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The importance of food systems in a climate crisis for peace and security in the Sahel
Abstract
Conflicts are increasingly analysed as exhibiting a stealth complexity in which triggers and consequences are intricately linked to climate, environmental degradation and the struggle to control a finite pool of natural resources. The climate crisis is a multifaceted reality and, against this background, many pressing priorities compete with each other. The disruptive effect of climate variability and change on food systems is particularly acute and constitutes a direct and tangible threat to livelihoods globally. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate and discuss the importance of food systems under a climate crisis in exacerbating conflicts in the Sahelian region and propose interventions beyond and complementary to the usual military and security solutions. We demonstrate for the Sahel that (i) climate hazards are frequent and exposure to climate variability is high, (ii) hotspots of high climate variability and conflict exist, and (iii) impact pathways by which climate exacerbates food systems that can lead to conflicts are documented in the literature. While these three findings suggest clear links between conflict and climate, we find that (iv) current peace indices do not include climate and food systems indicators and therefore provide an uncomplete picture, and (v) food systems programming for climate adaptation has so far not explicitly considered peace and security outcomes. Furthermore, we propose that food systems programming that truly tackles the climate crisis should take more explicit account of peace and security outcomes in conflict-affected areas.
... CIAT et al. (2021), Climate-Smart Agriculture in Chad, The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Bank, Washington DC. Läderach, P. et al. (2022), "The importance of food systems in a climate crisis for peace and security in the Sahel", International Review of the Red Cross 918, pp. 995-1028, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383122000170 ...
... Droughts are a recurrent phenomenon in Africa's Sahel. The adverse impacts of droughts are devastating in the Sahel as drought episodes affect up to 50% of arable land and 80% of total land annually (Rojas et al., 2011;Läderach et al., 2022). In 2022, the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC, 2022) reported that in the year 2021, scanty and erratic rainfall contributed to up 11% drop in crop production in Sahel countries during the growing season which affected food production and livelihoods in Chad, Mauritania, Niger and Mali. ...
... The high dependence on rain-fed food production by over 95% of smallholders makes the Sahel region particularly vulnerable to climate change induced drought episodes (Moorhead, 2009;Läderach et al., 2022). The adverse impacts of droughts on the population in the Sahel was made manifest during the prolonged drought that hit the region between 1968 and 1993, destabilizing livelihoods, inducing humanitarian crises of epic proportions and precipitating the 1990s Tuareg uprisings (Benjaminsen, 2008;Läderach et al., 2022). ...
The Sahel is a region of extreme climatic conditions and recurrent droughts which act as a stumbling block to socio-economic development, poverty reduction and food security in the region. It is a region prone to environmental crises, driven by a multitude of factors including the absence of coherent environmental policies, scanty and erratic rainfall, high population growth rates, poor landscape management practices which induce land degradation (overgrazing, deforestation and forest degradation, continuous cropping), misplaced development priorities and political instability (frequent coup d’états). Understanding the Sahel’s environmental crises in general and drought recurrence in particular, is key to finding sustainable solutions to these hazards. It is against this background that this paper examines drought recurrence in the Sahel, laying emphasis on nature-based adaptive solutions and their influence on smallholders’ livelihoods. Findings reveal that, droughts have become more recurrent in the Sahel in the past 50 years attributable largely to global warming and climate change as well as other factors such as land degradation. The most commonly adopted nature-based adaptive solutions by smallholders in the Sahel are agroforestry, afforestation/reforestation, conservation agriculture, water harnessing, soil conservation, biodiversity management, pasture management, fallowing, watershed management, changes in tillage, mixed cropping and farming. These nature-based adaptive solutions contribute positively towards the improvement of smallholders’ livelihoods in the face of droughts through the provision of food, fuelwood, milk, meat, income and other products and services. Thus, policies that favour the adoption of nature-based adaptive solutions should be crafted and implemented by policy makers as this will go a long way to foster adaptation and improve smallholders’ livelihoods in the face of drought recurrence in the Sahel.
... With a few notable exceptions (see Pingali et al., 2005;Townsend et al., 2021;Baliki et al., 2022;von Grebmer et al., 2022) the available literature on food systems transformation treats fragility as either a negative effect of unsustainable intensification (e.g., Rockström et al., 2020), or ignores it entirely. However, there is also evidence that food systems are affected by the climate crisis, which in turn trigger conflicts (Läderach et al., 2021). Politically, a consensus arose from the United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021 that FNS should be linked to concepts of resilience in protracted crises, and that the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus should be prioritized in fragile contexts. ...
... In addition to destroying agricultural produce, assets, and infrastructure, disasters can cause involuntary migration, labor shortages, and the abandonment of agricultural areas, thus hampering the availability and accessibility of food. Conflict also poses a major challenge to food systems in fragile contexts as it is increasingly caused by, and contributing to, climate extremes, environmental degradation, and natural resource shortages (Läderach et al., 2021). Conflict also reduces household resilience to food security shocks (Brück et al., 2019). ...
... Recently, staple food prices and food insecurity increased dramatically (de Roo et al., 2020). Moreover, conflict and climate extremes directly reduce the ability of agro-pastoralists to exercise livelihood activities (Läderach et al., 2021). The increasingly . ...
After two decades of progress, food and nutrition security (FNS) has started to deteriorate again (von Grebmer et al., 2022). In 2021, 828 million people were undernourished, and around three billion people could not afford a healthy diet (FAO et al., 2022). The vicious combination of increasing conflict, climate variability and extremes, economic effects of Covid-19, and global food price hikes amidst Russia’s war in Ukraine, creates a grim outlook for FNS worldwide (FAO et al., 2022; WFP and FAO, 2022), and particularly for people in fragile contexts (von Grebmer et al., 2022).
A transformation of the global food system (the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities involved in food production along with the broader economic, societal and physical environments in which these activities are embedded (FAO, 2018) is needed to achieve zero hunger and improve nutrition while managing trade-offs with biodiversity, climate change, and Sustainable Development Goals (Rockström et al., 2020; Willett and Rockström, 2019).
Contexts are classified as fragile through a combination of exposure to risks and shocks and insufficient coping capacities to manage, absorb, and mitigate those risks, e.g., by a state or system (OECD, 2022). Fragility can also be identified on a village or individual level (Baliki et al., 2022). There is a growing consensus that food systems transformation (i.e., towards sustainable and resilient food systems that generate food security and healthy diets for all (WHH, 2022)), must address the challenges of populations in fragile contexts as a principal objective (Queiroz et al., 2021). The reasons for this are three-fold. Firstly, the recent failures of food systems are most harshly felt by people in fragile contexts, as they are more prone to facing conflict and climate shocks, volatile government structures, and unsustainable coping capacities (FAO et al., 2022; WFP and FAO, 2022). Out of 44 countries that face serious or alarming levels of hunger according to the Global Hunger Index, 40 are classified as fragile (von Grebmer et al., 2022; OECD, 2022). Secondly, many of the biosphere´s important carbon stocks and biodiversity hotspots are located in fragile settings (Barrett, Travis and Dasgupta, 2011; Karsenty and Ongolo, 2012; Seto, Güneralp and Hutyra, 2012). Fragile settings in South America, Sub-Sahara Africa, and South-East Asia account for approximately 34.9%, of total carbon stock from above and below-ground biomass in these regions (OECD, 2022; Saatchi et al., 2011). Thirdly, biodiversity hotspots in fragile contexts are at an elevated risk of being diminished further as a result of food insecurity coping mechanisms. Out of ten countries and seven biodiversity hotspots identified as biodiversity-food security conflict hotspots (Zhao et al., 2022), nine countries and four biodiversity hotspots are located in fragile settings (OECD, 2022). To improve the sustainability and climate resilience of food systems, transformation processes must integrate FNS, biodiversity and climate, and anti-fragility objectives.
Food systems transformation in fragile contexts remains insufficiently considered in development, academic and political discourses. With a few notable exceptions (see Baliki et al., 2022; Pingali, Alinovi and Sutton, 2005; Townsend et al., 2021; von Grebmer et al., 2020) the available literature on food systems transformation treats fragility as either a negative effect of unsustainable intensification (e.g., Rockström et al., 2020), or ignores it entirely. However, there is also evidence that food systems are affected by the climate crisis, which in turn trigger conflicts (Läderach et al., 2021). Politically, a consensus arose from the United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021 that FNS should be linked to concepts of resilience in protracted crises, and that the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus should be prioritized in fragile contexts. However, no fragility-related commitments were reached, and no tangible solutions were developed to address and reduce fragility as part of food systems transformation. A much stronger policy focus on the challenges of people living in fragile contexts is needed if food systems transformation is to be successful (Baliki et al., 2022).
This opinion paper calls for a much stronger focus of food systems transformation agendas on fragility. It includes our views on how to contribute to immediate FNS and long-term sustainability and resilience goals from a practitioner’s perspective. We illustrate this through country examples of (i.) interventions and approaches that we know work well, as well as (ii.) those that are less backed up by evidence yet and therefore require more research.
