As the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction soon gets underway, the world is witnessing the highest levels of famine risk in decades. While war and conflict stand as a major root cause of the crisis in the Middle East and Africa, climate change is a key “enhancer” of the humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes.
There has been a surge in international migration in recent years, reaching a total of 244 million individuals in 2015. Forced displacement has also reached a record high, with 65.3 million individuals displaced worldwide by the end of 2015 – including refugees, IDPs and asylum seekers. Yet while the absolute numbers have increased over the last 15 years, migrants as a percentage of total global population has remained stable at about three percent. A majority of migrants remain on their own continents – nearly nine out of ten African migrants settle on the African continent, while eight out of ten Asian migrants remain in Asia. Forced displacement is predominantly an issue outside wealthy economies:
nine out of ten refugees are hosted by low and middle-income countries.
This edited volume, entitled Conflict-sensitive climate change adaptation in Africa, focuses on conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation strategies and practices in Africa and brings together the voices of academics, practitioners and policymakers from across the globe and Africa. Key questions that frame the contributions are: how do climate change and/or climate adaptation projects cause or contribute to conflicts, and how can adaptation measures be conflict-sensitive?
How to deal with the impact of climate change on peace and stability? What are the key climate-fragility risks to development in Africa and how can integrated policy responses be designed and implemented? Two side events at COP22 discussed entry points for addressing climate-security risks on the ground.
Following last month’s United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador, it is worth raising attention to the key challenges and opportunities that the urbanisation process imposes on peaceful development. In fragile contexts, such as urban areas which are already highly exposed to multiple risks (including climate change, disasters, chronic poverty, insecurity and population displacement), the converging effects of climate change and growing youth populations can severely affect security risks.
This briefing paper argues that in order to achieve the targets set out in the Malabo Declaration, which was adopted in 2014 with the aim to improve nutrition and food security across Africa, and to increase agricultural productivity by 2025 while building resilience to the effects of climate change, African governments must support programmes that will contribute to strengthening smallholder farmers’ resilience and improving their livelihoods.
26 May 2016 – At a meeting today in the United Nations Security Council on the situation in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa, senior UN officials stressed that climate change plays a direct role in the region’s security, development and stability by increasing drought and fuelling conflict.
On 12 May 2016, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) through its Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) launched its annual publication “The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID)”, identifying climate change and related natural hazards, such as droughts, sea-level rise and desertification as increasingly important factors causing internal displacement.
At its 585th meeting on March 30 2016, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union held an open session on Climate Change: State fragility, peace and security in Africa. The debate reflected the collective acknowledgement that climate change, peace and security in Africa are inextricably linked, stressing the need for all AU Member States to further build national resilience capacities.
This meeting will focus on the theme, 'Enhancing resilience to drought events on the African Continent'. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism in Namibia will organize this event in follow up to its role as UNCCD COP11 President and to the outcomes of the high-level meeting on national drought policies (HMNDP) held in Geneva in 2013. The conference will focus on identifying the specific needs of African countries in the area of effective drought mitigation, with a view to developing a strategic framework for enhancing resilience to drought events on the African continent.
The 8th Africa Carbon Forum (ACF) invites project developers and policymakers to exchange on the latest investment, finance and development opportunities relating to climate change.