Climate Impacts on Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

This K4DD Rapid Evidence Review provides an overview of the relationship between climate change and security in SSA. Climate change and its security implications for SSA are extensively covered in the literature.

There is a substantial body of evidence on the relationship between several factors associated with climate change (drought, flooding, temperature change, precipitation levels) and incidents of armed conflict, civil war, and intra-state war.

The majority of the studies cited are grey literature or academic papers that use econometric methods to establish whether a significant relationship exists between two sets of variables over a set period. There is consensus across most studies that a positive correlation exists between increased temperature, lower precipitation, and conflict.