The importance of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects in the G5 Sahel countries: Entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity

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The importance of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects

in the G5 Sahel countries:

Entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity

Name: Sabrina Johanna Kiss, a3837955 Conclusion date: January 2021

Supervisor: Dr John Hogan

Department of International Relations and International Organisation University of Groningen

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This thesis is submitted for obtaining the Master’s Degree in International Humanitarian Action. By submitting the thesis, the author certifies that the text is from her hand, does not include the work of someone else unless clearly indicated, and that the thesis has been produced in accordance with proper academic practices.

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Abstract

When climate change and conflict became increasingly linked together, also the aid community started to reflect upon this interconnection in a more integrated manner. Realising that these two topics have long been discussed separately, analyses of their interplay in development work gathered pace. However, critical voices were raised that these analyses have not yet materialised in climate change adaptation projects in fragile settings. Although the aid community is well aware of the issues that spark conflict, they have for long settled on a rather depoliticised narrative that puts environmental conflict drivers (e.g. climate change-induced resource scarcity) into the foreground of their public statements, and showed reluctance in integrating broad conflict dimensions into their project planning. Subsequently, this lack of conflict-sensitivity was increasingly brought up within the aid community, and led to the development of climate-conflict guidelines, which show how to be conflict-sensitive when implementing projects in fragile settings. Based on current climate-conflict research, which shows a rather broad consensus on non-environmental (i.e. social, political and economic) conflict drivers, this thesis introduces non-environmental conflict triggers such as ‘resource access and distribution amidst scarcity‘, ‘marginalisation’, ‘land tenure insecurity’, and ‘deficient conflict resolution mechanisms’. These triggers require a thorough analysis in adaptation interventions in order not to exacerbate existing tensions or inadvertently create new ones. Nevertheless, the acknowledgement of the need to be more conflict-sensitive is not entirely mirrored in the project documents of major aid providers such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Since the aid community’s guiding principle is ‘to do no harm’ with their interventions, the profound integration of conflict-sensitivity is not only an interesting new perspective for their work but also a necessity. This thesis demonstrates through desk research and expert interviews that if conflict-sensitivity is lacking in climate change adaptation interventions, adaptation planners can overlook various conflict dynamics. This could ultimately result in unintended adverse consequences for local stability as it might amplify existing tensions or create new ones. Subsequently, the thesis will show entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation interventions in the G5 Sahel countries.

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Acronyms

EU European Union

GEA German Environment Agency ICG International Crisis Group LDC Least developed country

NGO Non-governmental organisation

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Sida Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

UN United Nations

UNDG United Nations Development Group UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNEP United Nations Environment Programme UNFPA United Nations Population Fund

UNOPS United Nations Office for Project Services

UNOWAS United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel USAID United States Agency for International Development

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1. Introduction

In the past years climate change and conflict have been among the most pressing issues of today’s world. When the topic of climate change gained momentum in the global community and brought a sense of urgency with it, more and more concerns were voiced how these increasing climatic changes will impact on the stability of human systems and what this means in terms of security. This set a continuous trend in motion to link climate change to security issues, ranging from state security in general to human security in particular. In one of their statements the UN Security Council (2011) expressed concerns “that possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security”. In this regard, especially the assessment of the conflict in Darfur played a huge part in stimulating research on the question in how far the impacts of climate change on the environment cause or correlate with instability. Danbolt Mjøs (2007), chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, stated at the award ceremony that “we can already establish that global warming not only has negative consequences for ‘human security’, but can also fuel violence and conflict within and between states”, with the most obvious consequences found “among the poorest of the poor, in Darfur and in large sectors of the Sahel belt, where we have already had the first ‘climate war’” (para. 17). In the same vein, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon (2007) cautioned that “when resources are scarce […] our fragile ecosystems become strained, as do the coping mechanisms of groups and individuals, [which] can lead to a breakdown of established codes of conduct, and even outright conflict” (para. 2). Over time, this type of conflict narrative met increasing criticism by those who assert that “[i]n conflicts to date […] the role of climate is judged to be small compared to other drivers of conflict [low socioeconomic development, low state capability, intergroup inequality], and the mechanisms by which climate affects conflict are uncertain” (Mach et al., 2019, p. 196). This reflects that climate-conflict research continuously shifted away from the initial focus on climate change as a major conflict driver to an understanding that “attention to climate change as a security threat risks leading to an exaggeration of its role as a causing factor of ongoing conflicts while complex underlying causality is simplified or ignored” (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), 2018, p. 24).

1.1 Conflict and climate change adaptation

The discourse on climate-induced security dominated questions on how to adapt to gradual changes in the human biosphere. As climate change became an exceedingly pressing topic, this issue was quickly taken up by the development aid community through initiating specifically

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planned climate change adaptation interventions, which endeavour to help “countries anticipate the adverse effects of climate change and take action to prevent, minimize, and respond to its potential impacts, [thereby] [i]mproving the capacity for climate adaptation in fragile situations” (Rüttinger et al., 2015, pp. 78-79). Since many climate change adaptation projects take place in such fragile situations, it is not far-fetched to assume that aid providers reflect upon on-site fragilities. Additionally, if climate-conflict research increasingly turns away from depicting climate change as a major culprit for instability and conflict, it remains debatable how adequate it is to stick to a conflict narrative in climate change adaptation interventions that is mainly focussed on environmental drivers of conflict. However, public statements in the aid community often favour a narrative in which climate change is considered a security threat that exacerbates food and water scarcity as well as disasters such as droughts, which in turn lead to migration and competition, and ultimately to enhanced conflict levels. Being critical of this rather depoliticised stance, more and more members of the aid community started to reflect upon the question whether more importance should be attached to social, political and economic conflict drivers as opposed to environmental ones. The reluctance to depart from a track focused on climate-induced fragility can be partly explained by the reality that “conflict remains something of a sticking point – in part because of the complicated links with politics” (Vivekananda, 2020, para. 12). Additionally, it is maintained that the analytical instruments used for developing adaptation strategies (such as vulnerability assessments) do not only have an apolitical character that lacks discussions of the impacts of climate change on the political order and its socio-economic consequences, but also tend to ignore a country’s conflict history and fragility (Tänzler & Scherer, 2018). It cannot be denied that the negative impacts of climate change on the environment and its interplay with multifaceted conflict drivers have long been acknowledged and researched. Nevertheless, climate change adaptation projects are apparently designed with a hesitance to link analyses of conflict drivers to climate change adaptation planning in practice. A major point of critique, which ultimately motivated the research for this thesis, is the recent observation that policies and processes are distinctly grouped around either climate change or conflict (Sida, 2018). Furthermore, it is criticised that even though the international community extensively supports frameworks for climate change adaptation in developing countries, there is no particular guidance for programming adaptation in fragile and conflict-affected settings (Tänzler & Scherer, 2018). This issue was also highlighted by others who advocate for a more systematic assessment of climate-fragility risks:

To date, however, responses to climate change have failed to address the full range of knock-on effects. Most climate change programmes do not address conflict and

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often ignore future conflict impacts. In the rare instances where conflict is acknowledged, it is almost always treated as a standalone objective.(Adelphi, UNEP & EU, 2019, p. 2).

