Linköping University Department of Management and Engineering (IEI) Bachelor Thesis 15 Hp Political science VT-2020 ISRN: LIU-IEI-FIL-G--20/02294--SE
INTEGRATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
IN SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES
The case of the Darfur conflict
by Måns Löfvall
Supervisor Per Jansson Number of words: 11859
Abstract
This study has intended to demonstrate the effects of categorising climate change as a developmental issue rather than a security issue on the conflict in Darfur. This was achieved by studying the following research questions: (I) What is the role of climate change adaptation in developmental work in Darfur? (II) What is the role of climate change adaptation in security work in Darfur? (III) How is the work on climate change adaptation connected to the course of the conflict? These questions have been answered by collecting material relating to development and security in Darfur. This material was then analysed with the help of models by McGray et al., Barnett et al. and Matthews to identify the work that has been done with climate change adaptation in the two areas. This showed that the developmental work mainly focused locally on drivers of vulnerability and that the security work did not regard climate change up until 2016. The merely local approach by development work and the lacking attention to climate change in the missions caused a lacking national plan, a lacking disaster risk programme, no focus on land tenure rights, a wrong attitude towards conflict reconciliation, and an incomplete approach to vulnerability. These missing points of integration were all found to have negatively impacted peace consolidation, which has allowed for violent communal outbreaks to continue.
Table of Content
List of Abbreviations ...5
Introduction ...6
1 Theoretical Framework ...8
1.1 Environmental Security ...8
1.2 Climate Change and Conflict ...9
1.3 Categorisation ...10
1.4 Development vs. Security ...10
1.4.1 Climate Change Adaptation in Development Work ...11
1.4.2 Peace-Building Missions ...11
1.4.3 Problems of Lacking Integration ...12
1.4.4 Model of Integration ...12
2 Method ...14
2.1 Research Design and Method ...14
2.2 Material Collection ...14
2.3 Material Analysis ...15
2.4 Critical Reflections ...16
3 Development and Climate Change in Darfur ...17
3.1 Darfur’s Socio-Economic and Environmental Context ...17
3.2 Climate Change and the Darfur Conflict ...18
3.3 Stakeholders in the Darfur Conflict. ...18
3.4 Development and Climate Change Adaptation ...19
3.4.1 Addressing Drivers of Vulnerability ...19
3.4.2 Building Response Mechanisms ...20
3.4.3 Managing Climate Risks ...21
3.4.4 Tackling Climate Change ...21
4 Security and Climate Change in Darfur ...22
4.1 Framing of Climate Change - the Securitisation Process ...22
4.2 The Environment in Peace Agreements ...23
4.3 Integration of Climate Change in Peace-Building Missions ...24
4.3.1 Security and Rule of Law ...25
4.3.2 Politics and Governance ...25
4.3.3 Socio-Economic Work ...26
5 Relations to the Conflict ...27
5.1 Integrated National Reconstruction Plan ...27
5.1.1 Lacking Attention to Climate-Sensitive Policies ...27
5.1.2 Misidentification of Vulnerable Areas ...28
5.2 Dedicated Disaster Response Programme ...28
5.3 Property Rights ...29
5.3.1 Land Tenure Rights ...29
5.3.2 Water Management ...30
5.4 Climate Justice ...30
5.5 Vulnerability of Livelihoods ...31
5.5.1 Youth Vulnerability ...31
5.5.2 Internally Displaced People ...32
6 Analysis ...34
6.1 Results in Short ...34
6.2 The Problems of Lacking Integration ...34
6.3 Hypothetical Integration ...35
6.4 Development vs. Security: a Zero-Sum Game? ...36
Conclusion ...37
List of Abbreviations
ADAPT! Adapt for Environment and Climate Resilience in Sudan
AMIS African Union Mission in Sudan
CCA Climate Change Adaptation
CCM Climate Change Mitigation
CBRMs Community Based Reconciliation Mechanisms
CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement
DCPSF Darfur Community Peace and Conflict Fund
DDS Darfur Development Strategy
DDPD Doha Document for Peace in Darfur
FAO Food and Agricultural Organisation
GWP Global Water Partnership
IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management
IOM International Organisation of Migration
IDPs Internationally Displaced People
JEM Justice and Equality Movement
LJM Liberation and Justice Movement
NAPA National Adaptation Programme Action
SLM Sudan Liberation Movement
SPLA Sudan People’s Liberation Army
UNAMID United Nations - African Union Mission in Darfur
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environmental Programme
UNMIS United Nations Mission in Sudan
UNOWAS United Nations Office of Western Africa and the Sahel
UNSC United Nations Security Council
Introduction
Climate change has intensified over the last decades and caused disruptions of ecological patterns like desertification and droughts. This has been increasingly recognised as negatively affecting stability in already exposed and fragile areas by making it problematic for highly environmentally-dependent groups to coexist peacefully. In countries with already weak institutions, environmental disruptions and group violence can scale up and lead to climate-induced conflicts, like in the case of Mali (UNEP, 2015; Kalkavan, 2017). Climate change has security implications but despite this, climate change adaptation is not included in security policies and resolutions. Instead, adaptation is solely dealt with through development efforts. However, as climate change will not soon come to a halt, climate-induced conflicts will occur more frequently, making it relevant to integrate climate change adaptation in more fields than just development (Matthews, 2014).
In 2003, the political stability in Darfur collapsed as years of communal competition over natural resources resulted in widespread rebellion and ethnic cleansing. The case of the Darfur conflict is, by many, considered to be the first climate war, fostered by increased droughts and environment-dependent communal groups (Ki-moon, 2007). Despite this recognition, climate change adaptation has barely been integrated into the security policies of the UN Security Council and instead regarded as merely a development issue. In other words, adaptation has been categorised as developmental. Studies have shown that integrating climate change adaptation into peace-building can have positive effects on achieving peace, while simultaneously showing that such integration is currently lacking from the security missions, like the one in Darfur (Krampe, 2019).
The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the effects that the categorisation of climate change adaptation as a developmental issue rather than a security issue has had on the conflict in Darfur. Through identifying the lacking measures of climate change adaptation integration in peace-building, this study will highlight the importance of recognising climate change adaptation in a wider context. The overarching theory of securitisation is used to understand how climate change adaptation was categorised and what policies this resulted in. The presence of climate change adaptation will be identified by looking at both policies of development organisations and of the security missions with help of theories by McGray et al. (2007) and Barnett et al. (2007), after which this will be traced back to the conflict. The thesis does not argue that climate change adaptation in peace-building is the only effective measure considering the short-term nature of securitisation and the long-term effects of climate change but instead proposes that it should be the
main approach in climate-sensitive regions affected by conflict. Since these climate-induced conflicts have yet to be resolved this thesis’ standpoint is that merely developmental efforts with climate change adaptation in climate-induced conflict are not enough, but that it requires integration in the field of security through peace-building. The hypothesis is that the undermining of climate change adaptation as a security issue and its lacking integration in peace-building has negatively affected the peace-building missions and other security measures in Darfur.