... Yet the conflict that exists across West Africa and the Sahelian region is integrated to a large degree into a regional conflict system characterised by increasing political instability and presence of armed groups (Konrad-Adenaur-Stiftung, 2021; Schultes, 2022). Local conflicts are often being tied into factors and processes that are more cross-border in nature, particularly in the context of climate change, where natural resources and livelihoods are progressively strained by a wide array of climate impacts, including the impact of drought on 50% of the arable land (Läderach et al., 2021). For instance. in the Lake Chad area, climate impacts aggravate existing challenges linked to armed groups and displaced population, both of which are cross-border in nature (Läderach et al. 2021). ...
... Local conflicts are often being tied into factors and processes that are more cross-border in nature, particularly in the context of climate change, where natural resources and livelihoods are progressively strained by a wide array of climate impacts, including the impact of drought on 50% of the arable land (Läderach et al., 2021). For instance. in the Lake Chad area, climate impacts aggravate existing challenges linked to armed groups and displaced population, both of which are cross-border in nature (Läderach et al. 2021). ...
This report aims to contribute to this need by conducting a climate security policy coherence and awareness assessment of policy and strategy documents extracted from climate-and peace and security-related sectors produced at the national level in Senegal. It will do so by making use of a policy assessment framework developed specifically for the purpose of assessing coherence and climate security-sensitivity.
... Weak governance and political instability may further exacerbate these challenges. In fragile settings, extreme food and nutrition insecurity, combined with failing food systems and increasing competition for natural resources, could trigger or exacerbate social tensions and conflict (Läderach et al., 2021). To prevent or mitigate increasing climate-related security risks, it is crucial to understand the conditions under which climate could trigger or exacerbate risks to peace, and identify the channels that can contribute to shaping this relationship. ...
Climate variability is increasingly gaining recognition as a factor exacerbating risks to peace in Africa, particularly in contexts characterized by weak institutions and fragile agri-food systems. Existing literature has highlighted the intricate indirect pathways that can lead to increasing conflicts following a climatic shock, including reduced agricultural yields, increased food insecurity, and other socio-economic channels that are highly context-specific as well as difficult to quantify. This study investigates the nexus between climate variability (proxied by temperature anomalies) and violent conflicts as mediated by child acute malnutrition in Nigeria. Starting from previous quantitative analyses that implicitly assumed the existence of a singular transmission pathway linking climate variability to conflict, this study employs a structural equation model that accommodates the presence of multiple, albeit unobserved, mediating factors. In doing so, it pioneers the use of children’s nutritional indicators as mediating factors to capture the multidimensional nature of the climate–conflict relationship. The novel approach proposed for this analysis increases the accuracy of estimating the indirect impacts of climate variability on conflict, as mediated by child nutritional outcomes, and contributes to the literature linked to the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. From a policy perspective, our findings aim to inform and support identifying policies and interventions aimed at mitigating the threat posed by climate variability to human security through the nutrition channel.
... Bien que les conditions et l'interventionnisme environnementaux aient façonné l'histoire du Sahel (Benjaminsen and Hiernaux 2019), le réchauffement planétaire et les menaces à la biodiversité demeurent des risques et des menaces sans précédent historique. Par exemple, les crises alimentaires constituent un risque croissant en raison de l'irrégularité des précipitations, de la forte dépendance à l'égard de l'agriculture pluviale, de l'instabilité régionale et de l'augmentation des prix des denrées alimentaires au niveau mondial (Läderach et al. 2022). ...
... At the same time, world leaders have increasingly acknowledged the adverse effects of climate variability and change on human lives and societies, including the potential for threatening peaceful community and social relationships. Frequently cited examples include the violent confrontations between farmers and herders in the Sahel, localized conflicts over water sources in the North Africa and Middle East (MENA) region, as well as widespread support and recruitment by non-state armed groups of populations hit by droughts and other extreme weather events in East Africa, and even some parts of South-east Asia and Latin America-see for instance Broek & Hodder [26], Läderach et al. [27], and Medina et al. [28]. ...
Uncovering key actors within a policy network provides pathways for engagement, consensus-building, partnership development, and understanding the diffusion of knowledge in a given debate. Given the unprecedented scale of the climate emergency, the emerging field of climate security has rapidly gained centrality in academic and policy fora, as well as in the public debate. Yet, a systematic analysis of the main actors engaged in this space is missing. This study draws from digital methods and network analysis techniques to employ a method for identifying relevant actors, focusing on Twitter (now X) from 2014 to 2022, with the objective of systematically spotting the major actors driving and shaping public discussions around climate security. The research also demonstrates how institutions can position themselves within such issue networks through a case study of the CGIAR, the largest publicly funded global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis that has recently positioned itself in this community. Results reveal that the climate security debate on social media is predominantly institutional, with research bodies and international organizations from the Global North as central elements. While CGIAR is a relatively new actor, it is already centrally located in the network, maintaining strong connections with other major players, which places it in a strategic position to enhance its influence and reach. Understanding this discursive landscape is crucial for institutions and organizations to identify opportunities for effective engagement, partnership, and positioning in such an increasingly salient field of research and practice.
... In regions like Mali, characterized by recurrent food insecurity exacerbated by climate-related and socioeconomic challenges, humanitarian aid interventions play a pivotal role in mitigating the impacts of crises [20]. However, the effectiveness of such interventions is often hindered by their delayed arrival, typically occurring well into the lean season when communities have already been enduring months of hardship [21]. ...
Mali’s food security strategies focus on improving agriculture, water management, and diversifying livelihoods. While initiatives like climate-smart agriculture show promise, challenges like limited resources, market access, and political instability persist. Gender inequalities and reliance on external aid further hinder progress, making it difficult for Mali to build sustainable, self-reliant food systems and ensure long-term resilience. This research assessed the effectiveness of humanitarian aid interventions in enhancing food security resilience in the Bandiagara Region of Mali. It is aimed at evaluating the quality and sufficiency of the food provided to beneficiaries, as well as the alignment of aid efforts with local needs. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative household surveys with 295 respondents across 14 villages and qualitative data through semistructured interviews with 37 local authorities selected on purposive sampling and focus group discussions with beneficiaries. The findings indicated that while the aid interventions were generally relevant and well executed, with beneficiaries expressing satisfaction with the quality of the millet provided, there were significant concerns regarding the quantity of food distributed. Many beneficiaries felt that the portions were insufficient to meet their needs, especially in the context of recurring food shortages. This highlighted the need for more tailored, context-specific aid allocation strategies, ensuring that the quantity of food provided aligns better with local requirements and the scale of food insecurity, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of humanitarian support. It is recommended to expand and continue millet distribution programs, with enhanced monitoring mechanisms to ensure resource effectiveness. Emphasizing customized food allocation and increased community engagement will strengthen local ownership and resilience. By aligning aid with local needs and improving intervention targeting, these strategies are aimed at creating a more sustainable and equitable food security system in the Bandiagara Region, better equipping it to withstand future food insecurity challenges.
... Climate and conflict nexus. The intricate linkage between climate change and sociopolitical conflicts necessitates a nuanced approach to risk reduction [69,70]. As climate extremes exacerbate resource scarcity, the resultant stress can fuel conflict and displacement [71,72], underscoring the need for solutions that address the intersection of climate, peace, and security. ...
Losses and damages from climate change have been increasing as global temperatures continue to rise above pre-industrial levels. Low-income, climate vulnerable countries bear a disproportionate share of these losses and damages. After decades of international negotiations, the Loss and Damage Fund was established in late 2022, aiming at addressing both economic and non-economic losses arising from slow- and sudden-onset climate change events. Recognizing the complex nature of climate-related events, the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund underscores an urgent need for precise attribution of these events to climate change, highlighting the fund’s reliance on scientific evidence to guide its efforts. Attribution science, which decouples specific causes of changes in climate hazards and impacts, can support loss and damage negotiations. Low-income countries, which have contributed the least to climate change, are experiencing more severe impacts. However, data quality and coverage required for scientific studies to attribute loss and damage to climate change remain limited in these developing countries. In this paper, we highlight the challenges to attribute losses and damages to climate change in developing countries and underscore strategies to overcome those challenges using examples from the agrifood sector. These strategies have implications for the operationalizing of the Loss and Damage Fund. We emphasize how improving data availability and quality can lead to rigorous scientific conclusions, supporting evidence-based, inclusive, and effective interventions. We also indicated measures that enable strengthening climate resilience to avoid and minimize losses and damages.
... Green water accounts for an estimated 80 % of the global agricultural evapotranspiration fluxes, and RFA systems produce ~60 % of the global food (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2011;Molden et al., 2011;Rockström et al., 2010;Sposito, 2013). The reliance on green water varies across regions, with sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) being particularly dependent on this water resource, where close to 95 % of croplands are under rainfed agriculture practices (Abrams, 2018;Laderach et al., 2021). Due to the highly dynamic nature of green water availability (GWA), influenced by climatic and biophysical factors that vary in space and time, RFA systems are strongly climatesensitive under moisture-limited conditions (Kang et al., 2009;Meng et al., 2023;Park et al., 2022). ...