At the same time it is very strongly emphasised that poorly-designed or executed climate change adaptation interventions could themselves unintentionally lead to tensions, exacerbate conflict dynamics or even spark an outbreak of violence; which clearly demonstrates that it is imperative to develop and implement adaptation projects in a way that they exhibit sensitivity towards conflictual situations (USAID, 2015; Tänzler & Scherer, 2018). These recent findings indicate that what adaptation interventions are often lacking is conflict-sensitivity. The observations that conflict issues have been kept away from climate change adaptation considerations is in stark contrast to the aid community’s desire to ‘do no harm’; which means that organisations that follow this principle acknowledge that all their activities could cause harm and thus seek to minimise any negative impacts their actions could possibly have (Babcicky, 2013). This contrast sparked the writing of this thesis as the interest arose to investigate what this lack of conflict-sensitivity practically means with regard to possible harmful consequences for climate change adaptation projects whose stated objective it is to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance sustainability.

1.2 Research question and thesis outline

The geographical scope of this thesis was narrowed down to the countries of the G5 Sahel (hereafter referred to as the G5), a regional cooperation framework over development and security issues, as they offer a suitable setting for linking conflict-sensitivity to climate change adaptation. Overall, the G5 can be described as a vast semi-arid strip that stretches from Mauritania at the Atlantic Ocean eastwards to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. These countries were of special interest because, firstly, owing to its extreme climatic conditions and exceedingly vulnerable populations, the Sahel was dubbed “ground zero” for climate change (Egeland, 2008), and secondly, the numbers of fatalities in the G5 quadrupled in 2018 when compared to 2012; particularly Burkina Faso and Mali recorded the highest conflict-related death tolls in years (Muggah & Luengo Cabrera, 2019). They were also of interest because the UN has recently devised a Support Plan for the Sahel1 (from 2018 to 2030), and the Sahel

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Alliance2_{announced in 2020 a funding of € 11.6 bn for the G5. This indicates that the G5 zone}

is an area, which will see money released into climate change adaptation and peace initiatives. This led to following research questions:

- Which underlying conflict dynamics in the G5 Sahel countries are overlooked if climate change adaptation projects are not conflict-sensitive enough?

- What are the risks and possible unintended outcomes if these dynamics are overlooked?

- Which entry points for conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects in the G5 Sahel countries can be deduced from analysing the previous two questions?

First of all, chapter 2 on existing literature introduces the concept of conflict-sensitivity, which demands from aid providers to acquire an understanding of the context in which an intervention takes place, an understanding of the interaction between the context and the intervention, and appropriate actions following the understanding of this interaction (see 2.1). Section 2.2 introduces the entry points for research pointing to the lack of literature on conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation in general, and in the G5 specifically. It further identifies the non-environmental conflict triggers that will be analysed in the analysis chapter of this thesis. The methodology chapter outlines the research design for this thesis ( section 3.1) and then describes the process of data collection through desk research and expert interviews (3.3). After showing the limitations and challenges (3.3) of the thesis, the geographical focus area will be explained in more detail (3.4). This thesis is guided by the theoretical framework (3.5) that social, political and economic factors exert more influence over conflicts than climate change. Pairing this theoretical framework with the conflict triggers identified in section 2.2 established four conflict triggers that are especially prevalent in the G5 and that could easily interact with climate change adaptation interventions: ‘resource access and distribution amidst scarcity’ (section 4.1), ‘marginalisation’ (4.2), ‘land tenure insecurity’ (4.3), and ‘deficient conflict resolution mechanisms’ (4.4). In the analysis part of this thesis, these overall triggers are investigated in-depth with regard to the various conflict dynamics that underlie them, while highlighting that these dynamics could be exacerbated if adaptation projects exhibit insensitivity towards them. Moreover, the risks and unintended outcomes that this insensitivity might entail are derived from this analysis of conflict dynamics. On this subject, expert

2_{This alliance for the G5 Sahel countries was formed in 2017 and comprises the EU, France, Germany, Italy,} Spain, the UK, Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. See: https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/sahel-alliance/

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interviews provided a more profound insight into conflict dynamics in the G5 Sahel countries, and helped to establish missing links regarding the interplay between conflict-insensitivity and the occurrence of tensions and exacerbated conflict risk. Since there are no specific conflict-sensitive climate change adaptation guidelines for the G5 Sahel countries, this thesis attempts to contribute entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity into climate change adaptation in the G5 to the discussion. These entry points will be presented at the end of each section (4.1-4.4).

Various aid providers have only in the last couple of years shifted to an understanding that gives more importance to conflict-sensitive climate change adaptation planning. This shift towards acknowledging the importance of including conflict dimensions into climate change adaptation specifically is indeed an interesting new perspective in development aid. Investigating this topic in more detail is highly relevant because pressing climatic changes and the vicious circles of conflict in the Sahel constitute a double vulnerability whose possible correlations require scrutiny; not only from the international community in general but also from aid providers and adaptation planners in particular. It remains crucial that conflict dimensions are indeed thoroughly analysed with caution towards the narrative in which climate change is the major culprit in conflicts. This thesis demonstrates that a focus on this narrative offers a too one-dimensional foundation to build climate change adaptation upon. The overall aim of this thesis is to highlight that if aid providers such as UNDP and UNEP apply a ‘climate lens’ but not a ‘conflict lens’ in their climate change adaptation design, there is a real risk that various underlying conflict dynamics are overlooked. This further means that they might either create unintended negative effects for those communities they aim to support with their interventions, or overlook barriers to their adaptation efforts, which could hamper a project’s success and negatively impact on people’s vulnerability. Consequently, it is of utmost importance for the aid community to recognise that “neglecting the factors that can trigger conflict […] can result in adaptation policies that compound the risks posed by the climatic conditions they aim to mitigate” (Hamro-Drotz, 2014, p. 212).