The thesis will be answering the following research question: How has the focus on climate change through development work rather than security work affected the conflict in Darfur? This will be answered by looking at the following sub-questions: (I) What is the role of climate change adaptation in developmental work in Darfur? (II) What is the role of climate change adaptation in security work in Darfur? (III) How is the work on climate change adaptation connected to the course of the conflict?
The thesis is structured according to the research questions where each one corresponds to a chapter. Firstly, the theories and models concerning securitisation, climate change adaptation and peace-building used in the thesis will be presented, after which the methodology will be set out. Then, Chapters 3 and 4 will collect information on development and security policies concerning their integration of climate change adaptation. Both the development and security side will be analysed to get a complete picture of policies on adaptation and how it has been categorised. Chapter 5 will trace the results of the policy analysis back to the conflict to see how it was affected by this approach. The analytical chapter will then critically evaluate the results.
1 Theoretical Framework
The idea of combining environment with security studies is a relatively new field, which can be quite accurately traced back to 1972 when the Conference on the Human Environment - or the Stockholm Conference - was held. This was the first in recognising the broader implications of climate change and provided a turning point for the attitude towards environmental security (Boudes, 2011).
This chapter will start by explaining the theoretical fundament used to show the effects that categorising climate change as a developmental issue rather than a security issue had on the conflict in Darfur. First, the concept of environmental security and securitisation is explained through the work of Buzan, Wæver and De Wilde (1997). Next, the acceptance of climate change as a security threat is explored. Whether or not it is accepted is crucial to its categorisation - a concept that will be further explained - of climate change adaptation. Consequently, two theories related to the categories of development and security are discussed. These will be used in Chapter 3 and 4 to analyse efforts relating to climate change adaptation in Darfur. Lastly, a model introducing the possibility of integrating climate change adaptation into peace-building is explained. The work from Chapters 3 and 4 will be compared to that model, which will result in the identification of lacking measures. These lacking measures will then be linked to the conflict.
1.1 Environmental Security
Securitisation is a concept describing the process of framing a certain issue as a security threat to be able to take more stringent measures to deal with that threat. Security threats have traditionally been framed through a realist perspective as being military, status-quo oriented, and state-centric (Booth, 1991). However, changes in the international system such as globalisation have put pressure on this traditional approach. In their book Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1997) Buzan, Wæver and De Wilde - later renamed the 'Copenhagen School’ - describe how the concept of securitisation also can be extended to sectors beyond the traditional military one. Securitisation is a process always containing the following four elements: (I) a securitising actor, (II) an existential threat, (III) a referent object being threatened by the threat, and (IV) an audience that recognises and accepts the issue as a threat of security. Environmental security takes climate change as being or causing existential threats. Buzan and Wæver (2003) later underlined the subjectivity of the last aspect. Whether such a securitisation process is successful is highly dependent on whether the threat is accepted as such by an audience (Braspenning-Balzacq, 2005). In the case of environmental
security, the ‘audience’ must thus accept climate change as having serious security implications rather than merely being a natural phenomenon.
1.2 Climate Change and Conflict
One of the possible security implications or existential threats of climate change has been argued to be conflict. The causality of such relationship has, however, been the topic of heated debate that has not yet reached consensus. Climate change as a security threat is thus not entirely accepted by the ‘audience’, which could be individual states, organisations or the global population. Different scholars have attempted to widen the concept of security to include environmental issues by linking it to forced migration and increased tension between social groups (Brown & Worldwatch Institute, 1997; Matthews, 1989; Rogers, 2010). The widening of the concept of security has already led to the recognition by national defence organisations - like the Pentagon, British and Indian military - that rising seawater could damage military bases (Department of Defense US, 2019; Headquarters Integrated Defense Staff Ministry of Defense, 2017; BBC News, 2014). Scholars do, on the other hand, find little empirical evidence confirming the causal relationship between climate change and violent conflict (Brown et al., 2007; Barnett, 2003). However, a relationship does not necessarily need to entail a causal element for it to be correlated. Although a strong causality is disputed, an existing correlation between the two variables is not denied. The United Nations Environmental Programme conducted a research in 2009 concluding that 40% of all intrastate conflicts over the past 70 years can be traced back to natural resource management. A later study of the UNEP in 2015 showed that high-value resource competition can sustain conflict. The main academic agreement is therefore that climate change is regarded as a ‘threat multiplier’. Multiple scholars have researched the relationship, which was illustrated by Smith & Vivekananda (2007) (See Figure 1).
In their model, climate change causes a scarcity of natural resources which leads to competition over these resources. This is not to argue that conflicts are solely driven by climate change. For this to develop into a full-blown violent conflict requires institutional breakdown, implying that structural political or social problems precede this collapse. A combination of a vulnerable population that is dependent on agriculture or natural resources and poverty or weak governance could thus create conflict (Shackleton & Shackleton, 2012). Despite the underlying political and social processes, climate change is accepted as playing a role in conflict and thus having security implications. However, the United Nations does not integrate climate change into its peace-building missions and addresses environmental issues in a later developmental stage (UNEP, 2015).
1.3 Categorisation
The way that the relationship between climate change and conflict is regarded defines how the work on climate change in the form of climate change adaptation is categorised. Categorisation simply means to organise ‘things’ based on similarities or differences. Climate change adaptation is categorised by way of its inclusion in policies, for example in general resolutions of the UN Security Council or organisational policies of the UN Development Programme. Categorisation is not a matter of a single person deciding what something is going to be considered as. It happens through inclusion in policies of sub-organisations like the UNDP or UNSC. Since the Security Council is an authoritative figure in international security, their general attitude towards climate change adaptation is leading for the whole international community. So as long as the UNSC does not recognise climate change in its resolutions, it will not be a security issue. Categorisation defines the type of approaches that are chosen related to adaptation and the number of resources put into it. In this study, the categorising actor is thus the sub organisations deciding what to include in their policies and what not. This thesis will not look at why climate change was categorised the way it was, but rather the effects such categorisation had on the conflict of Darfur. The next section looks at both these categories through the concepts of climate change adaptation and peace-building.
