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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Drought and Conflict: What are the links?
| Panel |
32. Water in Africa: policies, politics and practices. National and local appropriation of global management models and paradigms
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| Paper ID | 551 |
| Author(s) |
Webersik, Christian
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The following paper explores linkages between drought and armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. Societies, in particular in the developing world are dependent on rain-fed agriculture making them more vulnerable to environmental stress, such as climatic variability and drought. Changes in rainfall patterns can therefore lead to increased vulnerability and hence food insecurity and poverty. Poverty can increase political instability through horizontal inequalities, and eventually culminate in violent conflict with possible spill-over effects to other countries. In addition, poor economic performance raises the risk of state failure posing a potential threat to international security.
I argue that water scarcity in Sub-Saharan Africa leads to wealth deprivation and lower economic growth. Negative GDP growth is positively associated with a higher risk of internal armed conflict. In an environment with reduced economic returns caused by drought the incentives to engage in a war economy increase. Although major studies have been undertaken in the environmental-security field, the causal linkages and interaction remain unclear. As most of the environment-conflict literature is theoretically rather than empirically driven, there is the need for rigorous empirical research involving innovative methodologies. Advances in the generation of spatial demographic, political and environmental data open new research avenues, such as spatial statistical analysis. The critical question remains to what extent the natural environment impacts on social interactions. |
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