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2. Existing research

This thesis was not only motivated by the observation that conflict dimensions have not been systematically integrated into climate change adaptation policies but also by the absence of this topic in academic research. Overall, reflecting upon conflict dimensions in development aid is crucial since aid interventions have been increasingly understood as becoming part of the context, and in conflict settings part of the conflict, in which local populations do not necessarily perceive interventions as a neutral event with neutral impacts; especially since the provision of aid can affect or alter local dynamics, power balances and political settlements (Haider, 2014). Consequently, it has to be clear that all interventions interact with conflict in one way or another, and that there are often unanticipated and unintended ways how these interventions could play out (Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013). Firstly, this chapter introduces the concept of conflict-sensitivity (2.1) and shows its importance for the aid community with regard to their imperative to do no harm with their interventions. This also serves to highlight that although methods on how to be sensitive are in existence the application of a conflict-sensitive approach has not necessarily materialised in practise. Secondly, section 2.2 presents entry points for research by outlining existing research gaps and introducing the conflict triggers that will be analysed in the analysis part (chapter 4) of this thesis.

2.1 Conflict-sensitivity

As it is obvious that climate change adaptation activities do not take place in a vacuum but in a setting with multiple stakeholders, interests and vulnerabilities, all of this needs to be reflected in climate change adaptation interventions. This reality provides the starting point for adopting conflict-sensitivity, which is based on an “understanding that aid actors and aid interventions are not neutral; and that donors have a duty […] to ensure at a minimum that their interventions do not cause harm” (Haider, 2014, p. 11). Thus, development practitioners could take the assumption that no policy, programme or project is truly neutral as a starting point for conflict-sensitivity as they all have unintended, direct or indirect, positive or negative consequences (Tänzler & Scherer, 2018). Although the concept of conflict-sensitivity is not entirely new, the increasing discussions on the interplay between climate change and conflict have reinvigorated questions on how to shape development work in a more conflict-sensitive manner, which refers to the ability to

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 understand the interaction between your intervention and the context (how the context affects the intervention and how the intervention affects the context); and

 act upon the understanding of this interaction, in order to avoid negative impacts and maximise positive impacts (Reychler, 2006, as cited in Haider, 2014, p. 2)

Overall, sensitivity is relevant to all programmes in all contexts, and while conflict-sensitive interventions must at a minimum prevent inadvertently contributing to any conflict dynamics, they do not need to address any conflict causes or drivers directly (Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013). This is also what differentiates conflict-sensitivity from peacebuilding interventions. While peacebuilding programmes are distinct types of intervention that can stand alone, conflict-sensitivity represents an overall approach that “is concerned with any contribution to peace – whether related to drivers of conflict or not, intended or unintended, significant or not” (Haider, 2014, pp. 18-19). Therefore, it is applicable to all types of intervention. Thus, it has to be clear that conflict-sensitivity is also relevant in instances where there is no known or open conflict because tensions due to an insensitive intervention can also arise in relatively peaceful places. The concept of conflict-sensitivity is first and foremost concerned with the negative impacts an intervention could have, and how to avoid exacerbating or creating conflict situations. Thus, a crucial element of integrating conflict-sensitivity is to look for unintended outcomes of the intervention, which entails a focus on monitoring aid activities throughout the project (Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013). This indicates that project planners initially require a broad understanding of the key conflict drivers and conflict dynamics, and need to assess how their decisions interact with the identified conflict factors and how these issues play out in their specific sector (i.e. climate change adaptation) (Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013). Moreover, it is also stressed that in order to be truly effective conflict-sensitivity should be mainstreamed holistically throughout the whole project cycle (designing and planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation) (Haider, 2014). By checking whether certain mechanisms are in place that help to enable conflict-sensitivity, like a conflict analysis or the establishment of conflict mitigation strategies, the process of monitoring and evaluating conflict-sensitivity ensures that interventions do not cause any inadvertent harm or exacerbate prevalent patterns of exclusion (Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013). Thus, “sensitivity to conflict is less about making fundamental changes to existing programmes than describing and thinking about programmes differently” (Lange, 2006, p. 164).

It has become clear that conflict-sensitivity is not a distinct project component but an approach that needs to permeate every step of an intervention. Evidently, this approach has not always

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been systematically applied. Apart from the fear of securitising aid, several other challenges to achieving full sensitivity have been detected: inconsistent application of conflict-sensitivity on various levels and throughout the project cycle; analytical issues; timing and funding constraints; lack of attention to Southern perspectives, lack of accountability; faulty assumptions that development efforts and poverty reduction will automatically contribute to peace; political pressures; and pressures to spend donor money quickly (Haider, 2014; Woodrow & Chigas, 2009). Although the theoretical objective of conflict-sensitivity as well as its challenges are well-known, it has been diffuse how this is supposed to materialise in practice. Woodrow and Chigas (2009) argued in the past that even though conflict analysis frameworks and methods had proliferated and the concept of conflict-sensitivity expanded, this led to a relative neglect of the actual provision of practical guidance regarding the question how to implement conflict-sensitive programmes (p. 2). Goldwyn and Chigas (2013) observe with regard to peacebuilding evaluation reports that many of them claim to assess conflict-sensitivity, but there are no actual methodologies for assessment described within them (p. 3). Similarly, in a comprehensive report on climate and fragility risks, Rüttinger et al. (2015) criticise that while it is important for policymakers to be conflict-sensitive in climate change adaptation measures, there is only limited guidance on how to actually be conflict-sensitive, and that there is no distinct guidance for adaptation planning in fragile settings (pp. 82, 107). Moreover, they argue that “in practice, peace and conflict assessments are often just a formality conducted by an external expert, with the results rarely informing strategies, planning, and implementation” (p. 100).

