interface between disaster risk and armed conflict

Uzoechina, Okechukwu Lawrence

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INTERFACE BETWEEN DISASTER RISK AND ARMED CONFLICT IN

WEST AFRICA: PRESENT THREATS TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Okey Uzoechina 1

Introduction

In the quest for sustainable development within the ECOWAS region, policy attention as well as

funding allocation and operational support has focused overwhelmingly on peace and security,

thereby inadvertently confining other equally important but less demonstrably relevant concerns

such as disaster risk reduction (DRR) to a blind spot. Disaster risk is measured by the extent to

which populations and infrastructure are vulnerable to hazards. A hazard may be described as a

potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity which may result in loss of

life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption and environmental degradation.

Ironically, the increase in the incidence of natural disasters, hazard events, human vulnerability,

and the humanitarian consequences of conflict in the region in the last three decades has served

to slowly but surely place human security and human development on the front burner, thus

highlighting an indisputable link between conflict, disaster and underdevelopment.

Conflict increases exposure to environmental hazard, human vulnerability, epidemic diseases,

crop failure and loss of livelihood. It may also lead to adverse demographic reconfiguration with

unregulated flow of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). In turn, disasters occurring

in the aftermath of conflict lead to particularly acute humanitarian crisis, especially with the

weakening of the governance structures in a state and the state’s capacity to provide public goods

(for instance, quality health care) for its citizens. This precarious state of affairs poses a clear and

present danger, and necessitates exceptional measures that enhance not only individual coping

capacity in the aftermath of disaster, but also establish multi-tiered and cross-cutting institutional

adaptive capacity, both at the national and regional levels.

Whereas conflict prevention and conflict resolution are now the buzzwords in ECOWAS peace

and security policy, disaster risk—which poses an equally important challenge to development—

1 LL.B, BL, MA, Consultant, West Africa Programme, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed

Forces (DCAF). Okey is based at the ECOWAS Commission, Abuja. An earlier version of this paper is published in Perspectives on West Africa’s Future by Humanitarian Futures Programme, London.


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is yet to be mainstreamed into ECOWAS development policy. Scarce attention has been paid to

the potential of DRR as a complementary tool for structural (long term) conflict prevention.

Against this backdrop, this paper advocates a paradigm shift from compensatory disaster risk

management to prospective disaster risk reduction if the progress made by ECOWAS in kick-

starting and complementing development initiatives in Member States is to be sustained. The

paper examines the progress made so far in articulating an ECOWAS Policy for Disaster Risk

Reduction; the adequacy of the implementing structures especially the ECOWAS Emergency

Response Team (EERT); the need for and the benefits of developing an interactive Disaster Risk

Index (DRI) for geographically-defined hazards in West Africa in order to inform policy options,

prediction and response to disaster; and the next steps in mainstreaming DRR into ECOWAS’

medium- and long-term development policy.

The Disaster Crisis: Development at Risk

Anecdotal evidence suggests that disasters triggered by natural hazard events have increased in

occurrence and severity in the West African region, particularly in the Sahel zone, over the last

three decades. The Sahel humanitarian crisis—arising from climate change, desertification, food

insecurity, malaria, meningitis and measles—now severely affects parts of Burkina Faso, Chad,

Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. Although 154 disasters were recorded in the first

five years of this decade compared to 136 during the past two decades, this high increase may be

attributed to three contributory factors, namely:

the negative trend of climate change leading to increase in the incidence, severity and/or

duration of droughts, floods, famine, locusts invasion, crop failure, tropical cyclones, and

the overflow of river banks and beaches in coastal areas due to rise in sea level;

the demands of population growth and rapid urbanization leading to depletion of natural

resources and degradation of the environment (deforestation, overgrazing, and pollution)

thereby creating a leeway for soil erosion, desertification and epidemic diseases; and

increased disaster risk awareness and improving disaster monitoring, data collection and

information-sharing capacity, thereby leading to better records of disaster events (this still

falls short of systematic disaster risk indexing and mapping).

