Climate Change, Livelihoods and Violent Conflict in Central Mali

Abstract

The potential effect of climate change on violent conflict has remained one of the livelier debates across the world for several decades. Surprisingly, despite the large number of studies devoted to that, results remain so far inconclusive and even contradictory sometimes. Although there is no consensus yet, this may not be sufficient to conclude the absence of relationships. Instead, in this dissertation we suggest that the impacts of climate change on violent conflict are conditional on the sensitivity of livelihoods to climate change and the resulting conflict-sensitive coping practices developed at the individual level. Hence, our main objective is to explores how do climate change-induced deterioration of livelihoods and the resulting adaptation practices affect the likelihood of conflict in Central Mali. This is a region highly susceptible to climatic extreme shocks and mired in armed conflict for so long time. Specifically, we aim to: (i) evaluate the perceptions of local communities on climate change and its economic impacts on livelihoods in Central Mali; (ii) estimate the influence of livelihoods as affected by climate change on people’s support for violence; (iii) assess the effect of increase in farm size as exacerbated by climate change and related livelihoods loss on people intergroup relations. Primary data was collected on households for tackling these objectives. The data have been analyzed using different econometrical approaches. Hence, a Multinomial Probit and binary logit models were employed for the specific objective one. The second and third objectives were addressed using the Recursive Bivariate regression model. In summary, the results show that local communities in Central Mali do perceive the changes occurring in weather and their negative effects on livelihoods. As a consequence, people develop coping practices (which are very often conflict-sensitive) likely to disrupt their intergroup relations and further increasing the willingness of supporting the use of violence in times of crises. In line with these results, we believe that policies providing local communities affected by climate change with alternative livelihoods strategies would improve their resilience capacity. Moreover, engaging local communities in collectively-designed adaptation strategies could help to better manage the societal implications of environmental change on conflict. In addition, it is also essential to clearly define land ownership rights, as well as the boundaries of cropping and grazing areas and pastoral routes, in order to break the connection between climate change and conflict.