Drought and Conflict in the West African Sahel: Developing Conflict Management Strategies

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Drought and Conflict in the West African Sahel
Developing Conflict Management Strategies
Anthony Nyong, Ph.D. Centre for Environmental
Resources and Hazards Research Department of
Geography and Planning Faculty of Environmental
Sciences University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria

• Invited Discussion Paper
• The Environmental Change and Security Program
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
• Washington, D.C.
• October 18, 2005

Centre for Environmental Resources and Hazards
Research, University of Jos, Nigeria
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PLAN OF PRESENTATION

• Introduction Droughts in the Sahel
• Drought and Conflicts in the West African Sahel
• Conceptual Models of Conflict Management
• Case Study of Northern Nigeria
• Study area and background
• Study methodology
• Results
• Lessons Learned
• Policy Implications and Conclusion

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The Sahel

• Sahel Arabic meaning Shore. A transition
  between the southern margin of the Sahara desert
  and the savanna regions to the south.
• A bio-climatic zone of mainly annual grasses with
  a few shrubs and trees, that receives a mean
  annual rainfall of between 150 and 600mm
• A steep gradient of decreasing rainfall from
  south to north, with an increase in inter-annual
  and spatial variability.
• A zone of cultural transition where the Islamic
  culture from the north mingles with the
  traditional cultures of the south.
• North-south stratification of social systems,
  northerly cultures tend towards pastoralism,
  southerly cultures largely practice sedentary
  agriculture.

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Droughts in the Sahel (1)

• Regular seasonal pattern of the monsoonal systems
  that bring rain, with a wet season spread over
  2-5 months. Spatial and temporal distribution of
  rainfall over the wet season is irregular and
  highly unpredictable coefficient of variations
  of 20-30 or more (Hulme, 2001).
• Considerable rainfall variability on both
  interannual and decadal timescales throughout the
  twentieth century, while palaeo-environmental and
  historical data also indicate significant
  rainfall variability on centennial and millennial
  scales (Brooks, 2004).
• The short wet season results in the area
  supporting lower biomass content compared to arid
  lands with comparable total annual rainfall.
• What is most distinctive about the Sahel, is the
  intensity and multi-year persistence of drought
  conditions. Mean rainfall, for example, decreased
  by 2540 between 19311960 and 19681997 and
  since 1970 nearly every year has been anomalously
  dry (Nicholson, 2000 Hulme, 2001).
• This has resulted in significant socio-economic
  challenges and has attracted diverse
  international interest groups emphasizing the
  need to understand the complex causes of
  desiccation (Nicholson, 2000 Batterbury and
  Warren, 2001 Foley et al., 2003).

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Droughts in the Sahel (2)

• One early theory on drought was that land-use
  pressure led to desertification. However
  currently there is stronger consensus that
  desertification might not be responsible for the
  persistent drought (Nicholson, 2000 Xue and
  Fennessy, 2002).
• The droughts of the 1970s and 1980s were blamed
  on the systematic abuse of the Sahelian
  environment by its inhabitants. Land degradation
  resulting from overgrazing, unsustainable use of
  fuel wood, and other inappropriate land use
  practices was seen as the driving force behind a
  progressive regional desertification associated
  with the southward expansion of the Sahara (e.g.
  Lamprey, 1975 Charney et alv

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Drought in the Sahel (3)

• Recently, there has been a regional trend towards
  increasing rainfall, and remote sensing studies
  indicate an increase in vegetation cover in much
  of the Sahel.
• The Sahel thus provides us with examples of both
  recent climate change, complex interacting
  drivers of change and of cases of coping and
  adaptation to change.
• The 1950s and 1960s, for example, were
  characterised by high rainfall, and saw an
  expansion of farming into previously marginal
  areas that proved unviable for agriculture in the
  longer term. This expansion of agriculture also
  served to push nomadic populations into
  historically more marginal areas, making both
  farmers and herders more vulnerable to drought
  and increasing the likelihood of conflict between
  these groups (Thébaud and Batterby, 2001).
• By the early 1970s, rainfall had declined
  dramatically, and severe droughts in 1972-73 and
  1983-84 were associated with widespread human
  mortality, loss of animal stocks, and the
  destruction of livelihoods, particularly in the
  pastoral sector. Drought was one of a number of
  factors that led to conflict between mobile and
  sedentary populations in some Sahelian countries
  (Keita, 1994).

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Drought in the Sahel The Future

• The climatic future of the Sahel remains
  uncertain. While some studies predict increased
  droughts, others suggest wetter conditions in
  parts of the Sahel, and an expansion of
  vegetation into the Sahara (Brovkin, 2002
  Claussen et al., 2003 Maynard et al., 2002,
  Hoerling et al., 2005).
• Nonetheless, rainfall remains highly variable,
  and drought and associated food insecurity is
  still a major problem in many areas (FAO, 2005).

