Livelihood Security: Climate change, conflict and migration in - UNEP

An example of these dramatic changes is found
in the drying of Mali’s Lake Faguibine in the 1970s,
which forced more than 200,000 farmers and
fishermen to abandon their traditional livelihood
practices. Lake Faguibine is discussed in greater
detail in Case study 3. Similarly, fishermen in Nigeria’s
Hadejia-Jama’are floodplain have been compelled
to migrate to other flood plains, river-basins,
dams and lakes. 155 One such destination point has
been Burkina Faso’s Lake Bagre, to which more
than 10,000 people have migrated since 1994,
bringing the population to an estimated 162,000
inhabitants in 2009. It is now the most populated
zone in the country and continues to receive a high
rate of migrants. 156
While the environment and natural resources can
act as push factors, cities and urban areas provide
strong pull factors, with economic opportunities
playing a major role in labour migration. Specifically,
cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire, coffee plantations in
Ghana and the oil industry in Nigeria have all drawn
in migrants from across West Africa. Recent figures
show that about three per cent, or 7.5 million, of
the population in West Africa are migrants, compared
to two per cent in all of Africa. 157 Further, as
centres of information exchange and technological
advancement, urban areas can be drivers of
innovation and efficiency. People routinely migrate
to cities for better job opportunities, education,
health care, shelter, access to information and
cultural diversity.
In the Sahel, however, urban migration represents
a particular challenge to both large cities, often
located near or on the coast, and to intermediate
sized cities closer to migration source areas.
Regardless of their size, these cities are frequently
ill-equipped to absorb new populations, particularly
in terms of access to water, sanitation, health care,
education and employment, 158 and struggle with
issues of infrastructure, housing and larger challenges
associated with integration and inequality. 159
4.2 Environmentally induced
migration due to rapid-onset
disasters
Extreme weather events, such as floods, often have
devastating consequences for natural resource-
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dependent livelihoods. Floods can result in the loss
of livestock, farmland and crops, homes and critical
infrastructure, including water supply systems and
irrigation networks. 160 Furthermore, the impact of
flooding is exacerbated in the region by the poor
absorption capacity of the soil: water runoff can
be 15-40 per cent of total rainfall due to the hard,
crusted terrain and limited vegetation, increasing
the inundation of water catchments, river plains,
and low-lying areas, 161 degrading land and washing
away topsoil. As a result, floods can have both
immediate and lasting effects on food security,
lead to significant losses of income for both farmers
and herders and act as triggering events, contributing
to migration by destroying homes and critical
infrastructure.
In 2009, intense flooding in the region affected
some 700,000 people and killed more than 150. 162
Some 150,000 people lost their homes in Burkina
Faso alone, after 35 percent of the annual 750 mm
rainfall average fell in just 12 hours in the area of
Ouagadougou. 163 Case study 4 discusses a similar
event in northern Ghana in 2007, which caused the
displacement of over 330,000 people.
While sudden-onset events can cause very largescale
movements of population – over 20 million
people were displaced by sudden-onset climaterelated
disasters in 2008 alone, according to
IDMC and OCHA 164 – these movements tend to
be relatively short-term and localized, with most
people returning as soon as possible to rebuild their
homes. 165 In addition, slow-onset events, including
sea-level rise, can also act as triggers and are
predicted to cause the majority of environmentally
induced migration.
However, Map 9 and the accompanying Figures 4
and 5 show that both the frequency of floods and
the area covered by flooding when it occurs have
increased in some of parts of the region over the
last 24 years, and that some 42 per cent of the
population in CILSS countries has been affected
by at least seven floods since 1985. This increase
in frequency and coverage allows for less recovery
time for farmland and pastures between flooding
events. Over time, this recurrent and more severe
flooding could lead to more permanent migration
away from flood-prone areas.
Livelihood Security: Climate Change, Migration and Conflict in the Sahel