For a video sum­ma­riz­ing the pro­gram, click here.

The impacts of cli­mate change are already being felt across Africa, lead­ing to greater nat­ural resource scarcity, which has con­tributed to vio­lent con­flict in Dar­fur (Sudan), Mali, and Soma­lia, among oth­ers. This trend is likely to con­tinue, as Africa is pro­jected to be among geo­gra­phies most severely impacted by cli­mate change. Though the path­way from cli­mate change to greater nat­ural resource scarcity to vio­lence is not a direct one, the risks of con­flict will increase as liveli­hoods are threat­ened due to greater scarcity of food, water or arable land. With lower gov­ern­ment capac­i­ties and lim­ited fund­ing to adapt to cli­mate change impacts, and a rel­a­tively weak con­flict prevention/​resolution archi­tec­ture in place, cli­mate change is likely to have an increas­ingly impor­tant impact on future con­flicts in Africa.

This assess­ment neces­si­tates new pol­icy plan­ning and devel­op­ment think­ing. Despite the threats, the broader global inter­est in cli­mate change also presents sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties to mobi­lize new inter­est and momen­tum for pro­mot­ing green devel­op­ment in Africa. This can con­tribute to an effec­tive con­flict pre­ven­tion strat­egy, and can also drive increased invest­ment and more diver­si­fied economies, improved gov­er­nance and devel­op­ment out­comes, and greater polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity. This project aims to build the the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal case for a new model for green devel­op­ment, which can pro­vide both polit­i­cal and eco­nomic returns, while deliv­er­ing both cli­mate sen­si­tive and con­flict sen­si­tive development.

Our 3–5 year goal is to seed and sup­port a suc­cess­ful “green” pilot in a still to be selected geog­ra­phy in Africa. A suc­cess­ful pilot will require polit­i­cal buy-​​in and local polit­i­cal cham­pi­ons, as well as new exter­nal invest­ment to sup­port green devel­op­ment projects. This can serve as a model that helps demon­strate the polit­i­cal and eco­nomic poten­tial of a green approach, the eco­nomic poten­tial of a green frame­work to exter­nal investors, as well as effec­tive con­flict pre­ven­tion. It is our hope that the model, once proven, will be scal­able in other geographies.