About three quarters of global cropland is under rainfed agriculture, producing an estimated 60% of the global food demand. In sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia, rainfed agriculture (RFA) constitutes nearly 95% of croplands, serving as a crucial source of food and household income for the rural population, and contributing significantly to the national economy. The RFA system is characterized by smallholder and subsistence farming practices, high vulnerability to weather and climate shocks, low productivity, and high poverty rate in the sector. For this reason, agricultural transformation in Ethiopia and the sub-continent is the top sustainable development priority for poverty eradication (SDG 1) and ensuring food security (SGD 2). However, challenges, such as climate change, population growth, armed conflict, etc., complicate the current state and hinder the achievement of these development goals. Success requires a deeper data-driven understanding of the agro-environmental conditions within the context of global changes, in order to inform national and sub-national agricultural development plans, policies and decisions aimed at increasing productivity and ensuring a resilient RFA system. The objective of this thesis is to provide such an understanding by investigating the climate-crop and climate-agroecological interactions that are relevant for climate risk and water management planning, decisions and policy making in the face of a changing climate in Ethiopia.
As a first step, I addressed climate data limitations by developing a robust framework for downscaling and de-biasing globally available gridded temperature data. This involved leveraging low-quality station observations through a hybrid spatial interpolation method coupled with a quantile mapping bias-adjustment technique. The framework was applied to ERA5-Land 2-m air temperature, resulting in a bias-corrected ERA5-Land (BCE5) daily maximum and minimum temperature dataset covering the period 1981-2010 over the Ethiopian domain. The accuracy of BCE5 was found to be 68% higher for maximum temperature and 25% higher for minimum temperature compared to the original ERA5-Land. The increase in performance highlights that even low-quality station temperature observations can reduce the statistical biases in gridded global datasets and produce locally accurate spatial data in data-scarce regions for a range of agroecological applications.
Second, the effects of variabilities in rainfall timing and seasonality on seasonal crop production were explored by statistical analyses of the relationships between cereal production and four temporal rainfall attributes: seasonality, dates of onset and cessation, and duration of the rainy season, derived from the CHIRPS quasi-global rainfall dataset. The results highlight the importance of rainfall regimes. In regions characterized by unimodal rainfall regimes, cereal crop production is primarily influenced by the onset of the rainy season. A late onset of the rainy season results in crop production losses (on average by 1.5% for every 5-day delay) underscoring the significance of onset-informed planting. In regions with a bimodal rainfall regime, rainfall seasonality (monthly distribution) was found to be the main determinant of crop production. Implementing soil moisture conservation measures in these regions may prove more effective.
Third, water-limited attainable yield potential (AY) was evaluated. For this, an agrohydrological modelling framework integrating climatic-hydrological-crop interactions was developed and applied to both the present and future climate scenarios. With regional variations based on climatic regimes, the average AY for the main growing season (Meher) and the short growing season (Belg) was determined to be 79% (of unstressed yield potential) and 37%, respectively. Projected climate-driven changes in water-limited AY in Meher fall in the range of -5% to 5% with major decreases observed primarily in semi-arid regions, particularly under the high emission scenario by the end of the century. Conversely, Belg-producing regions are expected to experience major increases in AY by up to 20% by the end of the century. On the other hand, a substantial yield gap is identified between actual and water-limited yield, emphasizing the need for integrating green water management strategies with improved agronomic practices to close these yield gaps.
Finally, the current potential and future changes in the crop agroecological suitability across the RFA region of Ethiopia were investigated using a numerical model of cropland suitability derived from relationships between observed crop yield and a range of climatic and soil factors. Sorghum was identified as the most versatile crop with nearly two-third of the cultivable RFA area being suitable, followed by teff and maize with over half of the RFA area being suitable for both crops. Wheat is the least versatile crop with less than one-third of the RFA area being suitable. Climate change is expected to significantly impact future cropland suitability. The projected effects involve shifts from lowland to highland areas for maize and sorghum and losses in suitable areas for teff and wheat. These impacts pose serious consequences for the future availability of cropland in Ethiopia, emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable adaptation plans and policies.
... (Continued ) Adapting farming systems and practices in combination with managing and transferring risk can mitigate insecurity and grievances and contribute to peace in the Sahel [43]. ...
A convergence of several risk drivers creates the compound crises we see across the globe today. At the same time, the global humanitarian community and national institutions in affected countries are increasingly resource constrained. In this context, existing financing mechanisms should be evaluated for their potential to create synergies between social protection, peace, and inclusion objectives on the one hand and climate resilience outcomes on the other. The existing international architecture of climate change mitigation and adaptation policy and financing holds, in principle, the potential to address not only its main purpose of climate action, but also to contribute to development outcomes and address multiple risk drivers. Examples of this exist, but for these mutual benefits to emerge, and for climate finance to contribute more significantly to crises prevention, the agendas must become more aligned. Aligning several factors may enable coherence: i) Timeframes, from short-term response to multi-year programming; ii) Planning and targeting, moving towards conflict-sensitive area-based approaches and universal access to services; iii) Institutional arrangements and partnerships, coordinated national planning and jointly implemented local action.
Climate change remains a critical challenge confronting the contemporary world. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the global regions where over 70% of households directly rely on agriculture for livelihood and income. In this region, agriculture also contributes more to the Gross Domestic Product of national economies, and it is very susceptible to climate variability. Hence, considering the severity of climate change, understanding its link with agriculture and development is significant to ensuring the region’s rural development and industrialisation prospects. This chapter explores how climate change intersects with SSA’s agricultural development and rural industrialisation. Drawing from secondary sources and sectorial expertise, this chapter explores recent climate variations, identifies the impacts of climate change variations on agriculture, and determines how the effects of climate change on agriculture affect rural industrialisation. This chapter shows that climate change is damaging agroecological resources, thus affecting not only agricultural productivity but also livelihood activities. The negative impact on agriculture also adversely impacts industrialisation pulling factors in the countryside. This chapter recommends empowering rural communities to adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts on agricultural productivity to attract investors to the countryside. This empowerment requires rural development policy interventions at levels of government to acknowledge climate variability as one of the broader challenges of the rural development agenda to be able to invest adequately in dealing with the change.
The Sahel is a classic example of a region inundated by climate change and conflicts. The region is an ecological hotspot that is on the brink of collapse, as countries in the area are trapped in a vicious cycle of conflict, resource scarcity, and environmental threats, which increase the chances of political instability and civil unrest. Noting that there is a divergent scholarly viewpoint on the relationship between climate change and conflict, this study evaluates the climate change-conflict thesis vis-à-vis the fragility-conflict thesis. It argues that armed conflicts in the Sahel are not exclusively attributable to climate change; rather, other conventional drivers exacerbate the impact of climate change on conflicts. These conventional drivers, framed as fragility indices, play a more significant role in conflict escalation in the Sahel. To this end, this study provides a holistic perspective on conflict dynamics and underscores the intricate interplay between fragility and conflict proliferation. This study adopts a qualitative approach and analyzes secondary data, particularly journal articles, reports, briefs, and developmental indices. The findings show that conditions symptomatic of a fragile state increase the incidence and proliferation of armed conflict in the region. Thus, conflict in the Sahel is a product of amplified pre-existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities and governance challenges.
Uncovering key actors within a policy network provides pathways for engagement, consensus-building, partnership development, and understanding the diffusion of knowledge in a given debate. Given the unprecedented scale of the climate emergency, the emerging field of climate security has rapidly gained centrality in academic and policy fora, as well as in the public debate. Yet, a systematic analysis of the main actors engaged in this space is missing. This study draws from digital methods and network analysis techniques to employ a method for identifying relevant actors, focusing on Twitter (now X) from 2014 to 2022, with the objective of spotting the major actors driving public discussions around climate security. The research also demonstrates how institutions can position themselves within such issue networks through a case study of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), a global research-for-development organization that has recently positioned itself in the climate security community. Results reveal that the climate security debate on social media is predominantly institutional, with research bodies and international organizations as central elements. While CGIAR is a relatively new actor, it is already centrally located in the network, maintaining strong connections with other major players, which places it in a strategic position to enhance its influence and reach. Understanding this discursive landscape is crucial for identifying opportunities for effective engagement, partnership, and positioning in such an increasingly salient field of research and practice.
Understanding local-scale climate change is vital to developing adaptive strategies in the face of the century-old river of global warming posing a threat to humanity. This study focuses on assessing temperature and rainfall trends in Beni City, using monthly and yearly (1990–2020) weather station data. Climate variability was analysed using the standardised variable index, and rainfall concentration patterns were highlighted using the precipitation concentration index (PCI). The climate trends were analysed by using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen's slope estimator. The findings indicated that the Tmin is 18.82±0.62°C, and Tmax is 28.22±0.75°C, resulting in a mean temperature of 23.52±0.57°C. The annual and seasonal temperature trend analysis indicated that a significant warming trend was observed in both Tmin and Tmax. Beni City's precipitation trends also showed a mean annual rainfall of 1988.38±416.59 mm, with significant year-to-year variations. Annual rainfall analysis exhibited a slight upward trend; meanwhile, the seasonal trend analysis revealed an increase in rainfall during Mar–Apr–May (MAM) and Aug–Sep–Oct–Nov (ASON) seasons with roughly no discernible trend during Dec–Jan–Feb (DJF), and Jun–Jul (JJ) seasons. Overall, annual and seasonal analyses of specific temperature and rainfall patterns have shown pronounced warming and increased rainfall in the study area.