1.4 Development vs. Security
Development and security are complementary measures albeit with different approaches. Security measures are high-priority and relative short-term to quickly ensure safety. Processes are dealt with on a high national level due to the existential nature of threats. When describing security ‘work’ in this study, it means in the case of the United Nations the policies and the resolutions that the UN
Security Council publishes and executes, mostly in the practical shape of peace-building missions. Development measures are often low-priority and long-term projects that improve the general well-being of people. ‘Development work’ is, for this thesis, defined as projects and policies executed and published by development organisations such as the UN Development Programme or the UN Environmental Programme. Such projects have individual purposes and policies, and are often low-level, working with local communities and social groups (Duffield, 2007).
1.4.1 Climate Change Adaptation in Development Work
Despite the possible security implications of climate change that were explained previously, the United Nation deals little with climate change through its peace-building missions and security resolutions but instead through development projects coordinated by the United Nations Development Programme. Climate change is continuously being framed as a low-level human security issue rather than a threat to (inter)national security. This work is often executed through climate change adaptation (CCA) projects that focus on adapting livelihoods to keep up with climate change. CCA is described by the European Commission as ‘‘anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause, or taking advantages of opportunities that may arise” (European Commission, 2018). Climate change adaptation focuses on different aspects of adaptation, from vulnerability to impact. McGray, Hammill and Bradley developed a framework for climate change adaptation based on anthropogenic change. This framework has four elements, namely (I) assessment of vulnerability by reducing poverty and creating institutional strength, (II) implementing response mechanisms by enabling institutions to deal with climate-induced problems, (III) managing climate risks through incorporating climate data in policies and (IV) tackling climate change (McGray et al., 2007). The concrete content of these elements is of course country-specific, depending on their natural resources, population, production, and institutional strengths (CSFVA, 2011).
1.4.2 Peace-Building Missions
Securitising an issue makes the threat a priority, which opens up to more effective decision-making, access to more resources and a nation-wide response to the issue (OECD, 2012). In conflict-prone or unstable countries, security measures are mostly taken by the United Nations in the shape of peace-building missions. Continued fighting has often left the country’s national security system paralysed so peace-building missions try to achieve peace in a relatively short time frame through different activities. Barnett, Kim, O’Donnell and Sitea (2007) explained the content of such
missions through analysing its multidimensional character. Firstly, peace-building focuses on security and rule of law through reinforcing stability and consolidating peace. It actively demobilises, reduces conflictual incentives, and reintegrates. Secondly, the dimension of politics and governance focuses on the functions of the state through building institutions and ensuring their capacities to deal with problems. Thirdly, missions focus on socio-economical recovery to foster economic development and to tackle drivers of vulnerability. In practice, missions work with reconciliation, gender equality, promoting economic development and raising awareness. Lastly, missions try to protect human rights, a dimension that is indisputably intertwined with the other aspects. Such activities include activities that focus on gender (in)equality, education or political rights.
1.4.3 Problems of Lacking Integration
Climate change is a long-term issue and requires long-term sustainable solutions. However, categorising it as merely a development issue denies the short-term security implications of climate change. Climate change can create security issues in the form of conflict, yet is not dealt with through security measures. Vulnerable countries need a form of conflict-sensitive adaptation, but when looking at security measures in conflict-prone countries, climate change is now often integrated at a much later stage, often when the peace-building missions are done (Yanda & Bronkhorst, 2011). This is often a form of reactive action, rather than anticipatory measures that are needed for conflict-sensitive adaptation (Adger, Arnell, Tompkins, 2005). This can cause further escalation of conflicts, especially in vulnerable regions like the Sahel (Bob, Bronkhorst, Sala, 2014). Furthermore, early socio-economic integration in security measures like peace-building missions is shown to be essential to the stabilisation process (Specker, 2008). Lastly, an integrated approach to resource management and good governance can create a positive relationship between social groups (Kalkavan, 2017). Where climate change as a variable can create competition between groups, such integration could help peace consolidation.
1.4.4 Model of Integration
Richard Matthews (2014) also recognised the lacking integration of climate change in peace-building. He combined the theories on climate change adaptation by McGray, Hammill and Bradley, and the multidimensionality of peace-building by Barnett et al. to propose what integration should look like:
Table 1 “Integration in the fields of development and security” (Matthews, 2014).
Table 1 shows Matthews’ proposed ideas of integration. The horizontal axis contains the dimensions of peace-building as categorised by Barnet et al., which encompasses all possible activities of peace-building missions. The vertical axis shows the elements of climate change adaptation as proposed by McGray et al. The measures in the middle are proposed opportunities for how to integrate one aspect of climate change adaptation into each dimension of peace-building. So even though climate change adaptation is more and more regarded as a security issue, it has not been integrated in practice. This is because integration has been obstructed by three obstacles: lacking tools for integration, scepticism by the donor community, and tensions between objects and time frames of adaptation and peace-building.
2 Method
This section will look at the methodology used in this study by explaining and justifying the chosen research design and how the material will be collected and analysed. Lastly, this chapter will provide a critical reflection on the study and addresses limitations through proposing solutions.
2.1 Research Design and Method
This study is a single case study of the conflict in Darfur, based on a qualitative research of (non-numeric) material to get a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the case. The method will be the inference of the (causal or correlating) relationship between the approach to climate change adaptation and the continuation of the conflict (Esaiasson, Gilljam, Oscarsson, Towns, and Wängnerud, 2017). This study does not look at why it was categorised the way it is, so this will not be a discourse analysis. It does not look at the precise conceptualisation or phrasing of climate change (adaptation). Rather, this study looks at the process of (failed) securitisation through policy analysis by looking at what policies have been included or not included climate change and how this affected the conflict.
Darfur was chosen as the case due to two reasons. Darfur is being considered the first climate war and has an established link between climate change and conflict, making it a model case to study compared to other cases in which climate have been one of many differently valued factors. It was also chosen due to the apparent environment-security paradox: despite being considered the first climate war - climate change adaptation did not seem to be included in the peace-building missions. This case will thus be a most-likely case - if lacking integration of climate change adaptation into peace-building is shown to have negatively affected the conflict - a climate-security approach can be applied in other conflict-prone countries with environmental problems. Though this is a single case study and the effects of climate change on stability are country-specific this thesis can give empirical arguments for integrating climate change adaptation into security rather than just development measures.
2.2 Material Collection
The empirical material used in this study mainly comes from primary sources such as official reports by international organisations. The organisations are either working with the development efforts (for example the United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Environment Programme) or with the security efforts (peace-building missions by the UN Security Council).