However, what is beyond doubt is that the human, environmental and material consequences of

these disasters have increased exponentially, pointing to a corresponding increase in human

vulnerability in the region. Lagos, host to 60% of the industries in Nigeria, is rated one of the 20


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most vulnerable cities in the world. Sadly, vulnerability to hazards and natural disasters in the

region will only worsen given the present trend and negative development indices, such as:

the degenerative quality of some disasters: thus, deforestation may lead to flooding with

increased rainfall, then to soil erosion and then to malaria outbreak; drought may lead to

crop failure where there is no irrigation, then to increases in food prices, and then to

famine over time;

negative demographic trends which, on the one hand, constitute distancing from disaster

prone areas but, on the other hand, may lead to congestion in newly-occupied areas,

thereby increasing the risk of outbreak of epidemic diseases and undermining access to

relief efforts during emergencies;

heavy imbalance in rural-urban development (situation of amenities such as electricity,

pipe-borne water, schools, industries) resulting in rural-urban drift and proliferation of

urban slums or shanty towns with poor sanitation and ventilation and no access to clean

water;

inadequate public commitment and investment to enhance state resilience to disasters

and hazard events by establishing disaster management structures and improving primary

health care delivery; and

reduced individual coping capacity due to the devastating effects of armed conflict, high

rate of poverty and increasing levels of youth unemployment (70% of the West African

population living on less than US$2 a day can ill afford first aid, preventive drugs,

mosquito nets, clean water or blankets).

Haunting imagery from Richard D. Kaplan’s incisive article, The Coming Anarchy written a decade

and a half ago easily comes to mind. The interplay of disaster, conflict and underdevelopment in

parts of sub-Saharan Africa leads to what is now called “complex emergencies”, a phenomenon

that continues to daunt humanitarian and development efforts. Poverty and unemployment

engender culturally and socially-abhorrent behaviours such as prostitution, thus increasing the

risk of spread of HIV/AIDS. Systemic exclusion of the youth and other groups in Nigeria drives

people to resort to high-risk, high-profitability informal and criminal activities such as illegal

mining and sabotage of oil pipelines, often causing pollution of water bodies, infernos and

untimely death. If this trend remains unchecked, the next two decades may well turn out to be

lost to hazards despite stand-alone efforts to address peace and security in West Africa. A clear

lack of an integrated approach to security and development is demonstrated by the fact that the

ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) was originally conceived as an exclusively military force. The


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civilian component of the ESF, of which the ECOWAS Emergency Response Team (EERT) is a

part, was only conceived as an add-on to the force in 2006. This situation informs the need to

integrate DRR as a priority concern in the security and development agenda of the ECOWAS

Commission and ECOWAS member states.

The Conflict Dimension: Double Jeopardy

While constituting a credible analytic technique, disaggregating the negative development indices

(as done above) sort of warps the whole picture: the common thread is that climate change,

population growth, rapid urbanization, and shrinking state capacity altogether create social stress

and increase vulnerability, thereby constituting remote drivers of conflict. The link between

disaster risk and conflict is mutually reinforcing. First there is a (armed) conflict-induced disaster;

then there is disaster-induced conflict which, though disclosing a tenuous link, may further

increase vulnerability to disaster and hazard. Let us explore this connexion on several fronts.

Disasters occurring in the immediate aftermath of armed conflict exacerbate the humanitarian

consequences of conflict for which West Africa is now the poster child. Such disasters are

engendered by the disruption of livelihoods, family and social support networks, vulnerability of

refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the diversion of developmental resources

to fund conflict.

Disruption of livelihoods and social support networks

With the displacement of populations and disruption of economic activities and entitlements,

individual coping capacity in the face of disaster is diminished. Closely-knit social support

networks (such as the ubiquitous African extended family system, thrift and micro-credit clubs of

market women, community development and the dependency structure of age grades in Liberia)

usually form the first line of disaster risk warning and emergency response at the community

level. The effectiveness of these networks lies in the fact that societies are complex adaptive

systems emerging through sundry locally interconnected and interacting relationships of trust.