Climate change is expected to influence future agricultural water availability, posing particular challenges in rainfed agricultural systems. This study aims to analyze the climatology of green water availability and water-limited attainable yields (AY) – the maximum crop yield achieved with available green water under optimal soil nutrient and crop management, considering four major cereal crops (teff, maize, sorghum, and wheat) produced in Ethiopia. An agrohydrological modelling framework was developed to simulate climatic-hydrological-crop interactions. The model was applied to a reference (1981–2010) and future periods (2020–2099) under low, intermediate, and high greenhouse gas emission scenarios in order to: (i) evaluate the current green water availability and AY potential; (ii) assess their climate-driven changes; and (iii) analyze the sensitivity of changes in AY to changes in rainfall and atmospheric evaporative demand. With regional variations based on climatic regimes, the main growing season (Meher, May to September) has an average AY of 79 % of a fully irrigated potential yield with an average soil moisture deficit of 29 % of moisture content at full water holding capacity. AY of the short growing season (Belg, February–May) is on average 37 % of the potential yield, with a soil moisture deficit of 56 %. Under the future climate, Meher is expected to experience small changes in the range of ±5 % with dominantly positive trends in the 2030s and decreases in the 2060s and 2080s, mainly driven by changes in the atmospheric evaporative demand due to rising temperatures. The Belg-producing regions are expected to experience increased AY that is dominantly controlled by increases in rainfall. On the other hand, a substantial yield gap is identified between actual and water-limited yields. This points to the need for combining green water management practices with nutrient and tillage management, plant protection, and cultivar improvement to close the yield gaps and to build up climate resilience of farmers.
Introduction
Agroforestry plays a vital role in maintaining and developing the resilience and productivity of farms and landscapes. Scientific evidence from the Sahel region suggests that integration of trees and shrubs has the potential to improve temperature and moisture levels whilst providing bio-based fertilizer that contributes to increased yields of annual crops. However, little is known about the factors that influence the diffusion of agroforestry. This study examines joint decisions on the use of agroforestry alongside other complementary agricultural practices and disentangles agroforestry awareness from adoption and disadoption decisions.
Methods
Our analysis is based on a comprehensive farm-level dataset covering almost 3,000 farm households in Mali and Senegal. A large number of adoption determinants are utilized, with a special focus on information access, information flows and social groups.
Results
The findings suggest that extension access and training participation boost awareness of agroforestry-based soil fertility management, while information provided by public extension, NGOs and community members is strongly associated with higher adoption intensity. In the analysis of disadoption, farmer-to-farmers exchange in the community was found to be a key factor in the decision to maintain agroforestry use. Membership in cooperatives and youth groups appear to have a favorable effect on awareness and adoption in Mali, but less so in the Senegalese case. Similarly, only results from Mali show that adoption of agroforestry is accompanied by the adoption of other sustainable intensification practices and lower use of synthetic pesticides.
Discussion
We conclude that in order to support the transition to more widespread agroforestry-based soil fertility management, it is essential to strengthen public and NGO-based advisory systems that fully engage with local knowledge networks.
A companion to the OECD States of Fragility 2022 report, this paper analyses the drivers and effects of climate and environmental risks in the Sahel, focusing on increasing food insecurity, rapid urbanisation and intensified mining. It outlines options for improved policy responses by providers of development co-operation.
Does the provision of weather and climate information services (WCIS) enhance farmer’s use of forecasts in informing farm decisions? This paper assesses the effectiveness of the Multi-disciplinary Working Group (MWG) – a WCIS co-production initiative in Senegal in influencing farmers uptake of weather and climate information (WCI). WCIS are increasingly gaining importance and widely touted as critical in helping farmers adapt to climate variability. While there have been various WCIS initiatives producing and translating climate data into tailored information and knowledge in different parts of the world, there is hardly any rigorous evidence assessing their effectiveness in improving uptake. In this assessment, we use innovative survey methods and apply rigorous analytical approaches that control for self-selection bias to establish causal linkages between the MWG and use of WCIS. Our findings indicate that MWGs are positively associated with farmers’ awareness, access and uptake of WCI resulting in farm management responses depending on the type of information used. The presence of MWGs generally increases farmer’s awareness of WCI by 18%, access by 12% and uptake by 10%. Furthermore, use of seasonal forecasts is generally associated with a higher proportion of farmers using improved seed, fertilizers and manure, but negatively with crop diversification within MWG locations. This suggests that participatory approaches in the provision of tailored climate information and advisory services can lead to higher uptake and use among farmers in informing farm management responses for better adaptation to climate change. We highlight lessons for improved evaluations of WCIS in future.
Armed conflict data display features consistent with scaling and universal dynamics in both social and physical properties like fatalities and geographic extent. We propose a randomly branching armed conflict model to relate the multiple properties to one another. The model incorporates a fractal lattice on which conflict spreads, uniform dynamics driving conflict growth, and regional virulence that modulates local conflict intensity. The quantitative constraints on scaling and universal dynamics we use to develop our minimal model serve more generally as a set of constraints for other models for armed conflict dynamics. We show how this approach akin to thermodynamics imparts mechanistic intuition and unifies multiple conflict properties, giving insight into causation, prediction, and intervention timing.
Climate-resilient crops and crop varieties have been recommended as a way for farmers to cope with or adapt to climate change, but despite the apparent benefits, rates of adoption by smallholder farmers are highly variable. Here we present a scoping review, using PRISMA-P (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis Protocols), examining the conditions that have led to the adoption of climate-resilient crops over the past 30 years in lower- and middle-income countries. The descriptive analysis performed on 202 papers shows that small-scale producers adopted climate-resilient crops and varieties to cope with abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, flooding and salinity. The most prevalent trait in our dataset was drought tolerance, followed by water-use efficiency. Our analysis found that the most important determinants of adoption of climate-resilient crops were the availability and effectiveness of extension services and outreach, followed by education levels of heads of households, farmers’ access to inputs—especially seeds and fertilizers—and socio-economic status of farming families. About 53% of studies reported that social differences such as sex, age, marital status and ethnicity affected the adoption of varieties or crops as climate change-adaptation strategies. On the basis of the collected evidence, this study presents a series of pathways and interventions that could contribute to higher adoption rates of climate-resilient crops and reduce dis-adoption.
There is broad agreement that current food systems are not on a sustainable trajectory that will enable us to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly in the face of anthropogenic climate change. Guided by a consideration of some food system reconfigurations in the past, we outline an agenda of work around four action areas: rerouting old systems into new trajectories; reducing risks; minimising the environmental footprint of food systems; and realigning the enablers of change needed to make new food systems function. Here we highlight food systems levers that, along with activities within these four action areas, may shift food systems towards more sustainable, inclusive, healthy and climate-resilient futures. These actions, summarised here, are presented in extended form in a report of an international initiative involving hundreds of stakeholders for reconfiguring food systems.
The mean radiant temperature (MRT) and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) are widely used as human biometeorology parameters to assess the linkages between outdoor environment and human well-being. Historically computed from meteorological station measurements, we here present ERA5-HEAT (Human thErmAl comforT), the first historical dataset of MRT and UTCI as spatially gridded records at the global scale. Derived using climate variables from ERA5, a quality-controlled reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) within the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ERA5-HEAT consists of hourly gridded maps of MRT and UTCI at 0.25° × 0.25° spatial resolution. It currently spans from 1979 to present, and it will be extended in time as updates of ERA5 are made available. ERA5-HEAT provides two streams, a consolidated and an intermediate one, that are released at 2 or 3 months and 5 days behind real time, respectively. Data are publicly and freely available for download at the Climate Data Store which has been developed as part of C3S. Being the only existing global historical gridded time series of MRT and UTCI to date, ERA5-HEAT is aimed at a wide range of end users, from scientists to policymakers, with an interest in environment-health applications at any spatial and temporal scale.
