Environmental Fragility in the Sahel
Publisher: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Author(s): Léopold Ghins, Ignacio Madurga-Lopez, and Kazuma Yabe
Date: 2022
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Extractive Resources, Governance, Livelihoods, Programming, Renewable Resources, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
Countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger
The Sahel – Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, also referred to in this paper as the ‘G5 Sahel’ – has become an ‘environmental fragility’ hotspot. In addition to poverty, social tensions and political volatility, insecurity continues to rise: fatalities from armed violence went from 1601 in 2017 to 6 569 in 2021. At the same time, Sahel countries excluding Mauritania feature in the top 15% of countries most vulnerable to climate change, according to the 2020 ND-GAIN Index. Climate change and environmental degradation come on top of other fragilities and exacerbate vulnerability. Yet, policy responses remain fragmented, often failing to capture interconnections between environmental risks and other types of risks.
This paper starts by making the case for multidimensional environmental fragility analysis. The second section provides a synthesis of existing knowledge on links between climate change, environmental degradation and other risks. In the third section, the paper unpacks three emblematic trends of environmental fragility in the Sahel: (i) growing food insecurity, (ii) rapid urbanisation and (iii) intensified mining. The fourth section focuses on donor responses, analysing patterns of climate- and environment- related (CER) official development assistance (ODA) in G5 countries and highlighting blind spots. The last section outlines options for policymakers, donors and development actors seeking to address environmental fragility going forward.