Climate change to conflict?: lessons from Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya
The contextual environment African pastoralists live in is characterised by population growth, environmental degradation, and cultural and political factors that pave the way for frequent outbreaks of conflict. This paper attempts to understand the relationship between environmental/climatic factors and the conflict dynamics in the Horn of Africa.
The paper reveals that although local communities perceive a trend of deterioration in the climate, historical accounts show that harsh climate is not a new phenomenon in the study area. In fact, conflicts break out in both rainy and dry seasons.
Pastoralists have long developed customary institutions that help them pool resources across space and time in order to survive their environment. Nevertheless, the emergence and expansion of private ranches inhibit one crucial coping strategy of pastoralists: mobility.
Recommendations are as follows:
- there is a need to raise awareness among pastoralists if the potential positive outcomes of ethnic federalism are to be realised
- to increase trust and reduce the likelihood of conflict between neighbouring groups, community leaders should be consulted when new administrative borders and offices are set up
- attempts to reduce the harmful activity of cattle raiding need to start with the role of the elders
- new actors wishing to utilise local resources should closely consider their impact on local dynamics and try to minimise the detrimental impact
The authors conclude that the deterioration in the climate and environment alone doesn’t lead to conflict as local populations have learned to adapt to their environments. However, it is when it is coupled with other social political and economic factors that exacerbate scarcity that conflicts become more likely.