This study focuses on heat stress conditions for dairy cattle production in West Africa under current and future climatic conditions. After testing the accuracy of the dynamically downscaled climate datasets for simulating the historical daily maximum temperature (Tmax) and relative humidity (RH) in West Africa for 50 meteorological stations, we used the dataset for calculating the temperature-humidity index (THI), i.e., an index indicating heat stress for dairy cattle on a daily scale. Calculations were made for the historical period (1981–2010) using the ERA-Interim reanalysis dataset, and for two future periods (2021–2050 and 2071–2100) using climate predictions of the GFDL-ESM2M, HadGEM2-ES, and MPI-ESM-MR Global Circulation Models (GCMs) under the RCP4.5 emission scenario. Here, we show that during the period from 1981 to 2010 for > 1/5 of the region of West Africa, the frequency of severe/danger heat events per year, i.e., events that result in significant decreases in productive and reproductive performances, increased from 11 to 29–38 days (significant at 95% confidence level). Most obvious changes were observed for the eastern and southeastern parts. Under future climate conditions periods with severe/danger heat stress events will increase further as compared with the historical period by 5–22% depending on the GCM used. Moreover, the average length of periods with severe/danger heat stress is expected to increase from ~ 3 days in the historical period to ~ 4–7 days by 2021–2050 and even to up to 10 days by 2071–2100. Based on the average results of three GCMs, by 2071–2100, around 22% of dairy cattle population currently living in this area is expected to experience around 70 days more of severe/danger heat stress (compare with the historical period), especially in the southern half of West Africa. The result is alarming, as it shows that dairy production systems in West Africa are jeopardized at large scale by climate change and that depending on the GCM used, milk production might decrease by 200–400 kg/year by 2071–2100 in around 1, 7, or 11%. Our study calls for the development of improved dairy cattle production systems with higher adaptive capacity in order to deal with expected future heat stress conditions.
Humans’ ability to efficiently shed heat has enabled us to range over every continent, but a wet-bulb temperature (TW) of 35°C marks our upper physiological limit, and much lower values have serious health and productivity impacts. Climate models project the first 35°C TW occurrences by the mid-21st century. However, a comprehensive evaluation of weather station data shows that some coastal subtropical locations have already reported a TW of 35°C and that extreme humid heat overall has more than doubled in frequency since 1979. Recent exceedances of 35°C in global maximum sea surface temperature provide further support for the validity of these dangerously high TW values. We find the most extreme humid heat is highly localized in both space and time and is correspondingly substantially underestimated in reanalysis products. Our findings thus underscore the serious challenge posed by humid heat that is more intense than previously reported and increasingly severe.
This study investigates the history and political economy of farmer-herder conflicts using field surveys to advance the theoretical understanding of the linkages between agro-pastoralism and farmer-herder conflicts in Northwest Cameroon (NWC). Although the political ecological factors of environmental change and irrational land use policies seem to be the main drivers of farmer-herder conflicts, economic interests of the colonial and postcolonial administrations of Cameroon greatly contributed to the rise and persistence of farmer-herder conflicts in NWC. Using expert and indigenous agro-ecological knowledge, this study identified alternative farmer-herder conflict management strategies, providing a platform for sustainable agro-pastoral development.
Projections of climate change are available at coarse scales (70–400 km). But agricultural and species models typically require finer scale climate data to model climate change impacts. Here, we present a global database of future climates developed by applying the delta method –a method for climate model bias correction. We performed a technical evaluation of the bias-correction method using a ‘perfect sibling’ framework and show that it reduces climate model bias by 50–70%. The data include monthly maximum and minimum temperatures and monthly total precipitation, and a set of bioclimatic indices, and can be used for assessing impacts of climate change on agriculture and biodiversity. The data are publicly available in the World Data Center for Climate (WDCC; cera-www.dkrz.de), as well as in the CCAFS-Climate data portal (http://ccafs-climate.org). The database has been used up to date in more than 350 studies of ecosystem and agricultural impact assessment.
Crop improvement efforts aiming at increasing crop production (quantity, quality) and adapting to climate change have been subject of active research over the past years. But, the question remains ‘to what extent can breeding gains be achieved under a changing climate, at a pace sufficient to usefully contribute to climate adaptation, mitigation and food security?’. Here, we address this question by critically reviewing how model‐based approaches can be used to assist breeding activities, with particular focus on all CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research but now known simply as CGIAR) breeding programs. Crop modeling can underpin breeding efforts in many different ways, including assessing genotypic adaptability and stability, characterizing and identifying target breeding environments, identifying tradeoffs among traits for such environments, and making predictions of the likely breeding value of the genotypes. Crop modeling science within the CGIAR has contributed to all of these. However, much progress remains to be done if modeling is to effectively contribute to more targeted and impactful breeding programs under changing climates. In a period in which CGIAR breeding programs are undergoing a major modernization process, crop modelers will need to be part of crop improvement teams, with a common understanding of breeding pipelines and model capabilities and limitations, and common data standards and protocols, to ensure they follow and deliver according to clearly defined breeding products. This will, in turn, enable more rapid and better‐targeted crop modeling activities, thus directly contributing to accelerated and more impactful breeding efforts.
Connecting science with policy has always been challenging for both scientists and policymakers. In Ghana, Mali and Senegal, multi-stakeholder national science-policy dialogue platforms on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) were setup to use scientific evidence to create awareness of climate change impacts on agriculture and advocate for the mainstreaming of climate change and CSA into agricultural development plans. Based on the platforms' operations and achievements, we used semi-structured questionnaire interviews and reviewed technical reports produced by the platforms to analyse how their modes of operation and achievements improve understanding of the science-policy interfaces between agricultural and climate change decision making. Results showed that these platforms constitute an innovative approach to effectively engaging decision-makers and sustainably mainstreaming climate change into development plans. Effective science-policy interaction requires: (a) institutionalizing dialogue platforms by embedding them within national institutions, which improves their credibility, relevance and legitimacy among policymakers; (b) two-way communication, which contributes substantially to the co-development of solutions that address climate change vulnerabilities and impacts; and (c) relevant communication products and packaging of evidence that aligns with country priorities, which facilitates its uptake in policy-making processes. We conclude with a framework of sustainable operation for such platforms based on lessons learnt in the three countries.
Understanding the level of adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies and practices and its drivers is needed to spur large-scale uptake of CSA in West Africa. This paper used the Average Treatment Effect framework to derive consistent parametric estimators of the potential adoption rates of eight CSA technologies and practices in the Climate-Smart Village (CSV) site of Mali. A total of 300 household heads were randomly selected within the CSV site for data collection. Results showed significant differences in the observed and potential adoption rates of the CSA technologies and practices (drought tolerant crop varieties, micro-dosing, organic manure, intercropping, contour farming, farmer managed natural regeneration, agroforestry and climate information service). The most adopted technology was the organic manure (89%) while the least adopted was the intercropping (21%). The observed adoption rate varied from 39% to 77% according to the CSA options while the potential adoption rates of the technologies and practices ranged from 55% to 81%. This implies an adoption gap of 2% to 16% due to the incomplete diffusion (lack of awareness) of CSA technologies and practices which must be addressed by carrying out more actions to disseminate these technologies in the CSV. Results showed that education, number of workers in the household, access to subsidies, and training have a positive effect on the adoption of most of the CSA technologies and practices. The adoption of drought tolerant varieties and micro-dosing are positively correlated with access to subsidies and training. The study suggests that efforts should be focused concomitantly on the diffusion of CSA options as well as the lifting of their adoption barriers.
We consider the question of what is needed for climate services to support sub-Saharan African farmers' adaptation needs at the scale of the climate challenge. Consistent with an earlier assessment that mutually reinforcing supply-side and demand-side capacity constraints impede the development of effective climate services in Africa, our discussion of strategies for scaling up practices that meet farmers' needs, and opportunities to address long-standing obstacles, is organized around: (a) meeting farmers' climate information needs; (b) supporting access, understanding and use; and (c) co-production of services. A widespread gap between available information and farmers' needs is associated with entrenched seasonal forecast convention and obstacles to using observational data. Scalable innovations for producing more locally relevant historical and forecast climate information for farm decision-making are beginning to be adopted. Structured participatory communication processes help farmers relate complex climate information to their experience, and integrate it into their management decisions. Promising efforts to deliver rural climate services strategically combine communication channels that include participatory processes embedded in existing agricultural advisory systems, and innovations in interactive broadcast media. Efforts to engage farmers in co-production of climate services improve delivery to farmers and dialogue among stakeholders, but often with little impact on the usability of available information. We discuss challenges and options for capturing farmers' evolving demands, and aggregating and incorporating this information into iterative improvements to climate services at a national scale. We find evidence that key weaknesses in the supply and the demand sides of climate services continue to reinforce each other to impede progress toward meeting farmers' needs at scale across Africa. Six recommendations target these weaknesses: (1) change the way seasonal forecasts are produced and presented regionally and nationally, (2) use merged gridded data as a foundation for national climate information products, (3) remove barriers to using historical data as a public good, (4) mobilize those who work on the demand side of climate services as an effective community of practice, (5) collectively assess and improve tools and processes for communicating climate information with rural communities, and (6) build iterative co-production processes into national climate service frameworks.
