The American University of Nigeria’s Center for Conflict Analysis, Early Warning and Peacebuilding will hold an international conference on environmental change and insecurity in the Sahel on February 22, 2022.
A statement by the university’s spokesperson Daniel Okereke on Monday said the conference was necessitated by the strong linkages between environmental scarcity (caused by climate change and environmental degradation, dwindling resources, uncontrolled population growth, and social strain) and violent conflicts.
The event is titled, “Environmental Change and Insecurity in the Sahel: The Roles of Civil Society and Local Non-Governmental Organizations in Building Resilient Communities.”
The conference, given the current constraints of the global pandemic, will be “hybrid” — participants can attend both in-person and via the internet.
AUN’s Center for Conflict Analysis, Early Warning & Peacebuilding is a research-driven think-tank committed to monitoring, investigating, analyzing, and reporting conflict trends, manifestations, and mitigation.
The conference will bring together local and international scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to share their work and expertise on the nexus of environmental change and violent conflicts, particularly in the West African Sahel.
The Sahel region has witnessed a steep rise in the scale and sophistication of violence by terrorist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The proliferation of non-state armed groups, including jihadists and bandits in the region have been linked to environmental degradation, rising poverty, and weak statehood.
The conference call particularly invites papers that explore the roles of civil society and NGOs in building resilient communities to help mitigate the social impacts of environmental scarcity.
Invited topics include local, community-led approaches to prevent or address the spread of violent conflict, extremism, and hate; women and youth in local environmental mitigation, peacebuilding, and resilient community efforts; lessons learned from local approaches to support sustainable livelihoods and reduce vulnerability to environmental changes and resource scarcity; and lessons from community-resilient COVID-19 response and recovery initiatives.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is January 21, 2022.
Accepted conference papers will be published in an edited journal, the statement said.
