STOCKHOLM, 24 June. - (ANA) - SIPRI and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) release a fact sheet that focuses on the Lake Chad region and the series of conflict- and climate-related issues that face the region.

 

The ongoing insecurity in the Lake Chad region—which intersects Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria—cannot be understood in isolation from climate and environmental change. Climate change-related stressors—such as increasingly variable precipitation and drought—contribute to existing tension and conflict between different communities by exacerbating scarcity of natural resources, including land, water and food. 

 

Such pressures amplify the tensions between local community members, refugees and internally displaced people, and between livelihood groups such as arable farmers, fishers and pastoralists. Through its destabilizing impacts on livelihoods, climate change can further increase vulnerability to recruitment by violent extremist organizations, such as Boko Haram and Islamic State–West Africa Province and other unidentified armed groups and bandit networks, that operate throughout the region.

 

• The Lake Chad region is highly vulnerable to accelerating climate change, which increases risks of erratic weather events and less predictable seasonal weather patterns. This, in turn, has negative impacts on livelihoods that depend on natural resources and rains.

A large share of the population of the Lake Chad region relies on livelihoods that are dependent on natural resources such as rainfed agriculture, fisheries and pastures.

 

• Displacement in the Lake Chad region is driven by multiple, and often interconnected, conflict-related and climate-related hazards, including flooding and drought. Climate-related risks in turn increase the likelihood of tension between IDPs, refugees and host communities, as well as livelihood groups such as arable farmers, fishers and pastoralists.

 

• The natural resource economy in the Lake Chad region—both legal and illegal—is closely tied into the economics of violence and persistent local inter-community tensions. Extremist groups are materially sustained in part by their deep entrenchment in the region’s natural resource economy.

 

• The region is characterized by a security–adaptation imbalance, where stabilization efforts have outpaced climate-security risk reduction. Livelihood-support initiatives and climate change

adaptation remain critical gaps in translating stabilization gains into durable peace.    - (ANA) -

 

 

To download the full report, visit: https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2026-06/sipri-nupi_fact_sheet_lake_chad.pdf

 

AB/ANA/24 June 2026 - - -