There is increasing interest in accessing climate finance to support low-emission, climate resilient agricultural development, but little is understood about how climate finance can be deployed to catalyze large-scale adoption of mitigation practices by smallholder farmers. This study assesses the potential roles of public climate finance in enabling smallholder farmers in Kenya's dairy sector to adopt low-emission farming practices. Drawing on multiple studies conducted as part of the design of a nationally appropriate mitigation action for the Kenyan dairy sector, it examines financing needs, institutional arrangements for channeling climate finance, and appropriate financial instruments. The study finds that financially profitable investments can be made by dairy farmers, but credit financing on commercial terms is not viable for dairy farmers lacking off-farm income sources. Dairy farmers make little use of formal financial institutions for several reasons, and while financial institutions have a strong interest in increasing their finance to the dairy sector, they face a variety of capacity constraints. Climate finance may have roles to play in strengthening linkages between dairy farmers and financial institutions, building capacities of different actors in the dairy and finance sectors, and enabling both farmers and financial institutions to manage risks. Concessional loans, credit guarantee funds and grants are all relevant financial instruments. If agriculture is to attract climate finance in support of large-scale mitigation action, a diversified, demand-responsive approach to financial innovation is required that engages different types of financial institution to support access to both savings and credit services tailored to the varied needs of men and women dairy farmers and the dairy value chain actors they work with.
Global data sets on the geographic distribution of livestock are essential for diverse applications in agricultural socio-economics, food security, environmental impact assessment and epidemiology. We present a new version of the Gridded Livestock of the World (GLW 3) database, reflecting the most recently compiled and harmonized subnational livestock distribution data for 2010. GLW 3 provides global population densities of cattle, buffaloes, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and ducks in each land pixel at a spatial resolution of 0.083333 decimal degrees (approximately 10 km at the equator). They are accompanied by detailed metadata on the year, spatial resolution and source of the input census data. Two versions of each species distribution are produced. In the first version, livestock numbers are disaggregated within census polygons according to weights established by statistical models using high resolution spatial covariates (dasymetric weighting). In the second version, animal numbers are distributed homogeneously with equal densities within their census polygons (areal weighting) to provide spatial data layers free of any assumptions linking them to other spatial variables.
Purpose of Review
This paper presents new insight on the approaches and ability to respond to climate-related security risks in four regional intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in Asia and Africa—ASEAN (South East Asia), SAARC (South Asia), ECOWAS (West Africa), and IGAD (East Africa).
Recent Findings
IGOs are becoming increasingly important in responding to climate-related security risks, given the transnational character of these risks. Previous research has primarily focused on Western-based IGOs, whereas more attention is needed on IGOs in fragile and developing regions to increase our understanding of the emerging challenges and to take adequate measurements to mitigate climate-related security risks.
Summary
We show that the regional security context and vulnerability to climate change affects the framing of climate-related security risks, and that the risks identified often relate to livelihood conditions and development, rather than state security. Measurements are taken, but the key challenge remains the implementation of these policies.
Recently, a new approach to extension and climate information services, namely Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) has been developed. PICSA makes use of historical climate records, participatory decision-making tools and forecasts to help farmers identify and better plan livelihood options that are suited to local climate features and farmers’ own
circumstances. This approach was implemented in 2016 in two sites in Senegal and Mali, with 57 and 47 farmers, respectively. At the end of the growing season, these farmers were surveyed to explore their perceptions on the use of the approach. In Senegal and Mali, Pespectively 97% and 76% of the respondents found the approach ‘very useful’. The approach enabled farmers to make strategic plans long before the season, based on their improved knowledge of local climate features. Moreover, evidence demonstrates that PICSA stimulated farmers to consider and then implement a range of innovations which included: (i) changes in timing of activities such as sowing dates, (ii) implementing soil and water management practices, (iii) selection of crop varieties, (iv) fertiliser management and (v) adaptation of plans for the season (farm size, etc.) to the actual resources available to them. The study also demonstrated the potential of farmer-to-farmer extension in scaling up the approach, which is of great interest especially in the current context of limited extension services in the West African region.
Climate change impacts on agriculture have become evident, and threaten the achievement of global food security. On the other hand, the agricultural sector itself is a cause of climate change, and if actions are not taken, the sector might impede the achievement of global climate goals. Science-policy engagement efforts are crucial to ensure that scientific findings from agricultural research for development inform actions of governments, private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international development partners, accelerating progress toward global goals. However, knowledge gaps on what works limit progress. In this paper, we analyzed 34 case studies of science-policy engagement efforts, drawn from six years of agricultural research for development efforts around climate-smart agriculture by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Based on lessons derived from these case studies, we critically assessed and refined the program theory of the CCAFS program, leading to a revised and improved program theory for science-policy engagement for agriculture research for development under climate change. This program theory offers a pragmatic pathway to enhance credibility, salience and legitimacy of research, which relies on engagement (participatory and demand-driven research processes), evidence (building scientific credibility while adopting an opportunistic and flexible approach) and outreach (effective communication and capacity building).
This paper reviewed the prospects for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) development and promotion in West Africa as well as lessons learnt and challenges with a focus on climate change and variability. It was evident from the literature that West Africa is vulnerable to climate change and variability, on account of its socio-economic and physical characteristics. As climate change and variability persists, the region's quest to use agriculture as the mainstream opportunity to deliver on set targets of the sustainable development goals will be strongly challenged without appropriate interventions. Adopting CSA seems to be a suitable strategy to achieving food security while also mitigating and adapting to climate-related risks. Among numerous CSA technologies, the review found (1) agroforestry (farmer-managed natural regenerations), soil and water conservation technologies (zai, half-moon, tie/contour ridges, conservation agriculture) and (3) climate information services as highly valued promising options for climate change adaptation and risk management in West Africa. In addition, institutional settings at the community, national and regional levels such as the establishment of multi-stakeholder innovation platforms, national science policy dialogue platforms on CSA in parts of West Africa and the formulation of the West Africa CSA Alliance were found to be crucial in promoting capacity development and awareness of CSA technologies and innovations in the region. The review found that CSA still faces a number of challenges, including: lack of clear conceptual understanding, limited enabling policy and financing. The prospects of CSA in West Africa hinge on the capacities of farming households and the region's national institutions to understand the environmental, economic and social challenges in the context of climate change, and consequently self-mobilize to develop and implement responsive policies at appropriate scales.
Climate information is recognized as a powerful tool to reduce the effect of climate risk and uncertainty on crop production and increase the resilience and the adaptive capacity of farmers in semi-arid zones. This paper estimates farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for climate information within cowpea and sesame value chains in Northern Burkina Faso. The study used the contingent valuation method for a monetary valuation of farmers’ preferences for climate information. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 170 farmers. The study found that 63% of respondents were willing to pay for climate information services (CIS) such as seasonal climate forecast (SCF), decadal climate information (10-DCI), daily climate information (1-DCI) and agro-advisories. The predicted value for the WTP was XOF 3496 for SCF, XOF 1066 for 10-DCI, XOF 1985 for 1-DCI and XOF 1628 for agro-advisories. The study also showed that several socioeconomic and motivation factors have greater influence on farmers’ WTP for CIS. These included the gender, age, education of the farm head and the awareness of farm head to climate information. The outcomes of this paper should support policy makers to better design an efficient mechanism for the dissemination of climate information to improve the adaptive capacity of farmers to climate risks in Burkina Faso.
Increasing weather risks threaten agricultural production systems and food security across the world. Maintaining agricultural growth while minimizing climate shocks is crucial to building a resilient food production system and meeting developmental goals in vulnerable countries. Experts have proposed several technological, institutional, and policy interventions to help farmers adapt to current and future weather variability and to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper presents the climate-smart village (CSV) approach as a means of performing agricultural research for development that robustly tests technological and institutional options for dealing with climatic variability and climate change in agriculture using participatory methods. It aims to scale up and scale out the appropriate options and draw out lessons for policy makers from local to global levels. The approach incorporates evaluation of climate-smart technologies, practices, services, and processes relevant to local climatic risk management and identifies opportunities for maximizing adaptation gains from synergies across different interventions and recognizing potential maladaptation and trade-offs. It ensures that these are aligned with local knowledge and link into development plans. This paper describes early results in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to illustrate different examples of the CSV approach in diverse agroecological settings. Results from initial studies indicate that the CSV approach has a high potential for scaling out promising climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and services. Climate analog studies indicate that the lessons learned at the CSV sites would be relevant to adaptation planning in a large part of global agricultural land even under scenarios of climate change. Key barriers and opportunities for further work are also discussed.
Increasingly challenged by climate variability and change, many of the world’s governments have turned to climate services as a means to improve decision making and mitigate climate-related risk. While there have been some efforts to evaluate the economic impact of climate services, little is known about the contexts in which investments in climate services have taken place. An understanding of the factors that enable climate service investment is important for the development of climate services at local, national and international levels. This paper addresses this gap by investigating the context in which Uruguay’s Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries invested in and developed its National System of Agriculture Information (SNIA), a national-level climate service for the agriculture sector. Using qualitative research methods, the paper uses key documents and 43 interviews to identify six factors that have shaped the decision to invest in the SNIA: (1) Uruguay’s focus on sustainable agricultural intensification; (2) previous work on climate change adaptation; (3) the modernization of the meteorological service; (4) the country’s open data policy; (5) the government’s decision to focus the SNIA on near-term (e.g., seasonal) rather than long-term climate risk; and (6) the participation of key individuals. While the context in which these enablers emerged is unique to Uruguay, it is likely that some factors are generalizable to other countries. Social science research needed to confirm the wider applicability of innovation systems, groundwork, data access and champion is discussed.