Since this is a policy analysis, these documents include mission statements, mandates, policy documents and peace agreements as to understand the focus of their policies and their inclusion of climate change adaptation. The inclusion of climate change in these policies defines how climate change adaptation has been categorised within the UN. The material will come exclusively from the UN organisations since they are the main focus of this analysis. The primary sources will be complemented with secondary sources to get a broader perspective. These sources are in the form of articles or research papers analysing the situation in Darfur, giving critical insights that the organisations’ material might not show. The materials will be restricted by the explanatory factors of the models and limited to the work of the organisations and programs. The study will also limit itself to the short period running up to the conflict in 2003, up until today, since the conflict is still ongoing. It is a broad field with a lot of information and to limit the material used to get relevant conclusions, the parts of the research chapter are closely connected and restricted by the research questions.
2.3 Material Analysis
This study will analyse the collected material by using qualitative content analysis with the help of the theoretical framework. The analysis of the material is done by systematically labelling or coding the information that corresponds to the factors that are being investigated (Esaiasson et al., 2017). The overarching theory of securitisation will be used to explain how climate change adaptation was categorised as developmental rather than as a security issue. This study applies the steps of the securitisation process by Buzan et al. to the case of Darfur to explore whether climate change was securitised or not so to understand how adaptation has been approached. The previously explained theories on adaptation by McGray et al. and peace-building by Barnett et al. will be used in Chapter 3 and 4 respectively to explain how climate change adaptation is integrated into the two types of work and what policies this has resulted in. The way that climate change adaptation is included in these policies will show how adaptation has been categorised, as developmental or as security. Chapter 5 then takes these policies and compares them to the model of Matthews to see what measures of climate change adaptation are lacking as a result of the categorisation. It then looks at these measures and their relation to the conflict to see how the policies affected it by using reports and researches on the conflict. The study will use causal inference through inductive reasoning to understand the connections between approaches to adaptation and the conflict (Esaiasson et al., 2017). In short, the theoretical framework is used to break down the policies of development and peace-building to understand their inclusion of climate change adaptation.
2.4 Critical Reflections
The material comes from organisations that are widely regarded as high validity sources, but it is important to review them from a critical perspective as they will be biased of their own work. Keeping this in mind, the study uses triangulation, whereby sources are checked against one another to ensure the same information can be found from multiple sources (Lamont, 2015). Collecting selected materials based on certain prerequisites with a hypothesis in mind can lead to a systemic bias, in which the author makes unconscious choices supporting his own belief or hypothesis (Bryman, 2012). Triangulation and using multiple sources will minimise this. In making connections to the conflict, triangulation becomes increasingly important to avoid biased speculation.
Besides looking critically at sources, the different steps in a research method should also be critically looked at. Just as important as the material one puts into the model, is the model itself. It is important to keep in mind that any model is a simplification and in this case of a both complex and a country-specific issue. The study is therefore designed to continuously anchor the theory with the facts of the case in a close manner. Results of the model will not just be stated but interpreted and anchored in the real implications and facts of the conflict. The model itself is a suggestion of integrative measures but does not reflect all the possible solutions. To solve this limitation, this study will be open-minded about lacking integration that was not necessarily described by the model.
3 Development and Climate Change in Darfur
Being one of the poorest countries in the world, development work in Sudan and specifically Darfur has received a lot of attention over the years. After increasing droughts and violent outbreaks, development work has intensified in order to mitigate civilian suffering. This chapter will focus on developmental policies on climate change adaptation since the outbreak of the conflict. This will be done first by setting out the socio-economic and environmental context in order to disclose vulnerabilities of the region. Secondly, this context will be used to clarify the link between climate change and conflict by employing the model in Figure 1 by Smith and Vivekananda (2008). This is not to suggest that climate change is the sole cause of the conflict - competition over oil reserves, economical dependencies, and weak political institutions are all argued to be underlying causes. Instead, this section merely illustrates the role of climate change as having increased violent competition and exposed ethnic tensions. Thirdly, the chapter will dive deeper into the development policies by looking at efforts in the areas of addressing drivers of vulnerability, building response mechanisms, managing climate risks, and tackling climate change. The development policies are analysed to get a complete picture of the categorisation of adaptation.
3.1 Darfur’s Socio-Economic and Environmental Context
The Republic of Sudan has extremely poor socio-economic conditions with approximately 40% of the population struggling below the global poverty line, which is the absolute bare minimum for a person to live off (HDR, 2019). Poverty is especially evident in Darfur where 65% of the population is below the global poverty line (AfdB, 2016). The main source of income for the country is agriculture, accounting for approximately 40% of the country’s GDP and dependence of 80% of the population. Most of the production is rain-fed crops such as sorghum and millet (World Bank, 2020a). The conditions for agriculture are harsh, yet production has doubled in the last decades (Fadul, 2006). The arable land, approximately one-third of the total area, is shared by different ethnic and socio-professional groups, being the agriculturalists and the pastoralists, also called the nomads/herders (CIA, 2020). The farmers are mostly of African ethnicity and are imposed of groups such as the Fur (the dominant tribe), Masaalit, and the Tama. The pastoralists - or nomadic camel herders - are of Arab ethnicity and formed by groups like the Rizeigat, Zaghawa, Mahariya, or Irayqat (Human Rights Watch, 2004).
The environmental conditions are harsh and deteriorating quickly as droughts will occur more frequently (World Bank, 2020b). The socio-professional groups have relied on certain
systematic patterns of rainfall occurring twice a year. However, climate change has caused fluctuations in these patterns, which have provoked soil degradation, disturbed movements and decreased agricultural productivity (Forbes & Balila, 2017). The process of desertification that is advancing from the north is exacerbating, slowly taking over the region of Darfur and decreasing the area of arable land with a mile per year (Government of Sudan & UNDP, 2007). Models have even predicted a decline of 15-62% in millet production and a decline of 29-71% in sorghum production in the coming decades (Bashir Nimir & Elgizouli, 2011). Even though the margins of the predictions are large, in the most positive of scenarios this results in yet more food scarcity.
3.2 Climate Change and the Darfur Conflict
Smith and Vivekananda described the relationship between climate change and conflict. Change leads to a scarcity in natural resources, which increases competition and can finally lead to conflict through institutional breakdown. In Darfur, climate change has caused a decrease in arable land, water scarcity and land degradation (UNEP, 2007). At the same time, agriculture has intensified and the amount of livestock increased (Brown, Hamill, and McLean, 2007). This has disturbed customary practices between the farmers and nomads by pushing them out of their usual environment into lands originally cultivated by others. This has accentuated pre-existing tensions and has led to violent competition over grazing fields and scarce water resources (Teklu, Von Braun, and Zaki, 1991). For example, the Nuba tribe has threatened and used violence due to Arab nomads taking their crops to feed their herds (Borger, 2007). Besides this, decreasing productivity has aggravated poverty, which in turn has intensified radicalisation of groups and facilitated the recruitment of youths (Flint & De Waal, 2008).
