Climate Vulnerabilities, Conflicts, and Livelihood Dynamics in the Sahel
The Sahel region is increasingly vulnerable to climate change, with extreme droughts, erratic rainfall, and flooding disrupting agricultural livelihoods and exacerbating food insecurity. These climate stressors intersect with long-standing political and social conflicts, where competition for scarce resources such as land and water intensifies tensions. Despite these complex interconnections, significant knowledge gaps remain on how climate variability, conflict, and agricultural livelihoods interact.
This project aims to synthesise diverse datasets to better understand these dynamics and inform more effective, evidence-based policies for resilience in the region. By integrating geospatial analysis, remote sensing, machine learning, and econometric modelling, the research will map climate-driven changes in agriculture, identify vulnerabilities at the household level, and assess policy gaps in existing adaptation strategies. The findings will provide policymakers, NGOs, and local communities with tools to strengthen climate adaptation and mitigate conflict risks.
The project will also engage directly with regional stakeholders to ensure that research outputs align with local needs. It will contribute to the improvement of National Adaptation Plans and the development of geospatial visualisation tools to guide intervention planning. By combining natural and social science methodologies, the project will provide actionable insights to enhance resilience and food security for vulnerable populations, particularly smallholder farmers.
Project Team:
- Richard Nyiawung (University of Waterloo)
- Bouchra Bargam (Mohammed VI Polytechnic University)
- Christophe Béné (The Alliance Bioversity and CIAT & Wageningen University and Research)
- Sharif Islam (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Abdul-Rahim Abdulai (The Alliance Bioversity and CIAT)
- Neville Suh (Africa Rice Center & Ege University)
- Precious Chilufya (University of Leipzig)
- Karima Nifa (Sultan Moulay Slimane University)
- Christantus Begealawuh (University of Ottawa)
- Shamsudeen Yekeen (University of Guelph)
- Maria Ayuk (Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg)
- Vincent Chireh (University of British Columbia)
BAOBAB synthesis research teams are supported through the BAOBAB project, which is jointly funded by UK aid through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands as part of the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) research programme and Step Change initiative.