Purpose of Review
The connections between climate change and conflict inherently raise questions related to space, scale, and nature-society relations, all themes central to modern geographic thought. The geographic and political ecological literature—and the literature informed by geography and political ecology—generally explores the relationship between climate change and conflict through case studies, employing a wide range of methods that enable understandings not accessible through exclusively large-n quantitative studies. As a result, this literature focuses on questions and challenges that are generally overlooked in the wider climate-conflict literature, including the importance of spatial and temporal scale and the ways in which vulnerability and resilience frame this relationship.
Recent Findings
This literature uniquely challenges the dominant “threat multiplier” framing of climate change’s impact on climate, questioning this narrative’s unidirectional flow from climate vulnerability to conflict, exploring how climate change can create opportunities for peacebuilding as well as conflict, and identifying how climate adaptation activities can themselves become catalysts for conflict.
Summary
While geographic and political ecological lenses on the relationship between climate change and conflict do not have all the answers needed to address the challenges and opportunities presented by this relationship, the framings these lenses offer are essential to building meaningful, actionable understandings going forward.
How should we understand the interconnections between environmental change, migration, and conflict in Africa? Should the rise of Islamic terrorism and Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria be directly linked to the drying of Lake Chad? Should cattle raiding in Kenya be seen as a result of drought across East Africa? Does the constrained migration of the pastoral Tuareg in the Sahel causally connect to desertification and their rebellion against governmental forces? Despite the compelling and often persuasive case for directly connecting environmental change to migration and conflict, there is a growing agreement in both the environment-migration and climate-conflict spheres that intervening variables determine if and how environmental change causes population movements and political violence. This article presents a case for migration as an intermediary and bidirectional causal variable. The article argues that close attention needs to be paid to local-level manifestations of conflict and (mal)adaptive forms of migration to understand the potential propensity of environmental change to lead to conflict in Africa.
Recent years have seen an upsurge in the numbers of studies investigating the potential link between climate variability and conflict—and particularly so quantitative studies of this relationship—without reaching any consensus on causal pathways or main findings. This study sets out to explore what the main causes of conflict between resource-user groups in arid and semi-arid areas in Sub-Saharan Africa are, with a particular focus on renewable-resource scarcity. We conduct a comparative analysis of eleven high-quality case studies of the escalation into violence of disputes between pastoralists and farmers or pastoralists in the Western Sahel and East Africa. This enables us to identify the mechanisms underpinning the actors’ motivations. Our analysis shows that the nature of these conflicts is complex. They cannot be reduced to a stimulus (resource scarcity)–response (violence) relationship. We find that drought is a contributing factor in four of the conflicts, and that a poor rainy season plays a role in a fifth one. However, resource scarcity is never the most important cause and it does not explain well the differences in conflict intensity. The most important contributor to explaining different levels of intensity is when local autochthonous and exclusionary claims are coupled with national-level political processes.
Climate services involve the timely production, translation, and delivery of useful climate data, information, and knowledge for societal decision-making. They rely on a range of expertise and are underpinned by research in climate and related sciences, sectoral applications (e.g., agriculture, water, health, energy, disasters), and a number of social science fields, including political science, sociology, anthropology, and economics. Feedback and engagement between these research communities and the communities involved in developing and/or using climate services is thus critical, ensuring that climate services are built on the best available science and providing researchers with guidance regarding priority challenges in the development of climate services that should warrant their attention.
This paper reports the results of an international survey to gauge community perspective on research priorities for climate services, highlighting several areas in which respondents agree on the need for future work. The survey results indicate an overarching interest in research that can better connect climate information to users, particularly around the communication of climate information, the mapping of climate information needs, and the evaluation and prioritization of capacity building efforts. They also reveal significant interest in climate research to advance the skill of forecasts at subseasonal-to-seasonal scales – considered more broadly useful to decision makers than information at the end-of-century timescale – and to identify the drivers of extreme events. To support climate-related research, survey respondents underscore the need to continually develop and maintain the observational network.
In analyzing these results, the paper offers guidance to researchers and to other members of the climate services community that may find these priorities useful in directing their own work to address the challenges posed by climate variability and change.
Significance
Ethnic divides play a major role in many armed conflicts around the world and might serve as predetermined conflict lines following rapidly emerging societal tensions arising from disruptive events like natural disasters. We find evidence in global datasets that risk of armed-conflict outbreak is enhanced by climate-related disaster occurrence in ethnically fractionalized countries. Although we find no indications that environmental disasters directly trigger armed conflicts, our results imply that disasters might act as a threat multiplier in several of the world’s most conflict-prone regions.
Earlier research that reports a correlational pattern between climate anomalies and violent conflict routinely refers to drought-induced agricultural shocks and adverse economic spillover effects as a key causal mechanism linking the two phenomena. Comparing half a century of statistics on climate variability, food production, and political violence across Sub-Saharan Africa, this study offers the most precise and theoretically consistent empirical assessment to date of the purported indirect relationship. The analysis reveals a robust link between weather patterns and food production where more rainfall generally is associated with higher yields. However, the second step in the causal model is not supported; agricultural output and violent conflict are only weakly and inconsistently connected, even in the specific contexts where production shocks are believed to have particularly devastating social consequences. Although this null result could, in theory, be fully compatible with recent reports of food price-related riots, it suggests that the wider socioeconomic and political context is much more important than drought and crop failures in explaining violent conflict in contemporary Africa.
The Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) dataset builds on previous approaches to ‘smart’ interpolation techniques and high resolution, long period of record precipitation estimates based on infrared Cold Cloud Duration (CCD) observations. The algorithm i) is built around a 0.05° climatology that incorporates satellite information to represent sparsely gauged locations, ii) incorporates daily, pentadal, and monthly 1981-present 0.05° CCD-based precipitation estimates, iii) blends station data to produce a preliminary information product with a latency of about 2 days and a final product with an average latency of about 3 weeks, and iv) uses a novel blending procedure incorporating the spatial correlation structure of CCD-estimates to assign interpolation weights. We present the CHIRPS algorithm, global and regional validation results, and show how CHIRPS can be used to quantify the hydrologic impacts of decreasing precipitation and rising air temperatures in the Greater Horn of Africa. Using the Variable Infiltration Capacity model, we show that CHIRPS can support effective hydrologic forecasts and trend analyses in southeastern Ethiopia.
The impact of geoengineering on crops has to date been studied by examining mean yields. We present the first work focusing on the rate of crop failures under a geoengineered climate. We investigate the impact of a future climate and a potential geoengineering scheme on the number of crop failures in two regions, Northeastern China and West Africa. Climate change associated with a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the number of crop failures in Northeastern China while reducing the number of crop failures in West Africa. In both regions marine cloud brightening is likely to reduce the number crop failures, although it is more effective at reducing mild crop failure than severe crop failure. We find that water stress, rather than heat stress, is the main cause of crop failure in current, future and geoengineered climates. This demonstrates the importance of irrigation and breeding for tolerance to water stress as adaptation methods in all futures. Analysis of global rainfall under marine cloud brightening has the potential to significantly reduce the impact of climate change on global wheat and groundnut production.
The present food shortages in the Horn of Africa and the West African Sahel are affecting 31 million people. Such continuing and future crises require that people in the region adapt to an increasing and potentially irreversible global sustainability challenge. Given this situation and that short-term weather and seasonal climate forecasting have limited skill for West Africa, the Rainwatch project illustrates the value of near real-time monitoring and improved communication for the unfavourable 2011 West African monsoon, the resulting severe drought-induced humanitarian impacts continuing into 2012, and their exacerbation by flooding in 2012. Rainwatch is now coupled with a boundary organization (Africa Climate Exchange, AfClix) with the aim of integrating the expertise and actions of relevant institutions, agencies and stakeholders to broker ground-based dialogue to promote resilience in the face of recurring crisis.
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, which includes most of the world's poor. Climate change disrupts food markets, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Threats can be reduced by increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. CSA promotes coordinated actions by farmers, researchers, private sector, civil society and policymakers towards climate-resilient pathways through four main action areas: (1) building evidence; (2) increasing local institutional effectiveness; (3) fostering coherence between climate and agricultural policies; and (4) linking climate and agricultural financing. CSA differs from 'business-as-usual' approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions.
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, which includes most of the world's poor. Climate change disrupts food markets, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Threats can be reduced by increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. CSA promotes coordinated actions by farmers, researchers, private sector, civil society and policymakers towards climate-resilient pathways through four main action areas: (1) building evidence; (2) increasing local institutional effectiveness; (3) fostering coherence between climate and agricultural policies; and (4) linking climate and agricultural financing. CSA differs from 'business-as-usual' approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions.
It has often been predicted that large numbers of people will be displaced by climate change and that this will lead to violent conflict. At the core of this prediction is a simple causal model which assumes that climate change will result in resource scarcities, which in turn will drive migration as well as violent conflict. Academic research into the links between climate change, migration and conflict has questioned such predictions; their theoretical foundation and empirical support is thin. This does not mean that climate change will be irrelevant for future patterns of migration, including migration that may be linked to violent conflict. However, it has become clear that the links between climate change, migration and conflict are complex and defy simple and sensationalist conclusions.