This finally led to an institutional breakdown in 2003, when years of (violent) competition and build-up resentment brought about the outbreak of political conflict between rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) representing African-ethnic farmers, and the government, accused of suppressing these agriculturalists and marginalising the non-Arab population. As a result of rebel uprisings, the government responded through ethnic cleansing, marking the beginning of the war in Darfur (Borger, 2008; Vidal, 2011).
3.3 Stakeholders in the Darfur Conflict.
To facilitate the discussion of the conflict, this section will shortly address the main stakeholders and events of the conflict. The main rebel groups are the SLM (ethnic tribes) and the Justice and
Equality Movement or JEM (ethnically diverse but mainly Arab). The government of Sudan was led by Omar al-Bashir, who was strongly opposing non-Arab groups by starting an ethnic genocide with the help of the Janjaweed, a military group recruited amongst (impoverished) Arab groups. The LJM (Liberation and Justice Movement) joined the conflict, representing smaller rebel organisations opposing both the government and the JEM (BBC News, 2010).
3.4 Development and Climate Change Adaptation
Different developmental organisations are active in Darfur, most of which are coordinated by the United Nations. The main development project in Darfur is the Darfur Development Strategy (DDS), coordinated by the UNDP (UNDP, 2013). This project was implemented in 2013 as a result of a new Darfur Peace Agreement in 2011. The main focus of the project is on general development by looking at displacements and returns, infrastructure, basic services, and livelihood. Next to that, the UNDP also works through the National Adaptation Programme Action (NAPA) in Sudan, which focuses specifically on climate change adaptation (UNDP, 2020a). Lastly, the UNEP is active in the region as well through post-conflict building efforts. Together with different smaller organisations, they work under the initiative called ‘Adapt for Environment and Climate Resilience in Sudan’ (also called ADAPT!), focusing on climate change adaptation and different aspects around that (UNEP, 2014). This chapter will analyse their respective policies through the aspects of adaptation of McGray et al. (2007). These aspects are: reducing drivers of vulnerability; creating response mechanisms; managing climate risks; and tackling climate change.
3.4.1 Addressing Drivers of Vulnerability
Drivers of vulnerability are the socio-economic side of climate change adaptation. These activities are focused on aspects like poverty or livelihoods that make people more vulnerable to harm. As explained in the section on the socio-economic and environmental context, Darfur’s main drivers of vulnerability are poverty and the population’s dependency on rain-fed agriculture. The UNDP acknowledged that such problems can be exacerbated by returning migration during and after the conflict: ‘There is danger that environmental degradation will accelerate with the returning population, constrained as they are by a lack of choice and skills in alternative building materials and energy sources. Without considerable adaptation, human impact coupled with natural processes of climate change will accelerate the collapse of rural livelihoods and, in turn, cause untenable pressure on urban areas’ (UNDP, 2013, p. 49). Besides returning migration, the NAPA project identified several climate-related hazards like drought and fluctuating rainfall and articulated the
possible impacts on current livelihoods: decreasing productivity, water scarcity, increasing food insecurity and loss of income.
To mitigate the possible impacts, the DDS project is working with different drivers through working with livelihoods, coping mechanisms, youth unemployment and gender inequality. One example is the project in cooperation with the World Bank that focuses on gum arabica ecosystems, of which the cultivation has proven successful in countries like Mali to prevent soil degradation and to create a sustainable living (World Bank, 2011; 3S Initiative, 2018). The NAPA project works locally with pastoralists and farmer committees in Darfur to deal with changing migratory routes and cultivation. The project also gives a special role in developing the skills of women to improve their socio-economical and socio-political levels (UNDP, 2020a). In 2010, they launched a new project in cooperation with local institutions to focus on water and food security. As a result, more women have been trained in farming techniques and schools have been implemented courses to raise awareness about climate change (UNDP, 2010).
3.4.2 Building Response Mechanisms
This aspect of capacity-building concentrates around institution-building and technological aspects of adaptation. The goal of this is to incorporate preemptive measures rather than working with ad hoc initiatives to deal with consequences. Two of such discrete measures have been identified in the development work: reconciliation mechanisms and early warning systems.
The UNDP has created the Darfur Community Peace and Conflict Fund (DCPSF) to combine adaptation with communication through the training of advocates and the establishment of so-called ‘Community-Based Reconciliation Mechanisms’ (CBRMs). These mechanisms work through village-level committees that use traditional techniques like dialogue and conflict analysis to solve disputes over natural resources. These have been established in 2012 and during the survey period of 2012-2016, 83% of the issues were resolved and the respondents indicated a decrease in communal conflict (UNDP, 2017).
Different attempts have been made at setting up early warning systems to detect and avoid disasters. In 2004, the World Health Organisation (WHO) set up such a system to detect epidemic-prone diseases. In the same year, the Save the Children organisation set up a system relating to food shortages and famines (Majid, 2004). However, the integration of climate change into early warning systems did not come until 2019, when the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) implemented drought systems. They use indicators such as unusual movements of herds, droughts, and increase of prices on essential products like sorghum or millet (FAO, 2019).
3.4.3 Managing Climate Risks
This aspect of climate change adaptation refers to the integration of climatic data into institutional and legal frameworks. Whereas the previous aspect related to the prevention of disasters, this aspect deals more with long-term risks and solutions. Its success is highly dependent on whether such data is available and used effectively.
Information about the region and its changing climate is available due to the many active organisations that look, for instance, at access to natural resources, the environment and productivity of agriculture. In 2019 the UNEP has, for example, started with a project called ‘Addressing Climate-Fragility Risks’, that concentrates on the human dimension of climate change by collecting data through surveys and models. This information is then used to recommend its translation into appropriate measures (UNEP, 2019). The project has just started, so not much information on its efficiency is available yet.
The data on water scarcity and competition has been used to translate it into an institutional framework. Water management programmes have been implemented in the shape of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) by a cooperation between the UNEP and the Global Water Partnership (GWP), called the ‘Adapt for Environment and Climate Resilience in Sudan programme’. This has started with training locals in planning, water use and water management related to different water sources in the country. In the region of Darfur, this programme works in the Wadi El-Ku, which is a large water catchment area in North Darfur. The project works together with the government of the state of North Darfur and aims for direct participation of the people of the community (Gonzales Farran, 2018). The project has resulted in reduced conflicts in the Wadi catchment area, especially between farmers and pastoralists (UNEP, 2020).
