Lake Chad Regional Economic Memorandum : Technical Paper 5. Conflict and Climate Change in the Lake Chad Region
Peace and security are basic conditions for economic and social development. Conflict, on the other hand, can reverse years of economic growth and induce long-term harm on almost all aspects of development. For the past decade, the Lake Chad region...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/603021636447190201/Technical-Paper-5-Conflict-and-Climate-Change-in-the-Lake-Chad-Region http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36576 |
| Summary: | Peace and security are basic
conditions for economic and social development. Conflict, on
the other hand, can reverse years of economic growth and
induce long-term harm on almost all aspects of development.
For the past decade, the Lake Chad region has been the
setting of conflicts between government forces and armed
groups, most notably the Boko Haram. Although the intensity
of fighting has petered off in recent years, the conflict
has spread from Northern Nigeria and now affects all four
countries of the region. Due to the paramount importance of
avoiding armed conflict, a large economic literature exists
that seeks to find explanations for the onset and prevalence
of conflict in developing countries. Blattman and Miguel
[2010] list some of the most common theories of conflict
including competition for resources, economic grievances,
and the possibility of looting. This paper attempts to shed
light on the geographical distribution of conflict and its
climatic determinants in the Lake Chad region following a
sub-national approach where readily available spatial data
is employed at two different units of aggregation: Firstly,
90 second level administrative areas, and secondly, around
5,318 grid cells covering the same region. Exposure to
conflict is here defined as the intensity (for districts) or
incidence (for cells) of conflict in a given unit each year.
Parts of the population may not be directly exposed by this
definition, but since the units of analysis are relatively
small, most will be affected in some ways, for instance by
safety concerns when visiting the nearest towns to trade or
by the general economic consequences. |
|---|