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Drought and Conflict in the Sahel (1)

• Droughts and conflicts interact in the Sahel to
  exacerbate vulnerability and human insecurity in
  the region.
• Vulnerability in the Sahel is not caused by
  climate variability or climate change alone.
  Social, economic, and political factors act
  together to cause vulnerability. In the zone, it
  is the rural and marginalized poor that are most
  affected by drought, as they have the least
  resources to adapt to drought. Within this group
  are the traditional farmers, pastoralists, and
  agro-pastoralists, who are the traditional food
  producers.
• Human security - the ability to reduce or
  eliminate the vulnerability to social, economic,
  environmental, and cultural threats that
  undermine sustainable development of communities.
  
• Drought recurrent feature in the region with
  climate models predicting more dryness. Adverse
  effect on agriculture and livelihood systems,
  generating competition for scarce resources.
• Competition for scarce resources leads to
  inter-group and intra-group conflict.

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Drought and Conflict in the Sahel (2)

• Managing climate-related conflicts should be
  pursued within the general framework of reducing
  the vulnerability to climate change through
  sustainable development.
• Its not all about implementing options, but also
  on the availability of resources to create
  enabling environment for implementing the
  options.
• Poverty and limited technical capacity have been
  identified as major impediments to reducing
  vulnerability to climate change in Africa.
• Knowledge, not financial capital, is key to
  sustainable social and economic development.
  Building on local knowledge is the first step to
  building adaptive capacity.

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Conceptual Models of Conflict Management

• Strong link between natural resource management
  and conflict. Shortages of natural resources lead
  to competition could result in conflict. Fighting
  and insecurity may prevent appropriate management
  of natural resources and reduce their production,
  thereby worsening shortages and intensifying
  competition and conflict.
• The causal pathway between resource scarcity and
  the occurrence of conflict is often traced
  without stressing the community capacity to
  absorb or manage such conflicts.
• Drought-related conflicts have occurred for
  centuries in the West African Sahel and
  indigenous management strategies have been
  developed to manage them.
• Efficacy of traditional African institutions in
  conflict management in the past, are well noted.
• Recent failure of traditional institutions and
  the escalation of conflicts are attributed to the
  juxtaposition of the "modern" or "western" tenure
  regimes with traditional regimes.
• However conflict is managed, the results of this
  management could help to reduce or escalate
  further conflicts.

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State-directed Model

• Comprises formal institutions that make up the
  state, functioning to ensure the compliance of
  the population with the existing arrays of
  regulations and programmes within the broad
  framework of state hegemony over the community.
• Often based on foreign laws and procedures and
  fails to recognize the inherent partnership
  between the state and the local community.
• Relies on the formal apparatus of the state and
  seen by local communities as a coercive means of
  social order.
• Many local communities are sceptical both of the
  legitimate functions of the state and of its
  capacity to ensure security and social justice.
• Ones ability to receive justice in this system
  depends on a persons socioeconomic status and
  political power as well as the technical
  requirements of the law.
• It is adversarial, often creating enmity.

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Local Community Model

• The skepticism and the weakness of formal
  institutions of justice administration in rural
  communities, has led to a renewed interest in the
  local community models of conflict resolution.
• Not a function of a specialized institution or
  agency embedded in the nature of the community
  and can be identified by its network, organizing
  themes, activities, structures and cultures.
• Takes into account the self-organizing
  capabilities of people at the local level, so as
  to identify their capacities, strategies and
  resources and thereby strengthen local control of
  resources, community network, public safety and
  self-governance.
• Varies among communities, but one common thread
  is that people have deeply rooted cultural
  commitments, and in many of the conflicts in
  Africa this cultural heritage plays a decisive
  role.
• It is reconciliatory. Priority is to restore
  relationships as family ties and community
  networking are respected, maintained and
  strengthened.

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Case Study from Northern Nigeria

• The almost inexhaustible literature on drought in
  the mostly francophone countries of West Africa
  contrast sharply with the near absence of works
  treating drought-hit Nigeria as a whole.
• The population at risk in the drought zone of
  Nigeria equals or exceeds the total population of
  the member countries of the CILSS.
• Considering the sheer size and population of
  Nigeria (about 50 of West Africa, and close to
  20 of Africa), solving Nigerias problems
  largely contributes to solving the continents
  problems.
• Major Losses from Droughts in Northern Nigeria
• 1968 1974
• About 300,000 animals (13 of livestock
  population in North Eastern Nigeria) perished
• Agricultural yields fell to about 40 of normal
  yields
• Population at risk were about 14 million
• 1983 1984
• About 5 million metric tonnes of grains lost
• About 120,000 Animals
• Other losses resulting from conflicts, severe
  constraints on biological productivity, and
  forced migrations.

