Climate War in the Sahel? Pastoral Insecurity in West Africa Is Not What It Seems

Nov 30, 2020 | Leif Brottem
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As violence in Mali and Burkina Faso reached a ten-year high this year, the West African Sahel appears to be experiencing the perfect storm of climate stress, resource degradation, and violent extremism. At the center of that storm, one finds livestock herders—pastoralists—who are both vulnerable to environmental changes in the region, and historically marginalized from politics. Conflict in the region looks like a harbinger of the climate wars to come—but is it really? In research produced for Search for Common Ground, Andrew McDonnell and the author found that while competition for land and water resources has increased dramatically across the region, violence associated with pastoralism emerges from a much more complex set of factors. Not surprisingly, the decisive conflict variable is governance.

Certainly, competition for critical resources like pasture and water is becoming more acute and the most credible analyses point to climate change as a clear source of change and stress in the region. And it is true that pastoralists make up a large share of certain insurgent groups, notably the Katiba Maacina in Central Mali, where several massacres recently occurred and violence is ongoing. Yet, conflicts over resources predate climate impacts in the region, having been endemic across West Africa, including Central Mali, for decades.