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Flooding and droughts significantly disrupt livelihood patterns and food-security and may result in temporary displacement or longer-term migration. Such shocks exacerbate vulnerabilities and weaken the resilience and adaptive capacity of agriculture-dependent communities; they can heighten competition over natural resources, sometimes leading to cattle raiding and communal conflict. Unpredictable annual variation and extreme weather events, like flooding and droughts, affect pastoralist mobility patterns and routes, and farmers’ agricultural production. These changes may exacerbate tensions between herders and farmers, often in connection with land, grazing, water and communal conflicts. Female-headed households are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as most depend on agriculture to sustain their families, and rely on natural resources like firewood and water. Climate-related livestock losses compound ongoing rivalries, increasing the risk of cattle raiding, which can trigger retaliations, communal conflicts, displacement and the growth of new or existing armed groups. This fact sheet has been produced by the Climaterelated Peace and Security Risks project, jointly undertaken by NUPI and SIPRI, with funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the UN Security Council and in other forums in Africa and Europe diplomats are considering how to increase international support to the G5 Sahel Force. The support is aimed at filling critical gaps that have hindered the mobility and operational tempo of the G5 Sahel Force. The overall goal is to enhance its operational capacity and effectiveness in an effort to restore stability in the Sahel. Despite the presence of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the Group of Five Sahel (G5 Sahel) Force, as well as French-led and European Union missions, the security situation in the Sahel has significantly deteriorated over the last few years. Drawing on lessons identified from the support provided by the UN to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and a wide number of experiences with voluntary funded trust funds in other mission support settings, we discuss a few political, financial, doctrinal, human rights and operational considerations. We find that a UN support office funded from assessed contributions, complimented with voluntary contributions, appear to be the only solution for reliable and predictable support to those core needs of the G5 Sahel Force that cannot be met by the G5 Sahel countries themselves, or via bilateral support to those countries.

Somalia is highly susceptible to the effects of climate change and extreme weather. Without anticipatory preventive approaches, these factors are likely to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and reduce the people’s livelihood options, which in turn may have negative impacts for stability and security in Somalia. This fact sheet has been produced by the Climaterelated Peace and Security Risks project, jointly undertaken by NUPI and SIPRI, with funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Report from the UN75 Africa-Nordic Sub-regional Meeting, 3 & 4 March 2020, Dakar, Senegal

The African Union is coordinating the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Africa, but the measures introduced are also significantly disrupting the reforms, programmes and operations of the AU.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted UN peacekeeping operations. In the short-term, activities have been reduced to the most critical, rotations have been frozen, and most staff are working remotely. Most of the missions have adapted remarkably well, but even more extreme changes are likely in the medium term, as the global economic recession that will follow in the wake of the virus may force UN peace operations to drastically contract in size and scope.

An African model of peace operationsIncreasingly complex security environments are placing high demandson African peace operations, and complicating efforts at long-termpeace- and statebuilding. From the experiences of the African Union(AU) and the sub-regions over the last decade, an African model ofpeace operations has emerged that is at odds with the missionscenarios and multi-dimensional assumptions that underpinned theoriginal framework of the African Standby Force (ASF).

Facing threats ranging from Islamist insurgences to the Ebola pandemic, African regional actors are playing an increasingly vital role in safeguarding peace and stability across the continent. But while the African Union has demonstrated its ability to deploy forces on short notice and in difficult circumstances, the challenges posed by increasingly complex conflict zones have revealed a widening divide between the theory and practice of peacekeeping. With the AU ’s African Standby Force becoming fully operational in 2016, this timely and much-needed work argues that responding to these challenges will require a new and distinctively African model of peacekeeping, as well as a radical revision of the current African security framework. The first book to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of African peace operations, The Future of African Peace Operations gives a long overdue assessment of the ways which peacekeeping on the continent has evolved overthe past decade. It will be a vital resource for policy makers, researchers and all those seeking solutions and insights into the immense security challenges which Africa is facing today. CONTENTS: 1. Towards an African model of peace operations /Cedric de Coning, Linnéa Gelot and John Karlsrud -- 2. Confronting hybrid threats in Africa: improving multidimensional responses / Kwesi Aning and Mustapha Abdallah -- 3. Stabilization missions and mandates in African peace operations: implications for the ASF? / Solomon A. Dersso -- 4. The relationship between the AU and the RECs/RMs in relation to peace and security in Africa: subsidiarity and inevitable common destiny / Michelle Ndiaye -- 5. The strategic relationship between the African Union and its partners / Linda Darkwa -- 6. Mission support for African peace operations / Walter Lotze -- 7. United in challenges? The African Standby Force and the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises / Jide Martyns Okeke -- 8. What roles for the civilian and police dimensions in African peace operations? / Yvonne Akpasom -- 9. Adapting the African Standby Force to a just-in-time readiness model: improved alignment with the emerging African model of peace operations / Cedric de Coning -- 10. African peace operations: trends and future scenarios,conclusions and recommendations / Cedric de Coning, Linnéa Gelot and John Karlsrud

The Nordic Africa Institute, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs hosted a seminar in Uppsala, Sweden, on 15 and 16 December 2011, that brought together AU, EU and UN officials closely involved in peace operations in Africa. The seminar’s purpose was to allow participants to compare their experiences of the different support models that have been used to date in Sudan and Somalia. International support for African peace operations provides opportunities but also poses challenges. This report examines four of these challenges in some detail: the AU Commission’s limited capacity to plan and manage peace operations; insufficient political engagement by African member states with AU peace operations; the short-termism and self-interest of some of the AU’s partners; and the need for UN Security Council permanent members to value and ensure a shared AU-UN strategic vision. The report also includes policy recommendations for resolving these challenges.