Regarding the assessment of negative or positive outcomes of interventions, aid providers usually work with indicators (e.g. # of youth participating in a project, # of incidents of violence) to evaluate a project’s success, which means the achievement of pre-determined objectives. However, Goldwyn & Chigas (2013) stress that indicators are often of limited value as they are not well-suited for capturing unintended and unanticipated outcomes because they are designed a priori and do not assess what had not been anticipated (pp. 16, 28). For supplementing or substituting objective indicators, it is suggested to use feedback mechanisms that are more appropriate to collect data on unanticipated effects and outcomes of aid activities on the conflict context, such as open-ended inquiry or dialogue with targeted and non-targeted groups in order to gather people’s perceptions and experiences (Haider, 2014; Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013). Goldwyn & Chigas (2013) emphasise that developing an understanding of these perceptions is crucial, especially disaggregated by stakeholder group, because it is important for grasping the effects of interventions on the conflict, and for obtaining richer information on

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how outcomes might be a source of grievance and how differences in access to benefits, services or resources might be linked to conflict (p. 29). However, they also clarify that since it is often impossible to establish whether the steps taken to ensure a conflict-sensitive intervention design

directly prevented tensions or conflicts, it is sufficient to find out in how far an intervention

might have contributed to either increased tensions or to conflict de-escalation.

It can be summarised that conflict-sensitivity is an approach, which should drive to understand the context in which an intervention is taking place in order to grasp the negative or positive effects it could have on an environment. Moreover, it should be applied and monitored throughout the whole project cycle to allow for the identification of possible negative effects as well as for adjustments in order to avoid causing or exacerbating harm. As it is the non plus ultra of the aid community to ‘do no harm’, the idea to connect climate change adaptation to the analysis of the conflict context does not seem far-fetched. However, Haider (2014) argues that while links between conflict and climate change have indeed gained prominence in literature, links between conflict and climate change adaptation have not enjoyed the same level of attention (p. 33). Goddard and Lempke (2013) observe that most natural resource and land management interventions fail to incorporate conflict-sensitivity explicitly, even in situations of latent or open violence (p. 4). Given that conflict-sensitivity does not only serve to reduce the risk for violent outcomes but also to multiply the effectiveness and sustainability of assistance (Haider, 2014), applying a conflict-sensitive approach to climate change adaptation could constitute a critical component in reducing people’s vulnerability. There is a real risk that the (conflict) context as well as the possibility for unintended project outcomes are overlooked if a conflict-sensitive approach is not consistently applied. Consequently, when designing adaptation projects, various conflict dynamics and how they interact with the intervention need to be analysed in order to avoid exacerbating tensions or creating conflict.

2.2 Entry points for research

The considerations above highlight that although the advantages of a conflict-sensitive approach are well-known, frameworks and methods on how to integrate a conflict-sensitive approach into development projects in general, and into climate change adaptation in particular, have not received excessive attention in practice. There is indeed a vast amount of academic literature on the connection between climate change and conflict (Benjaminsen & Lund, 2001; Barnett & Adger, 2007; Raleigh, 2010; Von Uexkull, 2014; Benjaminsen et al., 2012; Benjaminsen, 2016; Mach et al., 2019). There are also various articles that deal with the different application ranges and challenges of conflict-sensitivity (Woodrow & Chigas, 2009;

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Goddard & Lempke, 2013; Goldwyn & Chigas, 2013; Haider, 2014). However, literature that deals with conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects specifically, or climate change adaptation in fragile (conflict) settings, is rare and tends to have a rather broad focus on the topic (Babcicky, 2013; Mohamed-Katerere, 2014). Narrowed down to the geographical focus area of this thesis, research did not yield any results on the existence or lack of conflict-sensitive climate change adaptation projects in the G5. It has to be clarified though that debates on these topics are rather found within the aid community than academia. Generally, no comprehensive literature on possible consequences if conflict-sensitivity is not applied, or lessons learned where conflict-sensitivity was not applied, was found, while guidelines3 that deal with conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation specifically were only recently devised. The recency of these guidelines reflects that connecting these two is in its early phase. Moreover, they are formulated in a quite general manner and do not have a geographical focus area. These gaps sparked the interest to conduct an analysis on possible conflict dynamics that could be overlooked and the unintended consequences this could entail, and furthermore, to formulate entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity into climate change adaptation interventions in the G5.

As adaptation refers to adjustments in natural and human systems, it will not only affect the access and (re)distribution of resources as well as their benefits and costs, but also power relationships and social coherence (Mohamed-Katerere, 2014; Rüttinger et al., 2015). It has to become clear that “natural resources management is always the object of power struggles and politicisation [and] [n]o planned intervention, no development project and no change in resource utilisation constitutes a discrete and neutral event (Benjaminsen & Lund, 2001, p. 12). Particularly in cases where conflict management mechanisms and property rights are ineffective or illegitimate, adaptation efforts altering the distribution of access to resources might create or exacerbate conflicts (Adger et al., 2014). Another important point is that asymmetric power relations, beliefs and values of the local population, as well as cultural diversity have to be taken into account as well (Haider, 2014). This is even more important as interventions can evidently alter local power balances and add to people’s grievances. Thus, caution needs to be exercised because interventions and policies that aim to reduce certain climate sensitivities can run the risk of benefitting some interests while simultaneously creating social inequity or negatively

3_{USAID (2015): Climate change and conflict: an annex to the USAID climate-resilient development framework;}

Tänzler and Scherer (2018): Guidelines for conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change; Adelphi, UNEP and the EU (2019): Guidance note: Addressing climate-fragility risks – Linking peacebuilding, climate change

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affecting other groups (Eriksen & Brown, 2011). Analysing conflict dynamics on the African continent, Welborn (2019) states that “evidence points […] to the usual structural culprits: politicised marginalisation of certain ethnic groups and poor governance and economic performance”, and that “[t]hese socio-economic dynamics are far more robust drivers of conflict than any climatic phenomenon, no matter how disruptive” (p. 37). Especially marginalisation is a recurring theme because it is robustly linked to conflict outbreak at both the intrastate and community level as it makes people more vulnerable to climatic changes and more inclined to engage in conflict (von Uexkull, 2014). It becomes evident that non-environmental factors play a significant, if not the main part in conflict development. This existing research helped to identify the non-environmental conflict triggers ‘resource access and distribution amidst scarcity‘, ‘marginalisation’, ‘land tenure insecurity’, and ‘deficient conflict resolution mechanisms’.The aim of this thesis is to conduct an analysis of these triggers, show how they interact with climate change adaptation interventions, and deduce from this analysis entry points specific to the G5 Sahel countries, which can serve as a contribution to the aforementioned climate-conflict guidelines.

