The paradox of climate resilience and elusive peace in the Lake Chad Basin: a case for an adaptive governance approach

Abstract

For several decades, the Lake Chad Basin has served as a laboratory for scientific inquiries on anthropogenic security challenges in Africa. Between 1963 and the early 1990s, more than 90% of Lake Chad vanished, largely due to environmental stressors and overuse — for farming, fishing, livestock herding, and power generation. The receding Lake has been associated with a complex array of human security concerns, including food insecurity, loss of lives, biodiversity and livelihoods, poverty, droughts, enforced migration, violent conflicts, and terrorism. Since the 1990s, however, thanks in part to local climate resilience, the volume of the Lake has remained fairly stable despite rising temperatures and demography. Yet, trends reveal that armed conflicts and insecurity in the region continue to resurge periodically over the last two decades, derailing prospects for durable peace. The potential gains of adaptation are undermined by severe governance deficits. Drawing from relevant secondary sources, expert opinion interviews, a focus group discussion, and key informant interviews, this paper interrogates this paradox, highlighting the merits and limits of climate resilience for forging durable peace in the Lake Chad Basin. It builds the case for participatory adaptive governance as a more inclusive approach to sustainable conflict transformation in the Anthropocene.