What can we learn from regional and local efforts to manage the effects of climate change on conflict and instability in the Lake Chad region?

Since January 2025, an international research consortium led by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), has been undertaking a research project to improve academic and policymaker knowledge on preventing and managing climate change-related conflict and instability.

The research will improve our understanding of how the Regional Strategy for Stabilisation, Recovery and Resilience (RS-SRR, a joint project of Lake Chad Basin countries, the African Union, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission) and related efforts influence the relationship between climate change and environmental degradation on the one hand, and stability, recovery, and resilience on the other. Based on the knowledge gained from the Lake Chad Basin-specific research, and informed by comparative studies of other similar initiatives, the research will develop a set of generic principles and factors that influence the effectiveness of efforts to prevent and manage climate-related conflict and instability. The intent is that these principles and factors can inform the design and adaptation of climate change-related peace and security initiatives in other contexts.

The two-year project is led by Research Professor Cedric de Coning, and includes Dr. Andrew E. Yaw Tchie, Dr. Minoo Koefoed, and Dr. Thor Olav Iversen of NUPI. The other members of the consortium include Professor Freedom Onuoha from the University of Nigeria-Nsukka, Professor Saibou Issa from the University of Maroua in Cameroon, Dr. Thomas Gonzales and Dr. Dirk Bruin from the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA) ) at the Free University of Brussels, and Louise Lieberknecht and Natalia Skripnikova from GRID-Arendal.

Climate change, conflict, and resilience

All over the world, the effects of climate change are exarcerbating existing vulnerabilities and increasing the risk of inter-communal tensions over land, water, and food. The UN’s New Agenda for Peace (2023) predicts that failure to tackle challenges posed by climate change will have devastating effects for peacebuilding objectives.  The knowledge gained from this project is intended to help others facing similar challenges by providing insights into how locally led initiatives can bolster resilience and prevent and manage conflict.

The Lake Chad region and the wider West African Sahel belt are experiencing the compounding effects of violent conflict and climate-related extreme weather events that have caused large-scale population displacement and that have further increased water- and food insecurity. In response, several countries bordering the Lake Chad Basin (Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, and Benin), in collaboration with the Lake Chad Basin Commission and the African Union, developed the RS-SRR. This strategy, together with its enablers and related processes, provides this project with an interesting case study of how one specific region is attempting to manage climate and environmental-related conflict and instability.

It is a multi-stakeholder effort, in which the governors of the territories bordering the Lake Chad Basin, together with traditional leaders and civil society, serve as key drivers and implementers of the strategy. Other stakeholders at the national, regional, continental, and international level provide political, technical and financial support at multiple scales. The strategy is aimed at generating holistic and whole-of-society changes that address both the symptoms and underlying drivers of instability across the Humanitarian, Development, and Peace (HDP) Nexus. The strategy and related efforts represent an attempt to go beyond stabilisation by including recovery and resilience in the overall framing of the problem and its solutions, and this highlights the importance of addressing shared challenges in a way that fosters collaboration among a diverse range of sectors and stakeholders.

The Lake Chad RS-SRR is a response to three separately identifiable, but deeply interrelated, cross-cutting and mutually reinforcing crises: (1) a structural and persistent development deficit, (2) a breakdown of the social contract that had manifested in lawlessness and a violent extremist insurgency, and (3) a climate change-related environmental disaster. In the context of the deep complexity that characterises efforts to holistically manage such a multifaceted crisis, the research project has developed a conceptual framework for analysing interventions that aims to influence climate-related peace and security risks. The framework consist of five interrelated dimensions, namely (1) integration and the Humanitarian Development and Peace (HDP) Nexus, (2) localisation and context specificity, (3) multi-stakeholder participation, (4) adaptation, and (5) knowledge production and learning.

The project will use this conceptual framework to analyse how the Lake Chad stabilisation strategy and related efforts are structured and coordinated, as well as its influence to date. The project aims to identify and analyse key social-ecological factors that influence adaptation choices at local to national levels, with special attention to analysing the role of social cohesion, adaptive capacity, and societal resilience. This will inform how stabilisation, recovery, and resilience efforts can support conflict-sensitive and peace-positive adaptation, and can be used to help guide similar response initiatives elsewhere in the world.