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3. Methodology

In order to to answer the research questions, 1) which underlying conflict dynamics in the G5 Sahel countries are overlooked if climate change adaptation projects are not conflict-sensitive enough, 2) what are the risks and possible unintended outcomes if these dynamics are overlooked, and 3) which entry points for conflict-sensitivity can be deduced, desk research and expert interviews were conducted. This chapter first of all introduces the research design (3.1), which shows step by step how the research questions were approached. Then, the section on data collection (3.2) describes how and why the material for desk research was selected, why expert interviews were conducted, and why the respective interview subjects were selected. Section 3.3 deals with the limitations and challenges of the methods used, especially regarding the lack of academic literature on conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation. The next section (3.4) introduces the geographical scope of the thesis and explains why the G5 Sahel countries were of interest for investigating conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects. Additionally, this section defines the term ‘conflict’ and shows the types of local-level conflicts that were relevant for analysis in this thesis. Finally, the theoretical framework (3.5) outlines how the writing process of this thesis was guided by the political ecology school of climate-conflict research, which puts more emphasis on social, political and economic conflict triggers as opposed to environmental ones.

3.1 Research design

Research started out in a rather broad manner on the so-called climate-conflict nexus. Desk research investigated in how far, if at all, climate change interacts with conflict dimensions. This led to the theoretical guidance of this thesis that social, political and economic conflict triggers exert more influence over conflict development than climatic ones. For this thesis the term ‘conflict trigger’ only serve as an umbrella term. This is supposed to signify that these conflict triggers are not one-dimensional problems allowing for a clear, straightforward problem analysis, but they are accompanied by and composed of multifaceted dynamics (e.g. conflict resolution mechanisms could be deficient due to various underlying dynamics such as a lack of legitimacy or corruption). In order to approach the research questions, it was then established through desk research what the concept of conflict-sensitivity entails and why there is a necessity to be conflict-sensitive in climate change adaptation projects (as described in section 2.1). To answer the research question, which underlying conflict dynamics in the G5 Sahel countries are overlooked if climate change adaptation projects are not conflict-sensitive enough, it became evident that those social, political and economic conflict triggers that have

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to be analysed for enhanced conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation need to be clearly defined. Subsequently, these manifold conflict triggers were narrowed down to those that are first of all specifically relevant for local land-based climate change adaptation projects, secondly, prevalent in the G5 Sahel countries, and thirdly most often mentioned in academic literature as well as in reports by aid providers. Thus, the conflict triggers selected for analysis were 1) resource access and distribution amidst scarcity, 2) marginalisation, 3) land tenure insecurity, and 4) deficient conflict resolution mechanisms. Although the goal of this thesis is not to verify or falsify the claim that conflict-sensitivity is lacking, the research approach inherently demands to investigate whether this claim has merit. Therefore, after those conflict triggers that a conflict-sensitive approach needs to bear in mind were identified, it was examined how this is mirrored in the design of climate change adaptation projects in the G5. UNDP’s4_{project documents were the focus points as they are the leading agency of climate} action within the UN, followed by UNEP5. On the one hand, it was generally investigated whether specific conflict analysis frameworks are included into their documents, and on the other hand, it was examined whether the predefined conflict triggers were included and analysed in these documents. This was not only meant to check whether this claim has merit but also to find out how UNDP and UNEP integrate conflict dimensions into their project documents in order to see how the integration of entry points for conflict-sensitivity looks like in practice. Moreover, looking through some follow-up documents of certain adaptation projects was meant to detect whether there have been lessons learned from these projects, which could help in devising entry points for conflict-sensitivity. Academic literature, expert interviews and reports of major aid providers (such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)) served to break down the various dynamics that underlie these four conflict triggers. These underlying conflict dynamics will be investigated in the analysis part (chapter 4) and form the basis for the second research question regarding the risks and possible unintended outcomes if these dynamics are overlooked. In order to answer this question, besides desk research, expert interviews were meant to help gain information on the connection between a lack of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects in the G5 Sahel countries and the risk of exacerbating or creating tensions.

4_{UNDP has supported over 140 countries with their climate change adaptation and mitigation portfolio. Project} data base: https://open.undp.org/

5_{UNEP has supported over 50 countries with 70 projects on climate change adaptation. Project data base:} https://open.unep.org/

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Only after identifying the conflict dynamics that could be overlooked, as well as the possible risks and unintended outcomes of a conflict-insensitive approach, it was possible to deduce relevant entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects in the G5. Regarding the third research question on these possible entry points, these were either directly drawn from the desk research and the expert interviews, or inferred from this research. This means that apart from those existing entry points found through desk research and interviews, new entry points were deduced from existing knowledge on conflict dimensions and then shaped according to the methods described in climate-conflict guidelines. USAID (2015) developed guidelines on how to address the climate change-conflict nexus with the major claim that missions in fragile and conflict-affected countries should first of all consider conducting an extensive conflict assessment that specifically analyses the conflict dynamics surrounding climate change, the environment and natural resources (p. 10). Building in large parts on the USAID guidelines, the German Environment Agency (GEA) commissioned a guideline for conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change in 2018, and the EU and UNEP in partnership with Adelphi, a think tank on climate security, developed a guidance note in 2019 on addressing climate-fragility risks. Related but not entirely linked to conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation, the UN Development Group (UNDG) developed a comprehensive guideline in 2016 on how to conduct a conflict and development analysis. All these guidances mainly consist of thematic lists of questions that could be asked in project regions that suffer from climate change, fragility and conflict. As all the guidances refer to the conflict analysis framework designed by USAID they do not significantly differ in their analytical approach and content, but rather in the multifaceted control questions for conflict-sensitivity that they offer. In practice, these guidelines can be used by every aid provider who implements climate change adaptation projects. For this thesis they helped with the more practical angle, which means that they did not only suggest questions that could be asked as entry points for integrating more conflict-sensitivity into adaptation planning but they also served as a backdrop for devising new questions that can complement existing guidelines

3.2 Data collection: desk research and expert interviews

Desk research was conducted online using Google Search, Google Scholar and SmartCat from the University of Groningen library. As the aforementioned claims that conflict-sensitivity is lacking in climate change adaptation interventions are relatively recent, research for this thesis mostly looked for rather recent (2010-2020) publications and projects. In order to investigate the climate-conflict nexus, conflict-sensitivity and the conflict triggers in the G5 Sahel countries

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academic journals were downloaded from digital archives (such as ResearchGate, Jstor and Taylor & Francis Online) through the aforementioned search engines. Moreover, to get a better understanding of the stance of aid providers on the climate-conflict nexus and how they reflect upon conflict dimensions, various reports were downloaded from their respective homepages (e.g. UNDP, UNEP, Sida, World Bank). Additionally, project reports, project proposals, as well as other publicly-available project documents from climate change adaptation projects in the G5 were downloaded from UNDP’s and UNEP’s database, which served to gain a more direct perspective in how far, if at all, conflict dimensions are analysed. This also meant to show whether entry points for conflict-sensitivity are integrated into climate change adaptation projects, and if yes, how they are operationalised.

