Climate Change and Conflict in Uganda: The Cattle Corridor - FESS ...

METHODOLOGY
“Conflict is almost always
the result of the
interactions of multiple
political, economic,
social, historical, and
cultural factors, and
these must be taken into
account in any analysis.”
To conduct the first climate change
and conflict case study, FESS
developed a seven-phase framework
to help guide the methodological
approach—the Climate Change and
Conflict Assessment Framework
(CCCAF). The framework provides a
process for considering a wide
variety of background data that
supply context for analysis of the
climate-conflict nexus. It relies in part
on FESS’s Environmental Security
Assessment Framework (ESAF)
methodology, while integrating core
components of USAID’s Conflict
Assessment Framework (CAF). Both
the ESAF and CAF emphasize one of
the main conclusions of recent
conflict analysis: Conflict is almost
always the result of the interactions
of multiple political, economic, social,
historical, and cultural factors, and
these must be taken into account in
any analysis. The influence of climate
change on conflict can only be
understood within this context. The
existence of grievances related to the
impacts of climate change does not
mean they will necessarily result in
conflict. The quality of governance
and the resilience of political,
economic, and social institutions all
mediate the relationship between
environmental change and conflict in
important ways. Even discontented
populations whose grievances find
inadequate or aggravating institutional
responses will be unable to engage in
violent conflict if they lack the
requisite resources for organization
and mobilization. Shocks or fastmoving
and unanticipated events also
may open windows of vulnerability or
opportunity that animate or inhibit
conflict.
The purpose of the CCCAF is to
serve as a toolkit for analysis and to
raise relevant, case-specific questions
about these relationships. However,
it is not a formal template for the
structure of the report itself.
In briefly describing the successive
phases of the CCCAF below (the
CCCAF is attached as Appendix I), it
should be kept in mind that it is not
used in linear fashion. Each phase
provides new information that may
be relevant to earlier phases. Thus,
while presented sequentially, the
phases of the CCCAF provide a
continual feedback mechanism for
revisiting and revising preliminary
information and findings.
The first phase of the CCCAF
reviews conflict-prone areas of the
selected country that have
experienced extreme climate
variability (e.g., droughts, floods, and
unseasonal temperature fluctuations).
Patterns of conflict within these areas
with potential linkages to climate
effects are then identified. In Uganda,
these criteria resulted in a focus on
the Cattle Corridor and Karamoja.
Phase two seeks to ground the study
in the specific context of the country
or region under study. Despite the
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