflict.
Not surprisingly, on 18 November 2011 Ms.Charlène Cabot—at theage of23—won one
of the nine prizes and the only one for outstanding academic achievement for her
French-German master’s thesis in political science; she was the first student from the Free
University of Berlin to be awarded this prize. In early 2012, her study underwent a second
roundofdouble-blindreviewbyAfricaspecialistsfromdifferentdisciplinesfrombothAfrica
and Europe. In December 2011, Charlène Cabot joined the World Food Programme
(WFP) and worked in Germany, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Senegal and the
organization’s Policy and Programmes Division in Rome, before moving to work for WFP’s
office in Chad.
Charlène Cabot has been one of several highly gifted ambitious young women and men
fromtheCycleFranco-Allemandwhohavecombinedscientificexcellencewithsociopolitical
andenvironmentalconcernsandwhohavelatertakenupkeypositionsinFrenchandGerman
ix
x PrefaceI
governmentagenciesandwithinternationalorganizations,includingpositionsinpoliticaland
environmental hot spots in Africa or in Afghanistan.
Since the Élysée Treaty was signed on 22 January 1963, Franco-German friendship has
graduallyevolved,offeringanewframeworkforcooperationinforeignanddefencepolicyas
well as in education and youth policy. A new generation of French-German bridge-builders
andleadershasemergedwhoeachspeakandunderstandthelanguageandcultureoftheother.
Thirteen years earlier Jean Monnet, an experienced political visionary, had set bilateral eco-
nomic andpoliticalrelationson adifferent track, breakingwithhundredsofyearsofconflict.
In 1984, on the initiative of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Kiersch, Sciences Po (Institut d'études
politiques de Paris) and the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science signed an agreement on
exchangingstudents.In1991ajointandintegratedstudyprogrammefollowed,andin2008a
dual master’s programme, with different specializations in political science, international
relations and European affairs. During the past three decades some 500 students have par-
ticipated in this programme, with 20 new students admitted each year.
CharlèneCabotdevelopedhertalentsinthisbroaderpoliticalandeducationalframeworkof
closer French-German cooperation. Talented and engaged students are the highest gift to any
university educator who is keen to translate knowledge into political and social action. I was
delighted to work with Charlène Cabot to develop her thesis into this book. My friend since
1963, Michael Headon from Wales, helped with language editing. This trilateral cooperation
has become an intergenerational French, British and German effort.
IamdelightedthatMmeBarbut(France),ExecutiveSecretary,UnitedNationsConvention
toCombatDesertification(UNCCD),andDr.IbrahimShawhaveendorsedCharlèneCabot’s
bookwithaforewordandpreface.Dr.Shaw,himselfamemberoftheFulbepeople,grewup
in Freetown (Sierra Leone), teaches at Northumbria University, UK, and is the first African
Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA).
Mosbach, Germany Hans Günter Brauch
January 2016 Editor offive book series published by Springer
Peace Research and European Security Studies (AFES-PRESS)
Co-chair, IPRA’s Ecology and Peace Commission