Since desk research did not help to fully shed light on the interplay between the lack of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation in the G5 Sahel countries and the risk of exacerbating or creating local conflict dynamics, two expert interviews were conducted which helped to fill these gaps of the desk research. The first interview subject was Dr Gerald Hainzl, a senior conflict researcher in the Institute of Peace Support and Conflict Management in Vienna, who conducts and publishes research on conflicts taking place on the African continent, on local, regional and international conflict resolution mechanisms as well as on African security policy6. The second interview subject was Dr Maisa Khalil, Assistant Secretary-General of the development organisation HOPE’877_{, which focuses on youth training and education,} emergency aid, disaster risk reduction and preparedness, and rural development. With regard to the G5, they implement projects in Mali and Burkina Faso through their local country offices. These interview partners were selected because of their long-standing expertise in their professional field and in the geographical focus area of this thesis. Additionally, selecting one interviewee from an institute for conflict research and one from a development organisation served to link conflict dimensions to development work. Overall, these interviews helped to gain an in-depth perspective on local circumstances in the G5, and provided a more profound way to generate knowledge on the manifold underlying conflict dynamics that could be overlooked if they are not properly assessed in advance as well as on the possible negative outcomes. Moreover, it also brought more clarity on how aid organisations work, and helped to deduce entry points for the integration of a more conflict-sensitive approach.

6_{His publications are found on https://www.bundesheer.at/wissen-forschung/publikationen/person.php?id=623}

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3.3 Limitations and challenges

One limitation, as mentioned above, is that academic and non-academic literature on conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation interventions in the G5 specifically is absent. Articles, reports and project documents are either about conflict analysis in climate change adaptation (without mentioning the G5), or about conflict triggers in the G5 (without mentioning climate), or about climate change adaptation in the G5 (without mentioning conflict). In order to overcome this limitation, firstly, pieces of information gathered through analysing these separate elements were merged together to deduce entry points for conflict-sensitivity, and secondly, two expert interviews were conducted to shed light on those aspects that were absent or limited in the analysed literature. The number of interview subjects might initially appear to be small. However, as the focus was on the quality of answers and not on the quantity of interviewees, the interview subjects were selected due to their professional and academic backgrounds, including their field work and or research work. Having experience for over 20 years (Dr Hainzl) and over 10 years (Dr Khalil) yielded answers that filled the research gaps. When investigating whether the claims that conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation is lacking, several obstacles were detected after looking through UNDP’s and UNEP’s project documents. Firstly, not all project documents are (publicly) available, which means that it cannot be established for some projects whether analyses of conflict dimensions are either completely lacking or whether additional analyses exist but might not be available in their online database. For some projects there are only project briefs with a few pages available, and sometimes there is only a project description without any downloadable documents. Secondly, those available documents that were analysed do not contain any specific framework for analysing conflict dimensions, but rather focus on vulnerability assessments and risk analysis8. Even comprehensive documents with over a 100 pages and appendices do not contain specific analyses of possible conflict dimensions and how their project interacts with them. Although this could indeed be regarded as a direct reflection of the recent observations that climate change adaptation projects do not exhibit a profound integration of conflict-sensitivity, it cannot be entirely established whether these claims have merit or not. Consequently, this thesis refrains from making any claims that a certain aid provider uses a conflict-sensitive approach or not. Additionally, as this thesis tries to present entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity into climate change adaptation projects, this lack made it also more difficult to come to know

8_{Vulnerability assessments are meant to detect the most vulnerable groups. Risk analyses are usually tables that} do not leave much room for a deeper analysis. It is an attempt to anticipate certain risks to a project’s success. However, they do not necessarily contain any questions on conflict matters.

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how entry points for conflict-sensitivity actually look like in practice in project design. Thus, to draft entry points this thesis only uses the methods (question sets and indicators) presented in the aforementioned climate-conflict guidelines.

3.4 Geographical scope and conflict definition

In order to narrow down the geographical scope of this thesis, an area suitable for investigating the consequences of conflict-insensitivity in climate change adaptation needed to be identified. A study on emergency trends and risk hotspots identifies sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the Sahel, as one of the largest regions of high human vulnerability9 to extreme weather events such as droughts and floods (Ehrhart et al., 2009). The Sahel was further narrowed down to the countries of the G5 Sahel because they are considered as one of the poorest, most environmentally degraded and vulnerable regions in the world (USAID, 2017). As particularly people in the least developed countries (LDCs) are projected to be among those who will suffer the most from climate change, in particular those communities that are highly dependent on agriculture (Ehrhart et al., 2009; Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, 2018), countries like Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger encounter an especially dire situation. This group of countries was not only of interest because of its high vulnerability to climate change but also because various regions of these countries offer a highly fragile setting for climate change adaptation projects. The G5 have seen an escalation of violence around Lake Chad, Burkina Faso and parts of Mali and Niger with more than a million people fleeing due to this increased violence (Skretteberg, 2019; International Committee of the Red Cross, 2020). The region is mostly ridden by intrastate conflicts and other forms of internal violent and non-violent conflicts. Overall, these can be summarised as inter-communal rivalries, farmer-herder conflicts, the opposition and militant groups fighting the government, inter-militant rivalry, Islamist attacks, and organised crime (Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, 2020). These various forms of conflict vary in occurrence and intensity depending on the specific regional location. For this thesis conflict refers to “parties disagreeing and acting on the basis of perceived incompatibilities” and violent conflict means the “resort to psychological or physical force to resolve a disagreement” (Haider, 2014, p. 2). The focus of this thesis is not on conflicts on the regional or state level but on the local level, meaning interpersonal as well as inter- and intragroup or communal conflicts. This is due to three reasons: “First, climate change impacts are manifested locally; [s]econd, vulnerability and adaptive capacity are

9_{Vulnerability can be defined as the “degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse} effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes” (Parry et al., 2007, p. 6)

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determined by local conditions; [t]hird, adaptation activities are often best implemented and sustained at the local level” (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2009, p. 21). Thus, this thesis tries to identify the underlying conflict dynamics surrounding climate change adaptation projects in the G5 as well as examples from local/community level climate change adaptation projects, which are suitable for investigating negative impacts if conflict-sensitivity is lacking.