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The Study Area (1)

• Study limited to Sahelian and Sudano-Sahelian
  zones of northern Nigeria, Lat 10 to 13N.
• Strong climatic variations and fluctuations with
  a highly irregular rainfall.
• Steep gradient of decreasing rainfall from south
  to north, totals ranging from 150 mm in the
  northern fringes to about 800 mm in the south.
• The rains fall during a short single wet season
  that lasts for about 3 4 months.
• Annual rainfall levels have been decreasing in
  the region over the course of this century, with
  an increase in inter-annual and spatial
  variability.
• Area characterised by 6 major droughts this
  century 1913-1914, 1931-1932, 1942-1943,
  1972-1973, 1983-1984, 1990

A Dry River Bed
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The Study Area (2)

• A high population growth (about 3.1 ) and a
  rapid rate of urbanization (about about 7 ).
• Main cash crops are cotton and groundnut. Farmers
  are predominantly smallholders using traditional
  farming systems, which mix food crops and cash
  crops on the same farming unit. The rearing of
  livestock is a very important aspect of life.
• The southward movement of the isohyets has
  resulted in the southward migration of
  pastoralists into lands formerly occupied by
  sedentary farmers.
• Major indigenous ethnic groups include the Hausa,
  Fulani, Kanuri, Shuwa, Burbur, Gerewa, and
  Ningawa.
• Environmental degradation caused by successive
  years of poor rainfall and recurrent droughts is
  exacerbated by combined effects of natural
  population growth and in-migration from
  resource-poorer countries, destroying
  complementarity between agriculture and
  livestock.
• With growing population, more land is being
  cultivated and less land available for pasture
  and traditional land use systems that relied on
  mobility, control over access to resources and
  social regulations have broken down.

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Study Area (3)
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Research Methods

• Reconnaissance Survey
• Familiarization with study area
• Identification of study sites
• Identification of livelihood systems
• Data Collection
• Questionnaire survey
• Focus group discussion

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Results

• Self-assessed vulnerability
• Statistical assessment of vulnerability

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Vulnerability

• Determinants
• Acreage under cultivation
• Crop yield
• Dependency ratio
• Livestock ownership
• Gender of household head
• Livelihood diversification
• Annual cash income
• Drought preparedness
• Educational background of the household head
• Land tenure situation
• Self-sufficiency in food production
• Family and social networks
• Quality of household

Lower Values indicate higher vulnerability
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Pattern of Conflicts

• Conflicts over natural resources
• Family/household conflicts
• Inter-group conflicts between different
  livelihood and ethnic groups
• Intra-group conflicts between different
  socio-economic groups within an ethnic group
• Conflicts between the state and people
• Inter-regional and international conflicts
  between the north and other regions within
  Nigeria and between neighbouring countries like
  Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

Self-reported conflicts

• Multiple exposure
• Seasonal pattern

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Causes of conflicts
Losses from conflicts

• Subjective levels of perceived losses across
  livelihood groups
• The pastoralists primarily rely on their
  livestock for protein supply, money and social
  security. To lose them, therefore, is to lose
  everything.
• Farmers have higher perceived loss as they cannot
  migrate as the herders do.

• Conflict over resources often translates into
  conflict over territories
• Inter-group cleavages
• Occurs over public space

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Conflict Resolution Indigenous Institutions
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Indigenous Institutions (2)

• Indigenous institutions are often organized on
  the basis of traditional roles and systems of
  authority, and legitimized in such structures as
  family, chieftaincy hierarchy, village council,
  and native or indigenous court systems.
• They possess a framework of ideas, guiding
  principles, and institutional foundation that can
  serve as entry points in the search for local
  options and broad-based conflict management
  initiatives.
• Factors that constrain the efficacy of these
  indigenous institutions include the difficulty of
  altering entrenched attitudes, and the rapid and
  continuing loss of indigenous belief systems and
  practices through the imposition of western
  culture and norms, undermined authority of and
  respect for indigenous institutions, increasing
  pressure on existing resources.
• Although indigenous institutions have suffered
  and continue to suffer some erosion, this does
  not necessarily render them outdated. Cultures
  advance on the basis of new experiences.
• Thus, far from being anachronisms in today's
  world, indigenous institutions have much to offer
  contemporary policy makers searching for a
  bottom-up approach to conflict resolution and
  management.