3.4.4 Tackling Climate Change
While this aspect is maybe less related to the successfulness of adaptation and conflict preventing, avoiding climate change in the first place is essential to integrate in the programmes since it can help turn around consequences like desertification or land degradation (Global Environmental Facility, 2020). While not much information can be found on the actual efforts of climate change mitigation, the aforementioned UNEP project on addressing climate-fragility risks is a project that focuses on the important of actions on the climate.
4 Security and Climate Change in Darfur
Peace-building missions are employed for many different reasons and with many different mandates, depending on the core of the problem. Their mandate is thus dependent on a risk assessment and analysis of underlying issues of conflict. This chapter looks at if and how climate change is considered as such a security issue and how this is evident in the security policies. This will be done firstly by exploring the securitisation process itself to see how the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) - the security body of the United Nations - has regarded climate change in general and specifically in the Darfur case. Subsequently, the study will delve into the concrete security behaviour and the role of climate change adaptation by looking at two different security measures: peace agreements and the missions that ensure their compliance.
4.1 Framing of Climate Change - the Securitisation Process
The Copenhagen School unfolds the process of securitisation into a process where a security move is made by the securitising actor about an existential threat to a referent object, which is then accepted as such by an audience. Concretely, in this case, the securitising actor would be the UNSC since that formed the principal security authority in Darfur during the conflict. The UNSC has made several attempts at generally defining the security implications of climate change, starting with the 2007 statement by their President accepting a possible relation, and developed later by the creation of the New Climate for Peace framework as a result of an accepted correlation to the conflict in Somalia (Rüttinger et al., 2015; UNEP, 2018; S/PRST/2011). In the case of Darfur, the regional and national security is the referent object, existentially threatened by climate change.
To see whether the UNSC made such a security move, all resolutions covering Sudan during the years of the UNAMID employment (2006-2017) have been analysed by looking for the presence of climate-related terminology, including ‘climate’, ‘environment’, ‘land’, and ‘resources’. This is not a matter of the use of these specific words, they merely function as 1
indicators for the inclusion of adaptation in the peace-building efforts. In the 24 analysed Resolutions, only Resolution 2148 (2014) explored the role of climate change in the conflict: ‘[…] local dispute resolution mechanisms play an important role in preventing and resolving
The following Resolutions have been analysed (also to be found in more detail in the bibliography): S/RES/1779
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(2007), S/RES/1784 (2007), S/RES/1714 (2006), S/RES/1841 (2008), S/RES/1828 (2008), S/RES/1891 (2009), S/RES/ 1870 /2009), S/RES/1919 (2010), S/RES/1935 (2010), S/RES/1945 (2010), S/RES/2032 (2011), S/RES/1997 (2011), S/ RES/1990 (2011), S/RES/1978 (2011), S/RES/2075 (2012), S/RES/2047 (2012), S/RES/2063 (2012), S/RES/2113 (2013), S/RES/2148 (2014), S/RES/2252 (2015), S/RES/2327 (2016), S/RES/2265 (2016), S/RES/2392 (2017), S/RES/ 2340 (2017).
communal conflict, including conflict over natural resources.’ Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon 2
did, however, recognise the climate’s role in the conflict already in 2007 by explaining the link between drought and conflict (Ki-Moon, 2007). Despite this, only long after the deployment of the UN in Darfur ended did the UNSC recognise the role of climate change: ‘[…] notwithstanding the significant decrease in inter-communal conflicts, they remain one of the main sources of violence in Darfur and expressing concern at ongoing inter-communal conflicts over land, access to water and other resources, migration issues and tribal rivalries […]’ and ‘[…] underscoring the importance of fully addressing the root causes of the conflict, including management of land, water and other resources […]’ (S/RES/2429, 2018).
This points to a recognition of the security implications of climate change already early on in 2007, yet a lacking security move by the UNSC. In the coming sections, the effects of a lacking security move will be further explored by looking at if and how climate change has been integrated into security documents.
4.2 The Environment in Peace Agreements
The missions, which will be explored later on, are built around different peace agreements. It is therefore critical to analyse the presence of climate change in these agreements to fully understand the content of security measures. The Sudan/Darfur peace process is characterised by three different agreements: the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2004, the 2006 Abuja Agreement, and the 2011 Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD).
The first agreement is a nation-wide agreement between the Government of Sudan and the rebel party Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), active in South Sudan, and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM). Despite the national character of it, this agreement is important for the Darfur region since it affected national governance. The agreement’s focus lies on the democratisation of Sudan as a whole through the recognition of its multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism. The documents focus on power-sharing and wealth sharing, the latter of which will be the analysed now. Chapter 3 acknowledges the problems of land ownership and resource management through the intentions of setting up a ‘National Land Commission’ (paragraph 2.6). However, monitoring reports of the UNMIS state that the CPA has not sufficiently regarded these issues and their last monitoring report stated that such a Commission has never been established (UNMIS, 2011a).
Even though the Secretary-General is the president of the UN Secretariat rather than the Security Council, it is still a
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The Abuja Agreement of 2006 is specific to the Darfur Conflict and signed by the Government, the SLM and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The focus lies with the disarmament of the Janjaweed and follows the same structure of power and wealth sharing. However, the document has been heavily criticised by many (Kessler, 2006; International Crisis Group, 2006). Research by Adam Mohamed, who works for Uppsala University and the University of Khartoum, evaluated the agreement and found that no real focus has been given to land tenure systems. The agreement fails to recognise how different processes are at play in the conflict, of which inter-communal competition is one. The focus on the political rather than environmental side of the issue has created marginalisation of groups such as the Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa, and the Janjaweed. Where the agreement does focus on communal competition, the emphasis was on the ethnic competition. However, a large part of violent outbreaks was between different Arab pastoralists like the Rezaigat (camel herders) and the Tarjam (cattle herders), over pasture, water and arable land (Mohamed, 2009). Even the principal advisor to the agreement, Alex de Waal, recognised the agreement’s lacking resemblance with reality and called it ‘a meaningless piece of paper.’ (De Waal, 2007, p. 267).
Continued fighting led to a new attempt, resulting in the 2011 Doha Document of Peace in Darfur (DDPD), signed between the Government and the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM). This document still did not recognise the importance of the environment, besides describing climate change as a consequence of the conflict rather than a driver. Article 38 does establish the Darfur Land Commission to deal with land rights and the management of resources. However, the integration of this land tenure system is considered by many too little too late. The competition and hostility were already so deeply rooted in the identity of rebel groups and tribal communities, that the Land Commission is considered too weak an institution to be able to have turned around the escalated situation (Adbul-Jalil & Unruh, 2013).
