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egions will face increased water stress and desertification while otherswill experience unpredictable rainfall and shorter rainy seasons. Extremeclimate events such as floods, droughts, desertification and sea-level riseare also occurring more frequently. These climatic changes may impactnegatively on human security by acting as a catalyst or trigger of conflictthrough their impact on production, water supplies and migration and bycomplicating efforts to improve governance on the continent.The well-being of African peoples is closely tied to the issue of climatechange because much of the productive activity in the continent isclosely tied to climatic factors. Most of Africa’s gross domestic product(GDP) derives from sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and forestry,which are in turn very dependent on rainfall, water availabilityand suitable temperatures. For instance, reductions in crop yieldsand lack of pasture for animal grazing can exacerbate food insecurityand bring about tension arising from competition to own or controlviable agricultural lands. Recent estimates from the World Bank indicatethat the cost to Africa of climate change could be in the regionof 4% of GDP.Water stress caused in part by unpredictable rainfall and extremeweather such as drought and desertification may lead to intensecompetition at community level for scarce water resources. Someprojections show that by 2020, between 75 and 250 million peoplein Africa would be exposed to increased water stress and this willhave an adverse effect on livelihoods and worsening of water-relatedconflicts at community level. Moreover, there is also a high degreeof water inter-dependence between African States that could leadto tensions in the use of such resources. A familiar example is thatof the Nile Basin, where there is a potential for inter-state conflictbecause existing agreements over the allocation of its waters couldbecome untenable if climate change leads to lower flows while populationscontinue to increase.Another potential area of climate induced conflict in Africa is the displacementof populations due to drought, desertification, floods ordeclining water supplies. Some analysts have ascribed the conflictin Darfur to ethnic tensions arising from climate induced migration.Similarly, there is evidence from the Sahel that increasing desertificationis pushing pastoralists southwards and bringing them into increasedconflict with arable farmers whose farmlands are destroyed234 Part Five