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Guiding Principles Timing

• Timing guarantees resource use for competing
  users at such times that reflect the demand and
  time of need. It
• guarantees accessibility to a resource for
  everyones needs, demonstrating a form of equity
  in access.
• enables the resource to recover from previous
  exploitation during times of scarcity.
• further mitigates conflict by preventing contact
  among competing users in the resource sites.
• Calls for the need to strengthen the controlling
  processes and networks rather than discipline
  individuals.
• Timing principle builds into cultural and
  production relations the protection of group
  survival interests.
• Reconciles group differences in the allotment of
  user time by regulating competition over scarce
  resources

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Guiding Principles Risk Aversion.

• Works on the principle of minimax, minimizing
  risks and maximizing advantages.
• For farmers, drought is an unpredictable
  phenomenon and the outcome consists of the loss
  of crops and an uncertain future. The
  encroachment of herds on farmland may result in
  the loss of crops, but it may also raise the
  possibility of demanding monetary compensation
  from the pastoralists.
• Consequently, pastoralists are often willing to
  pay for the crops destroyed during encroachments,
  particularly during droughts when their herds
  might otherwise have suffered in the absence of
  encroachment.
• Further reducing the potential for conflict is
  the customary practice that the offending party
  usually first self-reports himself and the
  incident to the village head for mediation and
  settlement.
• While the process of self-reporting and of
  imputing values to lost crops and herds is
  cumbersome, it shows how the economy is
  implicated in conflict management. The moral
  economy entails a correspondence between the
  safety-first principle and the subsistence
  ethic in the rural society (Watts, 1983).

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Risk Aversion (2).

• Risk aversion principle performs three functions
  in sustaining the social order in local
  communities at times of conflict.
• a deterrent and a control mechanism by imposing
  responsibility on the parties in conflict.
• is a just mechanism as it reconciles the
  interests of the parties and enmeshes the
  regulation into the network of relationships
  among contending groups. In this way, it balances
  the interests of both individual and public good.
  
• it reduces the potential for violence, since
  there is certainty for compensation, which may go
  both ways.
• Effective risk reduction and loss management such
  as these enable farmers and pastoralists to
  maintain their conventional consumption levels
  and assets even in drought years.
• Overall, it makes possible a contextual
  restorative justice by healing wounds through
  compensation and making the offender take
  responsibility, thereby building a reliable
  network of relationships.

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Lessons Learned

• Conflict resolution should pay more attention to
  the object of the conflict the scarce resource,
  much more than on the actors.
• Analyzing the nature of a regions resources, the
  pressures upon them and the range of possible
  resource management interventions, could minimize
  the competition and even help to resolve the
  resultant conflicts.
• Conflicts often degenerate into wars that
  exacerbate insecurity, which may prevent
  appropriate management of natural resources and
  reduce their production, thereby increasing
  scarcity and reducing access to those resources.
  This in turn creates further competition and
  conflicts.
• Economic/Livelihood diversification could reduce
  demand for particular resources and so reduce
  competition and the potential for conflict.
• The ethnic diversity of the area creates both a a
  potential for conflict as well as serve as an
  asset in developing effective natural resource
  management interventions.

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Policy Implications and Conclusion

• A need to address problems of human security in
  the region, particularly as it pertains to
  reducing and managing conflicts caused by
  scarcity of natural resources, to achieve MDGs.
• Integrate human security into local development
  strategies
• identify the risks faced by the community and the
  most vulnerable groups.
• study the strategies adopted by the vulnerable in
  coping with risks, including the strategies
  adopted to manage drought-related conflicts.
• Conflict management has not experienced
  difficulties because of technical problems, or a
  lack of know-how, but because of a lack of
  institutional capacity to manage them.
• Need to learn from and strengthen traditional
  institutions to effectively manage conflicts.
• Enhancing social development in areas like the
  western Sahel, a key component in the fostering
  of capacity of populations to adapt to climate
  change, consequently depends on the resolution
  and outcomes of existing conflict and the ability
  of communities to mitigate the potential for
  future ones.

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Conclusion

• The key to successful management of
  drought-related conflicts arising from resource
  use in the Sahel is to mainstream community-based
  strategies and institutions into national and
  regional development policies.
• These conflict-resolution strategies should not
  be seen in isolation but as part of a broader
  strategy to cope with climate change and enhance
  adaptive capacity. Traditional institutions in
  northern Nigeria have been efficient in managing
  conflicts in the past. It is therefore important
  that the factors that have eroded this efficiency
  be identified and removed.
• A best practice in enhancing conflict-resolution
  in the region would combine traditional
  institutions, strategy and knowledge with western
  knowledge, rather than seeing them as different
  and independent from one another.
• If an effective and a sustainable system of
  managing conflicts is not developed for the
  Sahel, it will not only reduce the capacity of
  residents of the region to adapt to future
  climate change, but make it difficult for the
  region to achieve the MDGs of reducing poverty by
  half by the year 2015.