UNOWAS and its partners call for concrete action to tackle the challenges of climate change
In response to the UN Security Council’s request to address the impact of climate change on peace and security in West Africa and the Sahel, UNOWAS has launched a series of initiatives, including the regional conference on climate change, peace and security held in Dakar on April 6 and 7.
Climate change has become a global concern that requires urgent mobilization and responses as harmful consequences are inexorably increasing and threatening the peace and security of millions of people. West Africa and the Sahel are especially vulnerable in this regard given the speed of climate change in this region and the limited capacity of governments to mitigate it.
Increasingly concerned about this issue, in January 2020 the Security Council requested UNOWAS to “take into consideration the adverse consequences of climate change, energy insecurity, environmental change and natural disasters, among other factors, including by assisting the governments of the region and the United Nations system in undertaking assessments of risk management strategies related to these factors.”
Indeed, in recent years West Africa and the Sahel have experienced unprecedented climate shocks. Heat waves, droughts, dust storms and floods have become more frequent and rainfall more erratic affecting a region where 60 to 70 percent of the population depends on rain-fed agriculture and livestock for survival. According to the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), agricultural yields in the Sahel could decrease by as much as 50 percent by 2050, causing a large migration to coastal areas. Recurring tensions and conflicts between farmers, herders, fishermen, forest workers, miners and other groups over access to scarce natural resources is a worrisome trend in this context
Climate change has exacerbated an already complex situation of poverty, instability, population displacement, and weak resource governance, and has made people’s lives even more difficult in places already affected by insecurity and extreme climate change, especially where terrorist groups harbor and manipulate local rivalries over natural resources, stirring inter-communal dissent.
Regional approach to conflict prevention and peacebuilding
Populations across West Africa and the Sahel have adapted to adverse climatic conditions by strengthening traditional practices and resilience, or by migrating or relocating. At the national level, ECOWAS members have committed to the Paris Agreement through their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Many of them are also working on finalizing National Climate Change Adaptation Plans (NAPs). Multiple regional climate action initiatives also exist, including the Great Green Wall, a pan-African initiative launched in 2007 to restore an 8,000 km stretch of degraded landscape that spans the Sahel.
To address the impact of climate change on peace and security, as per its mandate, UNOWAS has engaged in a major collaborative effort with the UN system, ECOWAS, government agencies, and civil society organizations. Significant initiatives have been undertaken in this regard such as the creation of an ECOWAS-UNOWAS Working Group on Climate Change and Security; the establishment of a UN Regional Working Group on Climate Change, Security, Environment and Development (UN-CCESD), in collaboration with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM); the deployment of climate security risk assessments in collaboration with the UN system, ECOWAS, government agencies and the Working Group on Women, Youth, Peace and Security — in five pilot countries in the region: Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. In 2022–2023, UNOWAS and ECOWAS plan to conduct additional risk assessments in the remaining ECOWAS member states.
These efforts are indispensable and reflect the importance of integrated approaches across government sectors and thematic expertise, and among actors at local, national, regional and international levels to tackle the adverse implications of climate change on the sub-region.
A Call to Action
In the same spirit, UNOWAS, together with Ireland, the Republic of Ghana and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in collaboration with ECOWAS Member States and the United Nations system, organized a Regional Conference on Climate Change, Peace and Security in West Africa and the Sahel on 6–7 April 2022 in Dakar.
The objective of the Regional Conference, the first of its kind organized by UNOWAS, was to concretely define the adverse consequences of climate change, energy insecurity, environmental change and natural disasters on human security in West Africa and the Sahel; to take stock of current efforts at the local, national and regional levels to address climate security risks; and to identify options for strengthening current responses to climate security risks from a conflict prevention and peacebuilding perspective.
About one hundred participants, including researchers, experts, civil society and government representatives from countries in the sub-region, the United Nations system, as well as regional and international partners, attended the conference.
Through different sessions, participants addressed a series of issues and themes related to the impact of climate change on peace and security at the local, national, and regional levels. They stressed the need to take urgent and concrete measures to promote inclusive, evidence-based analysis and policymaking, to strengthen integrated partnerships and collaboration and to scale up climate finance for sustaining peace.
The partners present at this conference, Mr. Amadou Lamine GUISSE, Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Senegal; Mr. Kenneth THOMPSON, Special Envoy for Ireland for Francophone Africa and the Sahel; Ambassador Kwabena Osei DANQUAH, Special Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration of Ghana; General Francis A. BEHANZIN, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security; Ms. Inger ANDERSEN, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), who delivered a video message; and Mr. Mahamat Saleh ANNADIF, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel, all stressed the importance of acting together to better support the efforts of the countries of the sub-region in the face of a challenge that knows no geographical boundaries.
The Regional Conference on Climate Change, Peace and Security in West Africa and the Sahel concluded its work with a Call to Action addressed to the governments of the sub-region, regional and international organizations, the United Nations system, and various partners.
UNOWAS with its partners, and the participants unanimously expressed their support for the Call to Action, and committed to continue their efforts to help the countries of West Africa and the Sahel to address the adverse effects of climate change on peace and security.
For more information on the work of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel visit our website.