3.5 Theoretical framework

Although scientific research on the links between environment and conflict can be traced back to the 1970s, it was only in the 1990s that these debates and studies gathered pace. The Toronto group around Thomas Homer-Dixon set their focus on the links between environmental stress and conflict. Central to their conflict analysis was the scarcity of renewable resources due to environmental change10_{. As proponents of the so-called environmental security school, the} causes for resource scarcity centre mainly around population growth, social inequality and environmental degradation, rendering arid regions in Africa especially prone to scarcity-induced conflict (Homer-Dixon, 1994, 1999). Schubert et al. (2007) summarise that although the Toronto group does not find a direct link between resource scarcity and violent conflict, their studies do indicate that environmentally induced resource scarcity can have a destabilising conflict-causing effect when acting in combination with political, social and economic factors (p. 27). Similarly, the Zurich group around Bächler and Spillmann set their focus on scarcity-induced conflicts. The Zurich group made clear that the focus was rather on human-scarcity-induced environmental change using a definition which sees environmental conflicts as a manifestation of traditional conflicts over resources or interests that were induced by environmental degradation (Bächler, 1998a). The Sahel in particular serves as a crisis area in their research as they portray the Sahel as a typical area where environmental degradation due to population growth, animal husbandry, farming, and livestock herding causes conflict (Bächler, 1998b). Although the focus in this school is on diverse facets of environmental change, and not on climate change as a singular factor, it can be concluded that climate change is seen as negatively affecting the stability of human systems, and thus rendering environment-related conflicts more likely. Nevertheless, even though Bächler (1998a) considers environmental degradation as a background reason for certain conflicts and as a possible triggering factor to a certain conflict dynamic, he maintains that “passing the threshold of violence definitely depends on

10_{Schubert et al. (2007) list six types of environmental change in an analysis of Homer-Dixon’s projects: climate} change, depletion of the ozone layer, degradation of agricultural land and water resources, deforestation and depletion of fish stocks (p. 27).

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sociopolitical factors and not on the degree of environmental degradation as such” (p. 32). Referring back to the popularity of the Darfur example in climate-conflict research, Sachs (2007) states that even though it is understandable that political scientists try not to make excuses for Dafuri perpetrators of violence, they have departed too far from findings that actually stress that Darfur’s extreme poverty, growing water stress, rising population, and desertification are all major contributors to their crisis (p. 24).

In recent years, this focus on environmental security has increasingly been criticised for being too deterministic as their attention to the political and social contexts of conflict is considered insufficient (Raleigh, Linke & O’Loughlin, 2014). Researchers turned away from the question whether environmental change directly leads to conflict towards the questions of how and under which circumstances changes in climatic conditions may become a risk factor for conflict when the perspective “evolved […] from depicting simple, deterministic causal chains and catastrophic scenarios to a much more nuanced view from the realization that the risk of conflict is highly context dependent, where causality is multifactorial and complex” (Sida, 2018, p. 6). In this regard, the political ecology school, which studies the relationship between social, political and economic factors with environmental issues, criticises that “[t]he dynamics of marginalization and political exclusion are important components to conflict literature, but receive little critical attention in the environmental-security discourse” (Raleigh, 2010, p. 72), and that “the mere presence of scarce resources in conflicts does not enable the researcher to actually grasp the causal mechanism at work because the access to resources is politicized” (Seter, 2016, p. 3). In this school factors such as poor governance, institutional instability and corruption, hierarchical relationships, ethnicity, and resource access and use are considered more significant than environmental factors (Barnett & Adger, 2007; Raleigh, 2010). This thesis is guided by this more recent perspective on how to assess conflict in fragile settings under climatic pressures, because when analysing the prevailing climate-conflict research discourse it can be concluded that the dominant drivers of conflict are considered to be of social, political, economic nature (Buhaug, 2010; Benjaminsen et al., 2012; Slettebak, 2012; Benjaminsen, 2016; von Uexkull et al., 2016, Gilmore, 2017; Mach et al., 2019). Relevant for this thesis is not the question whether the relationship between climate change and conflict is one of causality or correlation but the predominant conclusion that non-climatic factors of political, social and economic nature exert significantly more influence over conflict than climate-induced pressures. Among some researchers there is indeed high confidence that climate change will intertwine with these non-climatic drivers, particularly in semi-arid areas like the Sahel, and that this might further exacerbate several existing security threats (Niang et

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al., 2014). This means that even though vulnerability to climate change in the G5 zone is high, climate change alone will not be the most essential determinant of conflict. One notion behind this thesis is that a scarcity-induced problem narrative overshadows the significance of social, political and economic conflict triggers in situations of fragility. This also serves as the basis for the first section of the analysis chapter on ‘resource access and distribution amidst scarcity’ (4.1), which deals with the theoretical underpinnings of climate change adaptation. Furthermore, the other sections ‘marginalisation’ (4.2), ‘land tenure insecurity’ (4.3), and ‘deficient conflict resolution mechanisms’ (4.4) are also guided by the theory that these conflict triggers exert more influence over conflict development than climate-induced scarcity and environmental degradation. Subsequently, conflict dimensions and entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity are not analysed along an environmental security discourse, but mainly along political ecological perspectives.

