Title: Climate-Induced Conflict and Security Challenges in the Sahel: Rethinking International Responses
Authors: Chinaemelum I. Okafor (Ph.D)
Volume: 10
Issue: 6
Pages: 82-89
Publication Date: 2026/06/28
Abstract:
The Sahel region of West and Central Africa has emerged as one of the most acute convergence points of climate stress and violent conflict in the contemporary world. Spanning a belt from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Sudan and Eritrea in the east, the Sahel confronts accelerating desertification, erratic rainfall, and resource depletion that intersect with deep structural vulnerabilities weak governance, ethnic competition, and historical exclusion to produce cycles of violence that existing international frameworks have been unable to resolve. This article examines the causal and conditioning pathways through which climate change contributes to insecurity in the Sahel, with particular attention to farmer-herder conflicts, jihadist insurgencies, and state fragility. This study employs a qualitative secondary analysis drawing on recent empirical literatures and institutional documents, it critically evaluates dominant international responses, including French military operations, the G5 Sahel Joint Force, and European Union security partnerships, arguing that the prevailing structure of militarised intervention has addressed symptoms while ignoring structural drivers. The article advances a case for reconfiguring international responses around human security principles, integrating climate adaptation, institutional strengthening, and inclusive development as the primary levers of conflict prevention. The analysis engages scholarly debates on the causal status of climate in conflict, resisting both environmental determinism and its opposite denial, and insists that climate variables operate through social, political, and economic mediating conditions that must be addressed directly. The article concludes that durable security in the Sahel requires fundamentally different priorities than those currently guiding donor and multilateral engagement.