North Africa is considered a climate change hot spot. Existing studies either focus on the physical aspects of climate change or discuss the social ones. The present article aims to address this divide by assessing and comparing the climate change vulnerability of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia and linking it to its social implications. The vulnerability assessment focuses on climate change exposure, water resources, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The results suggest that all countries are exposed to strong temperature increases and a high drought risk under climate change. Algeria is most vulnerable to climate change, mainly due to the country’s high sensitivity. Across North Africa, the combination of climate change and strong population growth is very likely to further aggravate the already scarce water situation. The so-called Arab Spring has shown that social unrest is partly caused by unmet basic needs of the population for food and water. Thus, climate change may become an indirect driver of social instability in North Africa. To mitigate the impact of climate change, it is important to reduce economic and livelihood dependence on rain-fed agriculture, strengthen sustainable land use practices, and increase the adaptive capacity. Further, increased regional cooperation and sub-national vulnerability assessments are needed.

Purpose of Review The aim of this paper is to explore the nexus of climate change, land use, and conflict. A particular focus is placed on the human security risks associated with the three elements. Recent Findings Climate change has been perceived as a “threat multiplier,” directly aggravating human security risks, such as food and water insecurity, as well as indirectly contributing to (violent) conflict in regions vulnerable to climate change. In addition to climate change–related environmental risks, such as droughts and floods, land and land use can be affected by climate mitigation and adaptation measures. These include, for instance, large-scale renewable energy plants and relocation efforts. Summary It is not only important for decision-makers to take climate change impacts into account but also to assess the indirect risks associated with climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. For further research, it is hence promising to explore how conflict-sensitive approaches to climate change adaptation and mitigation can be developed.

In Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, major development efforts are underway – namely, the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (Kibera Pilot), the Nairobi Railway Relocation Action Plan, and the National Youth Service-led Kibera Slum Upgrade Initiative. This paper assesses how such interventions affect the social contract and social cohesion, and hence the resilience of Kibera residents. We examine the extent to which different types of slum upgrading efforts address risks in Kibera, particularly around conflict and flooding. Our findings show that these interventions can reduce conflict, crime, insecurity and flood risks, and subsequently strengthen resilience in highly dense and complex urban environments, if they do three things: first, include processes that build the social contract (such as meaningful consultation of residents and social accountability mechanisms); second, build bridging social capital between ethnic groups and avoid reducing bonding capital within groups; and third, integrate different sectoral interventions.

This article serves as an introduction to the special issue ‘A Local to Global Perspective on Resource Governance and Conflict’. It advances the debate on natural resource governance and conflict by bringing together three different strands of literature with the aim of developing a local to global research perspective and framework for analysis. First, this article reviews and identifies research gaps in the literatures on (1) the resource curse, (2) environmental security and (3) the large-scale acquisition of land and natural resources. Second, it addresses the previously identified research gaps by developing a local to global research perspective and a corresponding analytical framework. The final section of this contribution summarises the key findings of the articles presented in the special issue and outlines their policy implications.

For almost two decades, the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) in general and northeast Nigeria in particular have been subject to the insurgency of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. This region is also known for its poor environmental conditions that mostly manifest in land desertification and water scarcity. We analyze the impact of the insecurity and conflict on migration from the most affected rural areas of northeast Nigeria to Maiduguri. We also explore the role that water scarcity and land desertification play in the decision of local people to migrate. Data were collected by interviewing 204 internally displaced persons (IDPs) at the Bakassi IDP camp in Maiduguri between March and May 2019. Experts were also interviewed at various governmental, non-governmental, and international institutions in Abuja. Respondents at the Bakassi IDP camp came from Guzamala, Gwoza, Marte, Monguno, and Nganzai. Though insecurity created by the conflict between Boko Haram insurgents and government forces was mentioned by all respondents as the main factor that triggered migration, this study shows that the decision to migrate was also a function of other factors that differ between communities. These factors include the geographical location of the community, land ownership, the socioeconomic status of the migrants, access to water and land, and wealth. This study reveals that in some communities, it was possible for people to live with conflict if they were still able to practice farming or if they had additional sources of income such as small businesses. The decision to migrate was only taken when the practice of such activities was no longer possible and they had nothing to hold on to.

Resilience is a widely used concept among development, environmental, security and peacebuilding organizations. However, resilience has rarely been applied in conjunction with the potentially complementary concept of environmental security. Therefore, this paper explores how the concepts of resilience and environmental security can be jointly applied by non-governmental organizations working to implement peacebuilding projects in developing countries. We first review definitions of the concepts and explore their strengths and pitfalls. Second, we develop a conceptual framework for a joint application whereby environmental security sharpens the scope of resilience, while resilience allows for taking issues into account that a traditional environmental security perspective might miss. Finally, we apply the conceptual framework to a case study from Palestine.