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4. Analysis

The previous chapters highlighted that climate change adaptation interventions require a thorough understanding of the context in which they are implemented and how this context interacts with the intervention. Evidently, it has been observed that this has often been lacking in climate change adaptation interventions so far. For aid providers “[b]eing ‘conflict sensitive’ means that all program activities are designed and periodically reviewed in light of the changing conflict dynamics to ensure that [..] they do not inadvertently create or exacerbate conflict”, and it is thus “incumbent upon both policymakers and practitioners to recognize the potential intersections between conflict-affected situations and climate change, and to proactively design approaches that minimize negative outcomes and maximize positive ones” (USAID, 2015, p. 11). This understanding is also what influences this analysis chapter. This chapter presents analyses of the four conflict triggers ‘resource access and distribution amidst scarcity’, ‘marginalisation’, ‘land tenure insecurity’, and ‘deficient conflict resolution mechanisms’. Overall, the headings of the sections in this chapter (4.1-4.4) introduce the respective conflict triggers. Each section starts with the context of the respective conflict trigger, and then introduces the discernible stance of the aid community on the issue. The sections then address the research question regarding the underlying conflict dynamics that could be overlooked if climate change adaptation projects in the G5 lack a conflict-sensitive approach. Moreover, also the risks and unintended outcomes of a conflict-insensitive approach in climate change adaptation interventions will be exemplified and juxtaposed with the respective conflict dynamics. Finally, based on the analysis of the data, entry points11_{for the integration of} conflict-sensitivity will be introduced, which were influenced by the methods described in the climate-conflict guidelines.

Although the four overall conflict triggers are split up into different sections, is has to be clarified that they should be considered interlinked as they do not take place in isolation from each other. It must also be clear that there is no straight path from conflict-insensitive climate change adaptation to the occurrence of negative effects. Moreover, this thesis does not claim that the issues that spark conflict are unknown to the aid community. There is simply uncertainty how a deeper analysis of these issues materialises in UNDP’s and UNEP’s project documents on climate change adaptation. Thus, although this thesis refrains from making any claims that UNDP and UNEP are not conflict-sensitive enough, it has to be clear that the project

11_{Entry points can refer to gaps in existing policies and strategies, or to opportunities that make it possible to} better link these policies and strategies across diverse policy fields and sectors (Adelphi, UNEP and the EU, 2019).

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documents (e.g. project proposals, evaluation reports) do not show how they incorporate their knowledge on conflict into their adaptation projects and how they put it into practice. There is indeed continuous reflection on these topics though. UNDP (2019) states that while the issues on climate change and security are not new, the interlinkages are neither well-understood nor are possible solutions well-documented (para. 2). They point out that addressing climate-related security risks is a new line of work for them. This shift towards acknowledging the importance of including conflict dimensions into climate change adaptation specifically is indeed a challenge for development aid. Nevertheless, it still remains crucial that these dimensions are thoroughly analysed with caution towards a narrative that puts the negative impact of climate change on people’s resource base as a major conflict driver in the foreground while sidelining social, political and economic conflict dimensions such as the ones that will be presented below.

4.1 Resource access and distribution amidst scarcity

This section deals with the theoretical underpinning and conceptualisation of climate change adaptation. Aid providers have often refrained from diving too deep into conflict analysis, and framed climate change adaptation rather in the light of increased climate-induced resource scarcity. This is not entirely groundless considering that some climate-conflict theories see competition over scarce resources as a direct result of environmental pressures. The Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the UNDP Crisis Bureau, Asako Okai (2019), spoke of climate change not only as a threat multiplier but as a major risk factor, while calling inter- and intracommunal conflicts ‘climate-induced’ (para. 5-7). Nevertheless, even though environmental factors are often put into the foreground, this is not supposed to mean that other conflict-causing factors are completely negated. They are often just not as prominently displayed security threats as climate change and ensuing scarcity issues. This undoubtedly highlights a discrepancy between research outcomes that assert the role of non-climatic drivers in conflict development, and the stance of those aid providers that prefer a conflict analysis centred around climate change-induced resource scarcity. This is all the more important for climate change adaptation as “[o]ne worrying facet of the claims that environmental factors cause conflict is that they may contribute to directing attention away from more important conflict-promoting factors” (Slettebak, 2012, p. 163). Subsequently, it will be argued that as a starting point for conflict-sensitivity the theories of change underlying climate change adaptation interventions could benefit from a revision in order not to overlook relevant conflict dynamics. In their paper on monitoring and evaluating conflict-sensitivity Goldwyn and Chigas (2013) emphasise that “[t]heories of change are descriptions of how we think change will come

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about, they describe the intended activity, and the expected result – the assumptions that underpin interventions”, and that further research into these theories “can highlight not only ineffective interventions, but also where projects are inadvertently contributing to conflict or tensions” (p. 42). This section on resource access and distribution amidst scarcity serves to highlight that a theory of change that focusses on climate change-induced resource scarcity overshadows other profound problems, namely resource scarcity due to exclusionary access and distribution mechanisms, issues surrounding resource abundance, and conflict lines transcending questions of scarcity.

4.1.1 Context

People in the least developed countries (LDCs) are projected to be among those who will suffer the most from climatic changes; especially those people who are highly dependent on agriculture (Ehrhart et al., 2009; Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, 2018). In this regard, the G5 Sahel countries encounter a particularly dire situation. They are all found on the UN-list of LDCs and exhibit an above-average dependency on the agricultural sector12 (UN Conference on Trade and Development, 2020; World Bank, 2020a). Additionally, the Food

Insecurity and Climate Change Vulnerability Index by the World Food Programme (2015)

depicts the highest level of vulnerability to food insecurity up to the 2080s in sub-Saharan Africa (p. 1). Hence, it is not surprising that resource scarcity has become the overarching topic for aid provision in this zone. UNDG (2016) describes resource scarcity as “a situation where the supply of renewable resources, such as water, forests, rangelands and croplands, is not sufficient to meet the local demand” (p. 178), which could possibly lead to an increasing competition between user groups. Regarding the co-utilisation of land and water, UNDP (2015) states in one of its project proposals for Mali that “[i]ncreased pressure on natural resources due to climate change risk [sic] to lead to increasing environmental degradation, excessive use of natural resources, and not least conflicts among different population and livelihood groups” (p. 57). Rüttinger et al. (2015) also describe how resource conflicts over water and land could develop within communities in which different user groups compete over the same supplies, and that these kinds of problems usually take place at the intrastate level, with violent outcomes mostly found at the community level (p. 17).

12_{The World Bank (2020a) shows following data on the share of agriculture, forestry and fishery in the GDP} (%) for the year 2019: Burkina Faso (20,2%), Chad (42,6%), Mali (37,3%), Mauritania (18,7%), Niger (37,8%). For comparison, the average for sub-Saharan Africa is 14% and for LDCs 16,7%.

The importance of conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation projects in the G5 Sahel countries: Entry points for the integration of conflict-sensitivity