Francis Kokutse, in Accra, Ghana
Francis Kokutse is a journalist based in Accra and writes for Associated Press (AP), University World News, as well as Science and Development.Net. He was a Staff Writer of African Concord and Africa Economic Digest in London, UK.
Former Gambian leader, Yahya Jammeh, once said when your friend’s house is on fire, you help with a bucket of water. This is what Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon failed to do with their neighbour, Chad, when things started going wrong in that country. Consequently, the four countries are bearing the brunt of their inaction.
Chad is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon to the southwest, Nigeria to the southwest (at Lake Chad), and Niger to the west.
The United Nations says Chad is one of the world’s least developed countries, with persisting humanitarian crises due to structural and conjectural causes such as lack of infrastructure and poor access to basic services, climate change effects, insecurity in neighbouring countries and a persistent economic crisis.
The country, according to researchers in a recent study, is also significantly affected by the Lake Chad Basin crisis. Insecurity and military operations have led to the displacement of over 137,000 people in the Lake region of Chad, including 102,000 internally displaced persons.
The researchers said, for years, the prevailing narrative about Lake Chad is that it has been in inexorable decline as a result of the over-extraction of water and advancing climate change. A much-repeated talking point is that Lake Chad shrunk by 90 percent between the 1960s and the 1990s.
They however, said the size of the lake did indeed shrink by 90 percent from 25,000 square kilometres (sq. kms) in the 1960s to less than 2,000 sq kms during the 1980s. It experienced significant fluctuations both on a yearly basis and over several decades. Given its shallow average depth of three metres, the seasonal variation of one metre can result in massive changes in the lake’s surface area between the summer and winter months.
In their study, “Addressing climate security risks in the Lake Chad region,” in the PLOS Climate journal, the researchers said. “Lake Chad is a hydrological miracle: a vast, productive, freshwater lake in the middle of the Sahel,” unfortunately, they said climate change is already augmenting its current challenges.
“By creating more unpredictable environmental conditions around the lake, mainly through higher temperatures and more unpredictable rainfall patterns, climate change is increasing the frequency of floods and droughts and undermining people’s ability to sustain their livelihoods. On current trends, such erratic weather and the concomitant strain on livelihoods will become more marked in future,” the study said.
For their study, the researchers used a total of 24 locations for their interviews: N’guimi, Kable´wa, Toumour, Diffa, Bosso in Niger; Liwa, Baga Sola, N’ djamena, Pouss and Bol in Chad; Doron Baga, Monguno, Ngala, Maiduguri and Banki in Nigeria; Gamboru, Fotokol, Kousse´ri, Zimado, Gourvidig, Kae´le´, Zamaï, Mora and Mouldvoudaye in Cameroon.
They organised a workshop for collaborative analysis with climate and security experts. Practitioners and researchers developed climate security risk pathways that illustrate systemic risk that emerges through complex interactions between climate change and different social, economic, environmental, demographic, and political factors.
The research utilised a mixed methods approach. First, data for this assessment were collated over 24 months in 2017 and 2018 combining participatory conflict analysis at the local level in all four Lake Chad region countries.
They said new findings, based on the multi-satellite data and analysis of data from the past 20 years, indicate that Lake Chad is not shrinking and recovers seasonally its surface water extent and volume. However, its surface water extent has slightly decreased over the past two decades, mainly in the northern pool.
What has come to be a worry for many is that during the Chadian crisis in 2009, the three countries bordering lake Chad did not know that left unchecked, they will come to be at the receiving end of a problem that they might have thought was an internal issue. Now, with the protracted fighting among the Chadians, poverty, underdevelopment, and a changing climate has engulfed the four countries. Nigerians may think that the situation is just affecting parts of its territory in the north. But, over time, they may come to see that it will be a problem for the whole of Nigeria.
The International Organisation of Migration’s (IOM’s) Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) says by 2009 when the crisis started, it affected north-eastern Nigeria, but some five years later, it had spread to other countries of the Chad Basin, generating substantial displacements of population, and causing grave humanitarian concerns.
With no attempt in sight to show that something is being done to bring peace to Chad, the researchers have pointed to the fact that, if Lake Chad is carefully managed by the four countries that share it, and peace is reached, it could be an engine for sustainable livelihoods and stability in the region, increasing food security and reducing poverty.
According to the researchers, “the violent conflict, poor governance, endemic corruption, serious environmental mismanagement and poverty have afflicted the lives of local people, forcing millions out of their homes and into camps, rendering vast areas insecure and left tens of millions without adequate health care or education services.”
The researchers said at the same time, the conflict has left the local population more vulnerable to climate change. Attacks from armed opposition groups have razed entire villages, disrupted markets, closed schools, and destroyed clinics. Heavy-handed military responses to the conflict have closed off large areas around the lake, disrupting people’s way of making a living and leaving communities in a pincer movement of distrust between each side, seen as collaborators with either armed groups or the army.
They said the conflict is worsening some of the political and economic conditions that gave rise to the violence in the first place. Climate change and population growth are adding to the strains of providing sufficient food and basic services to the local population. Climate change is acting as a threat multiplier, compounding the many political, environmental, economic, and security challenges that face the region.
The study found that violence in the region has led to a significant strain on social bonds at both the community and state levels, adding that, the “consequences of years of conflict, poverty, and human rights abuses have been the fragmentation of social cohesion across various groups such as families, generations, ethnic groups, and among IDPs, refugees, and host communities.
“Whilst there has been an increased amount of attention and resourcing going towards the crises (albeit not enough to meet humanitarian needs), so far, very few of the initiatives and conferences on the crisis have tackled the multi-causal nature of the risks facing the Lake Chad region,” the researchers said.
They also said, addressing the multidimensional and transboundary crisis in the Lake Chad region requires a comprehensive and integrated approach that brings together development, security, and sustainability. Given the complexity of the crisis, no single organisation or entity can address it alone.
However, the researchers noted that various organisations working in the region can contribute towards building resilience and minimising harm through their interventions. It is therefore crucial for these organisations to collaborate and coordinate their efforts towards a common goal of ensuring co-benefits and a more positive future for the region.
In light of the climatic conditions characterised by heightened levels of uncertainty and variability in the timing and duration of rainfall, as well as fluctuations in lake water levels, it is imperative that all future planning activities concerning stabilisation, peacebuilding and sustainable development in the region, consider a comprehensive system-wide approach to address climate-fragility risks, in line with recent findings in the literature.
Their study suggests tailored and rigorous climate-fragility analyses as a starting point for developing integrated interventions that consider current and future risks posed by conflict and the environment. Such analysis would identify priorities for engagement that go beyond short term stabilisation and humanitarian concerns.
It also called for a resilience-based approach, informed by context-based climate and conflict analysis that delivers meaningful interventions over the short and medium term, while endeavouring to cater for the many long term needs of the region.
Hopefully, Chad’s neighbours will take a cue!
business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com