CLIMATE SECURITY IN THE HORN OF AFRICA - Perspectives on Addressing Climate-Related Security Risks from the Horn of Africa

There is an increasing consensus that the human security risks of today will be the hard security risks of tomorrow. Howev-er, there are no hard security solutions to the encroaching im-pacts of climate change. Instead, climate-related security risks are transforming the security landscape in general and in the wider region of the Horn of Africa in particular. In an initiative to identify locally anchored ideas and criteria to suc-cessfully address climate-related security risks, the Horn of Africa Climate Security Working Group was established by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Kenya Office, the Stock-holm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in 2018. The Group brings together senior climate and environmental ex-perts and civil society representatives from different countries of the Horn of Africa region, all in their personal capacity. The objective of the Group was to develop criteria and sugges-tions for mechanisms to incorporate climate-related security risks into regional, continental and international efforts to prevent and regulate violent conflicts in the Horn of Africa.Without wanting to »securitise« the issue of climate change, the Working Group believes that the impact of cli-mate change on already tense, often cross-boundary and sometimes regional systems of violent conflict in the Horn of Africa requires urgent and sensitive action with the in-volvement of a variety of stakeholders to strengthen collec-tive security in the region. The following criteria represent Working Group members’ consensus and do not claim to be comprehensive or sufficient for resolving climate-relat-ed security risks in the Horn of Africa. However, the Group maintains that inclusive development, conflict prevention and conflict mitigation can become more effective when future policy interventions are based on these criteria.The Working Group agrees that there is no deterministic relationship between violent conflict and climate change. However, it finds that indirect impacts of climate change on livelihoods increase the risk of conflict and, more specif-ically, violent conflict. Climate-related security risks are complex and interconnected, and are challenging the de-velopment of effective responses at all levels.–Criterion 1: Peace processes and agreements need to be more climate sensitive. Increasing resilience to the impacts of climate change is a necessary part of any peace process to avoid the risk of an otherwise sound peace settlement being destabilised by inattention to the aspect of climate change.–Criterion 2: Local communities affected by the double burden of climate change and conflict need to be in-volved in and benefit from national and regional peace processes. Representatives of local communities need to have better access to peace processes to address and mitigate climate-related security risks. Sufficient resourc-es, time and space are necessary for locally based com-munity dialogue mechanisms addressing climate-related security risks. –Criterion 3: Effectively addressing climate-related securi-ty risks in the Horn of Africa region depends on develop-ing a sound foundation of regionally and locally owned knowledge and data analysis, which must be connected to the needs of a particular region or situation.–Criterion 4: International actions to address climate-re-lated security risks can only work if they are coordinated with the relevant regional processes and mechanisms of the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authori-ty on Development (IGAD), and civil society. Mecha-nisms that strengthen dialogue between the AU, IGAD, civil society and experts on climate security need to be enhanced and internationally supported.