After outlining the state of the art on climate migration and the environment-migration-conflict nexus, this article sketches the environmental, economic and socio-political consequences of climate change contributing to migration and the different functions of migration in this context, for instance as an adaptive strategy to environmental change. It then delineates the different theorized pathways from migration to conflict escalation, evaluates their analytical value and develops a more differentiated model of the assumed links between climate change, migration and conflict.
A growing body of evidence shows a causal relationship between extreme weather events and civil conflict incidence at the
global level. We find that this causality is also valid for droughts and local violent conflicts in a within-country setting
over a short time frame in the case of Somalia. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in drought intensity and
length raises the likelihood of conflict by 62%. We also find that drought affects conflict through livestock price changes,
establishing livestock markets as the primary channel of transmission in Somalia.
Background
Soils are widely recognized as a non-renewable natural resource and as biophysical carbon sinks. As such, there is a growing requirement for global soil information. Although several global soil information systems already exist, these tend to suffer from inconsistencies and limited spatial detail.
Methodology/Principal Findings
We present SoilGrids1km — a global 3D soil information system at 1 km resolution — containing spatial predictions for a selection of soil properties (at six standard depths): soil organic carbon (g kg−1), soil pH, sand, silt and clay fractions (%), bulk density (kg m−3), cation-exchange capacity (cmol+/kg), coarse fragments (%), soil organic carbon stock (t ha−1), depth to bedrock (cm), World Reference Base soil groups, and USDA Soil Taxonomy suborders. Our predictions are based on global spatial prediction models which we fitted, per soil variable, using a compilation of major international soil profile databases (ca. 110,000 soil profiles), and a selection of ca. 75 global environmental covariates representing soil forming factors. Results of regression modeling indicate that the most useful covariates for modeling soils at the global scale are climatic and biomass indices (based on MODIS images), lithology, and taxonomic mapping units derived from conventional soil survey (Harmonized World Soil Database). Prediction accuracies assessed using 5–fold cross-validation were between 23–51%.
Conclusions/Significance
SoilGrids1km provide an initial set of examples of soil spatial data for input into global models at a resolution and consistency not previously available. Some of the main limitations of the current version of SoilGrids1km are: (1) weak relationships between soil properties/classes and explanatory variables due to scale mismatches, (2) difficulty to obtain covariates that capture soil forming factors, (3) low sampling density and spatial clustering of soil profile locations. However, as the SoilGrids system is highly automated and flexible, increasingly accurate predictions can be generated as new input data become available. SoilGrids1km are available for download via http://soilgrids.org under a Creative Commons Non Commercial license.
Climate services involve the generation, provision, and contextualization of information and knowledge derived from climate research for decision making at all levels of society. These services are mainly targeted at informing adaptation to climate variability and change, widely recognized as an important challenge for sustainable development. This paper reviews the development of climate services, beginning with a historical overview, a short summary of improvements in climate information, and a description of the recent surge of interest in climate service development including, for example, the Global Framework for Climate Services, implemented by the World Meteorological Organization in October 2012. It also reviews institutional arrangements of selected emerging climate services across local, national, regional, and international scales. By synthesizing existing literature, the paper proposes four design elements of a climate services evaluation framework. These design elements include: problem identification and the decision‐making context; the characteristics, tailoring, and dissemination of the climate information; the governance and structure of the service, including the process by which it is developed; and the socioeconomic value of the service. The design elements are intended to serve as a guide to organize future work regarding the evaluation of when and whether climate services are more or less successful. The paper concludes by identifying future research questions regarding the institutional arrangements that support climate services and nascent efforts to evaluate them. WIREs Clim Change 2014, 5:587–603. doi: 10.1002/wcc.290
This article is categorized under: Climate Models and Modeling > Knowledge Generation with Models
Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation
Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Decision Making
Ascribing violence to extreme weather and climate change risks anchoring a modern form of environmental determinism.
Understanding the dynamics and physics of climate extremes will be a critical challenge for twenty-first-century climate science. Increasing temperatures and saturation vapor pressures may exacerbate heat waves, droughts, and precipitation extremes. Yet our ability to monitor temperature variations is limited and declining. Between 1983 and 2016, the number of observations in the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) T max product declined precipitously (5900 → 1000); 1000 poorly distributed measurements are insufficient to resolve regional T max variations. Here, we show that combining long (1983 to the near present), high-resolution (0.05°), cloud-screened archives of geostationary satellite thermal infrared (TIR) observations with a dense set of ~15 000 station observations explains 23%, 40%, 30%, 41%, and 1% more variance than the CRU globally and for South America, Africa, India, and areas north of 50°N, respectively; even greater levels of improvement are shown for the 2011–16 period (28%, 45%, 39%, 52%, and 28%, respectively). Described here for the first time, the TIR T max algorithm uses subdaily TIR distributions to screen out cloud-contaminated observations, providing accurate (correlation ≈0.8) gridded emission T max estimates. Blending these gridded fields with ~15 000 station observations provides a seamless, high-resolution source of accurate T max estimates that performs well in areas lacking dense in situ observations and even better where in situ observations are available. Cross-validation results indicate that the satellite-only, station-only, and combined products all perform accurately ( R ≈ 0.8–0.9, mean absolute errors ≈ 0.8–1.0). Hence, the Climate Hazards Center Infrared Temperature with Stations (CHIRTS max ) dataset should provide a valuable resource for climate change studies, climate extreme analyses, and early warning applications.
Droughts represent an important type of climate extreme that reduces crop production and food security. Although this fact is well known, the global geographic pattern of drought-driven reductions in crop production is poorly characterized. As the incidence of relatively more severe droughts is expected to increase under climate change, understanding the vulnerability of crop production to droughts is a key research priority. Here, we estimate the production losses of maize, rice, soy, and wheat from 1983 to 2009 using empirical relationships among crop yields, a drought index, and annual precipitation. We find that approximately three-fourths of the global harvested areas—454 million hectares—experienced drought-induced yield losses over this period, and the cumulative production losses correspond to 166 billion U.S. dollars. Globally averaged, one drought event decreases agricultural gross domestic production by 0.8%, with varying magnitudes of impacts by country. Crop production systems display decreased vulnerability or increased resilience to drought according to increases in per capita gross domestic production (GDP) in the countries with extensive semiarid agricultural areas. These changes in vulnerability accompany technological improvements represented by per capita GDP increases. Our estimates of drought-induced economic losses in agricultural systems offer a sound basis for subsequent assessments of the costs of adaptation to droughts under climate change.
This paper assesses the potential role of investments in irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa in improving food security and self-sufficiency in the region. Focusing on the region’s drylands, the study identifies a potential for expanded irrigated area of 6–14 million hectares (ha), depending on technology costs and other factors. Linkage of these results with a global agricultural trade model shows that accelerated irrigation investment can effectively reduce growing food import dependency from 54% under a business-as-usual scenario to a much smaller 17–40%; and can also reduce the population at risk of hunger and child under-nutrition.
The development of crop varieties that are better suited to new climatic conditions is vital for future food production. Increases in mean temperature accelerate crop development, resulting in shorter crop durations and reduced time to accumulate biomass and yield. The process of breeding, delivery and adoption (BDA) of new maize varieties can take up to 30 years. Here, we assess for the first time the implications of warming during the BDA process by using five bias-corrected global climate models and four representative concentration pathways with realistic scenarios of maize BDA times in Africa. The results show that the projected difference in temperature between the start and end of the maize BDA cycle results in shorter crop durations that are outside current variability. Both adaptation and mitigation can reduce duration loss. In particular, climate projections have the potential to provide target elevated temperatures for breeding. Whilst options for reducing BDA time are highly context dependent, common threads include improved recording and sharing of data across regions for the whole BDA cycle, streamlining of regulation, and capacity building. Finally, we show that the results have implications for maize across the tropics, where similar shortening of duration is projected.
Quantitative research on climate variability and conflict is frequently criticized for being theoretically underdeveloped. In this article I discuss the most plausible suggested mechanisms connecting climate variability to conflict explicitly in reference to empirical testing. This approach could help solve the puzzle of how climate variability and conflict are related by highlighting how researchers can establish the key elements in the causal argument before moving on to testing it empirically. More specifically, I emphasize four key elements when evaluating each individual mechanism: first, who are the most relevant actors, second, what are the actors reacting toward (what type of climate variability), third, what conflict type is the most likely outcome, and fourth, what is the most appropriate temporal and spatial scale for each individual mechanism. Although empirical studies have moved toward more focus on theory and explicit tests of hypotheses derived from theoretical frameworks, an overview of how mechanisms are likely to manifest themselves and a discussion on how researchers can model them in analyses are missing in the research field. Adding technical fixes or new datasets to empirical testing does not automatically improve our understanding of the relationship between climate variability and conflict if the choices are not anchored in theoretical expectations.