4.3 Integration of Climate Change in Peace-Building Missions
This section will look at the presence of climate change adaptation in security documents regarding Darfur through analysing their content according to the principles of multidimensionality by Barnett et al. Three different missions have been employed in Darfur since 2003: the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) between 2004-2007, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) between 2005-2011, and the 2007-2017 United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The AMIS is considered a failed mission due to lacking resources and was therefore incorporated into the UNAMID (HRW, 2006). The UNMIS was a general Sudan mission established to ensure
compliance with the CPA. Due to the unsuccessfulness of the AMIS and the general character of the UNMIS, the main focus of this study will be on the UNAMID, although taking elements of the UNMIS into account.
4.3.1 Security and Rule of Law
For this element of peace-building, the mandates of the missions are leading since this is what gives them authority and defines its applicability. The founding resolution of UNAMID focused on demilitarisation and disarmament, with special attention to development initiatives like the protection and ensured the return of internally displaced people. Its focal point was thus on the protection of civilians and mediation through addressing the root causes of the conflict (S/RES/ 1769, 2007, S/RES/1881, 2009). The mandates, however, do not mention climate change efforts as an element, nor does it mention climate change as a root cause. A report of the Secretary-General in 2009 does emphasise including community groups in their dialogues. The mission organised a ‘‘four-day equestrian festival’ which ‘[…] brought together participants from a broad spectrum of Darfur tribes, including senior leaders from the Rizeigat, Fur, Fellata and Zaghawa tribes, who were joined by scholars, activists, editors and leading figures from the cultural unity across Sudan. The festival provided a traditional platform for tribal leaders to meet UNAMID senior staff and to engage in dialogue, mediation and reconciliation.’ (S/2008/443, para.57). This does, however, still not acknowledge climate change as a driving factor for the communal problems.
The UNMIS complemented the UNAMID through focusing on the rule of law, by developing judicial frameworks and institutional reforms in the areas of armed forces, children and the freedom of speech (UNMIS, 2011b). Their work does not include any vocabulary related to the environment nor does it involve disaster response programmes. The mission did work with the protection of civilians, specifically along the migratory routes of pastoralists. However, this was only executed in the states of Kordofan and not in Darfur (UNMIS, 2009).
4.3.2 Politics and Governance
Integrating climate change into institutions creates opportunities for a national integrated approach, response programmes and resource management. Neither the UNAMID nor the UNMIS have managed to do this. The political departments of the respective missions focus on the implementation of the peace agreements. As mentioned before, the DDPD implemented the Darfur Land Commission to resolve land issues and the UNAMID has been contributing with resources and expertise (UNDP, 2016). This Commission has not been effective and its capacity to deal with
such deeply-rooted environmental issues has been considered inadequate (Adbul-Jalil & Unruh, 2013).
4.3.3 Socio-Economic Work
The UNAMID has recognised the importance of the civil aspect of their mission by establishing the Civil Affairs department. Their strategy was implemented in 2016 as part of the department’s mandate (UNAMID, 2017). An interview with Mike Kzakuma, head of the department, reveals that the newly employed strategy concentrates on inter-communal conflicts in Darfur through cooperation with state authorities to mitigate and prevent hostilities. This has turned their attention to natural resources: ‘Over a decade of conflict has polarised the two communities. Nomadic herders in search of pasture are reported to forcibly graze their animals on farms owned by farming communities leading to crop destruction and loss of yield’ (p.6). Their work is executed through education, strengthening social relations and allowing for traditional conflict resolution. As a result, a local farmer mentions that it ‘significantly improved peaceful coexistence and enhanced relations between the two groups’ (p.9). Furthermore, the department has focused on youth radicalisation by tackling unemployment as a result of decreasing productivity.
4.3.4 Human Rights
The missions have strongly focused on human rights by working with decreasing gender-based violence and monitoring human rights violations. Women have also been taken into account regarding institution-building and decision-making processes (UNAMID, 2015).
5 Relations to the Conflict
The categorisation of problems, fields or concepts can be a helpful tool to organise or manage certain issues. However, categorisation can also have unintended real-life consequences. This chapter will study the impact of categorisation of climate change on the conflict. Through comparing security measures and development policies relating to climate change adaptation with the model of Matthews, five different areas of failed integration can be identified, namely (I) an integrated nation reconstruction plan, (II) a dedicated disaster response, (III) property rights, (IV) climate justice, and (V) addressing vulnerabilities. An overview of the results is shown in Figure 3 at the end of the chapter. The elements of regional trade associations and energy policies will not be looked at in this study because - although eventually relevant for CCA - these are very long-term projects that can not (yet) be traced back to the conflict. Furthermore, the aspect of ‘urban flood dynamic modelling’ is disregarded, as this is not relevant to the case of Darfur.
5.1 Integrated National Reconstruction Plan
Peace-building missions work at a national level and thus provide a platform for shaping an integrated national reconstruction plan. This provides an opening for integrating climate change into their plans. However, no connection of environmental challenge in the reconstruction plans as articulated in the peace agreements or the mandates could be identified. Environmental aspects are rarely mentioned and not dealt with at least before 2011.
5.1.1 Lacking Attention to Climate-Sensitive Policies
A missing integration of climate change into a national reconstruction plan has led to a lack of attention to climate-sensitive policies which consequently negatively affected the conflict. Firstly, in 2008 the government started building the Merowa Dam, despite strong protests by locals. Its construction led to water scarcity downstream, evoking violent competition over the resource between different groups (HRW, 2008). This is just one of many examples of how the government has favoured projects like dams or oil extraction over sustainable development, which has created local security implications (UNEP, 2007). Secondly, policies lacking climate-sensitivity have worsened food insecurity. Due to UN-mission involvement, the international community has provided food and other aid to roughly 15% of the population. This has created a dependency and attempts at dismantling such a substantial provision of aid that has led to a sudden return to agriculture. This, together with increased food insecurity, has led to an intensification of land use
and thus land degradation, leading to even more food insecurity, displacements and security disruptions (UNEP, 2007). Lastly, the security missions did not recognise their own impact on the climate until 2011 (S/PRST/2011). Their disregard has fostered deforestation and land degradation and increased water scarcity. This, in turn, has resulted in more competition over even scarcer resources (Bromwich, 2008).
5.1.2 Misidentification of Vulnerable Areas
An incomplete national plan can be directly related to the misidentification of vulnerable areas. The security missions and peace agreements have framed the Darfur conflict as ethnic, meaning that their attention went to inter-ethnic violence. However, seeing outbreaks of violence as merely ethnicity-based has led to ignorance of Arab-Arab conflicts over natural resources. Given that these groups are of the same descent, their conflicts are driven by competition over migratory routes that were altered as a result of climate change. As these conflicts remained unaddressed, the lingering competition fed the aggression of the Janjaweed and the refusal of the JEM to sign peace agreements (Mohamed, 2009). The misidentification of vulnerable areas due to lacking focus on climate change led to an incomplete integration of all stakeholders’ desires in the peace processes, which led to the fragmentation of rebel groups and further complicated the conflict (Minority Rights Group International, 2006).
