Africa Up Close

A man walking across a field in Mali, another area where climate change has caused issues for pastoralists. Photo by Curt Carnemark / World Bank via Flickr. Creative Commons.

This article originally appeared on newclimateforpeace.org a blog and space to share analysis, research and emerging thinking on climate change impacts and climate change responses in fragile contexts. It is reposted from the site of the Institute for Security Studies, a member organization of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding.

Eddah Senetoi lives with her son in the small pastoralist community of Elangata Waus. They keep cows, goats, sheep, and donkeys to buy food and pay school fees. For her and other pastoralists living in southern Kenya’s Kajiado County, climate change is compounding challenges from land subdivision and privatization, magnifying social tensions, and community conflicts over access to resources.

Photo copyright of Gustavo de Carvalho/ISS.

“We hadn’t understood the war, and now we didn’t understand the peace. But everything seemed to be going well, after the guns had fallen silent.”

This quote from Mia Couto’s famous 2000 book, The Last Flight of the Flamingo, remains a pertinent reminder of the many challenges faced by Mozambique’s peacebuilding process.

Following the end of Mozambique’s civil war over two decades ago, the country has come to be seen as a model of successful peacebuilding. Years of high economic growth and relatively peaceful elections seemed to indicate that the country had achieved sustainable peace.

Community policing in Zam Zam Camp in Darfur. Photo by Albert González Farra/UN Photo, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

A famous maxim defines insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly, but expecting different results. In her opening statement at the United Nations (UN) High-Level Thematic Debate on Peace and Security, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee used this definition to describe challenges faced by UN engagements in peace operations and peacebuilding.

The 10-11 May meeting, called by the president of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and themed In a world in risks: a new commitment for peace, provided a platform to reflect on current challenges to international peace and security. These focused, in particular, on responses to the 2015 reviews on peace operations, peacebuilding, and women, peace, and security.

Arid soils in Mauritania. Drought has had a significant effect on the Sahel and Sahara.
Photo by Pablo Tosco/Oxfam, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

Wrapped in a purple boubou (robe), Salou Moussa Maïga, 60, sits with his hands clasped between his knees and explains how climate change has fueled violent conflict in Ansongo, Mali. As the president of a farming cooperative, he knows the cost of drought all too well. ”The rain period has decreased considerably from years ago … we don’t have grass anymore,“ he told ISS Today. ”Everything is naked.”