5.2 Dedicated Disaster Response Programme
Disaster response programmes contain elements like warning systems and evacuation programme to anticipate disasters. As shown in Chapter 4, the UNAMID only started paying attention to early warning systems related to droughts in 2015 and the FAO implemented this in 2019. However, this late implementation has negatively affected the conflict. A UNOWAS study of 2018 on pastoralism and security established a relation between droughts and changed migratory routes. These altered routes consequently created friction between either other herders or sedentary farmers whose lands are grazed on (UNOWAS, 2018). Figure 2 shows the negative correlation between rainfall and conflict during the 1980s, showing the impact of drought on livelihoods and security (Suleiman, 1993). Drought is by many considered the true underlying driver for continued insecurity in Darfur (Faris, 2007). During the timespan of the peace-building missions, extreme droughts have occurred while the region’s adaptive capacity remained at the absolute lowest level (Mohmmed et al., 2017). The overall drought planning framework is weak and the authority overlooking this is considered
inadequate. The absence of early warning systems has contributed to altered pastoralist movements and explosive violence between groups during the conflict (Bashir Nimir & Elgizouli, 2011).
5.3 Property Rights
Property rights are legal frameworks that manage the ownership of resources like land, water or oil. This section looks into the property rights relating to both land and water through summarising what work has been done regarding this aspect and how this can be traced back to the conflict.
5.3.1 Land Tenure Rights
Besides the establishment of the weak and ineffective Darfur Land Commission and the inclusion of the chapter on wealth sharing in the peace agreements without any substantive solutions, the system of land tenure has remained largely untouched. Sudan’s legal framework of land rights is characterised by three main acts: the 1970 Unregistered Lands Act, the 1983 Civil Transaction Act and the abolishment of the 1971 People’s Local Government Act. Without going into detail, these implied that the system got centralised, which entailed the expropriation of power from local institutions executing customary law known as dars. The government then endorsed investors by conferring large areas of land to them. Unregistered land - not to be confused with unused as most used land was unregistered at that time - was formally appropriated by the state (Sayed & Abdala, 2010). Land tenure consultant for the FAO Paul de Wit showed that the friction between state and traditional law left a power vacuum, undermining customary leadership and fostering conflict. He
argues that administrative weakness, the legal vacuum, and an existent armed conflict has uncovered unresolved conflicts and underlying tensions over land rights (De Wit, 2011). This reiterates how a lacking focus on natural resource management in combination with climate change can create conflict.
It can be argued that this is the case in Darfur, where fragile institutions and armed conflict have revealed ethnic tensions. Combined with the substantial increase of desertification and land degradation the competition over scarce arable land has escalated (UNEP, 2007). Research by Oxfam showed that the UNAMID failed to recognise the role of land issues that are being emphasised by climatic change (Osman & Cohen, 2014). This had a big impact on the conflict. Besides the uncontrolled outbreak ‘regular’ communal clashes, this also allowed for the use of land as a tool for war. As a result of increased competition and insecurity over land, the Janjaweed participated frantically in ethnic cleansing to join land grabbing activities in villages that had been completely massacred (Brosché & Rothbart, 2013; Brosché & Elfversson, 2012). The failure to recognise the scarcity of land as a driving factor for conflict and ethnic violence has thus allowed the Janjaweed to continue their atrocities.
5.3.2 Water Management
Matthews’ model contains the element of ‘transboundary water management’, but because of the absence of transboundary water bodies in Darfur, this study will only focus on intra-regional management as part of the measure of property rights. Due to increasing droughts, water management is trivial in dealing with natural resources and mitigating conflict. Its relevance is reflected in a study concluding that in Darfur attacks relating to resources like water are 129% more likely to cause displacements and migrations (Hagan & Kaiser, 2011). The Wadi El-Ku area in South-Darfur is managed by an IWRM framework, which has been considered successful. However, lacking integration of water security in the missions has prevented its integration on a bigger national/regional level, allowing the government to favour big-scale dam projects over small-scale farmers. As explained in the section on climate-sensitive policies, such mismanagement of resources has led to competition over access to wells and wadis (Mohamed, 2004).
5.4 Climate Justice
Peace-building missions cooperate with judicial institutions to improve conflict resolution and institutional stability. The move from traditional law to national statutory law has been an underlying issue of the conflict. Traditional Darfurian conflict resolution, called judiyya, was widely
supported by tribal chiefs and led by tribal mediator called the ajaweed. These systems have long formed the focal point of resource resolution as the mediators knew the community’s customs and problems. Due to legislative turnaround, the mediators are now centrally appointed and therefore - like the central government - loyal to Arab tribes. This made the system incapable to mitigate communal conflicts arising from resource competition (Bradbury, Medley, Sansculorrw-Greenidge, 2006). The centralised system was rendered completely ineffective, which resulted in violent takeovers by marginalised tribal chiefs. Andrew Plowman (2014) recognised the importance of dispute mediation to mitigating conflict arising from sudden movements that put pressure on resources and livelihoods. Traditional conflict-resolution in Darfur helped to prevent such movements or allowed for a peaceful attitude towards migrants. The undermining of traditional mechanisms can thus be considered a major contributor to the conflict. What started as communal competition over access to resources, evolved into widespread violence as a direct result of inadequate legislation and lacking attention to resource-scarcity (Plowman, 2014). The Community-Based Resolution Mechanisms by the UNDP have already been proven successful in addressing communal conflict. Lacking integration of climate change into peace missions missed the opportunity to address such mechanisms on a wider scale, thus undermining solutions to such communal problems.
5.5 Vulnerability of Livelihoods
Improving the population’s vulnerability is a typical development effort. However, when their exposed vulnerability is threatening already unstable security, integrating this into security measures would help mitigate the conflict (Bob, Bronkhorst and Sala, 2014). As seen in the previous chapters, both development and security work focus on such aspects through addressing livelihoods and implementing work with youth unemployment. However, scrutinising their work identified two lacking or incomplete measures regarding vulnerability.
5.5.1 Youth Vulnerability
While the UNAMID started with youth vulnerability under their new Civil Affairs strategy, this was only implemented in 2016. In Darfur, youth unemployment as a result of climate change (through decreased agricultural productivity) has led to recruitment and radicalisation of this population group (Flint & De Waal, 2008). While development projects work in this area too, their efforts are restricted to local communities and are considered relative low-priority. The lacking focus on youth vulnerability in a broader scope has facilitated their recruitment by violent groups and led to, for