However, these networks are dislocated with prolonged armed conflict. In 2007, the Deputy

Minister for Sport, Youth and Child Development in Sierra Leone, Angela Cifire, lamented the

collapse of the extended family system which provides a web of support and provisioning. She

attributed the inability to cope with the increasing number of orphans and vulnerable children in


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the country to this development. Family dislocation has also affected rights to land, agriculture,

and economic activities. It has also forced women to assume new cultural roles as heads of some

households with the demise or displacement of the male heads. Often, the result of conflict is

increased vulnerability and reduced coping capacity in the face of disasters such as famine and

drought.

Unregulated flow of refugees and IDPs

Cross-border spill-over of refugees and resettlement of IDPs form on their own a belligerent

strain of virus that may infect even host communities. Guinea, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire

are yet to fully reverse the fluid flow of refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone. In the early years

of the Liberian conflict, 400,000 Liberians fled to Sierra Leone, 600,000 to Guinea and over

250,000 to Cote d’Ivoire. Refugee camps are often overcrowded, unsanitary and therefore poorly

ventilated, thereby forming sites for the transmission of epidemic diseases and HIV/AIDS. In

June 2003, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)

reported that IDPs in Liberia, particularly children and women, were especially vulnerable to

malnutrition, deteriorating health, trauma and socio-economic dislocation. The humanitarian

situation continued to degenerate with armed activity being directly targeted at settlements

hosting IDPs. Moreover, relief agencies could not reach about 10,000 people residing in camps

as well as thousands of other people who were caught up in conflict areas inaccessible to

humanitarian assistance. In the long period of the Liberian war, deaths attributed to direct

conflict was far less than death attributed to indirect causes like diseases and starvation which

decimated civilian populations. Such collateral damage is simply unacceptable.

Diversion of developmental funds/resources

Armed conflict may worsen the effect of disaster by diverting funds meant for developmental

projects to the prosecution of warfare, thereby indirectly diminishing the capacity of states to

effectively plan for, respond to, or manage disasters. In 2000, the government of Chad admitted

diverting US$4 million of oil investment to boost its arsenal against the northern rebels.

Proceeds from hardwood in Liberia and gemstones in Sierra Leone were also the primary

sources of funding for the war efforts. The buffer of primary health care delivery is an instance.

Where health infrastructure is destroyed in conflict and cannot be immediately replaced, the


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danger posed to local populations is enormous. National platforms and initiatives for DRR

should complement regional and continental structures. Where such national platforms are weak

or non-existent, regional resources may become significantly over-stretched.

On the other hand, poorly managed disaster and hazard events may induce fresh conflict or

exacerbate ongoing conflict. Disaster-induced conflict may arise from increased competition for

scarce resources, and distortion of rights to land and other cultural practices.

Increased competition for scarce resources

In the near future in West Africa, desertification, floods and soil erosion and would lead to

increased competition for scarce arable land and grazing fields, which may in turn lead to

aggravated conflict as is the case in present day southern Sudan. In Nigeria, Fulani herdsmen

now migrate southwards in the dry season due to drought and desertification in the north, often

leading to destruction of food crops and farmlands in the wake of the food chain episodes. Low-

level conflict between the itinerant herdsmen and southern farm owners has become a recurring

phenomenon. Since the two occupational groups are also divided along ethnic and religious lines,

such friction could trigger pervasive ethnic conflict by opening bottled-up grievances. In the

1970s and 1980s, negative demographic trends also led to the phenomenon of “environmental

refugees” in the Sahel region, bringing about unchecked influx of human populations offering

cheap labour from Mauritania to Senegal. This caused friction with host communities and the

government.

Distortion of rights to land and other cultural practices

Disaster-induced conflict may also arise from distortion of rights to land and land use arising

from resettlement of IDPs (the abandoned property phenomenon at the end of the Nigerian

civil war is a case in hand), and culturally- and gender-insensitive distribution of emergency relief

(food aid and medicaid). With respect to the latter category, the International Committee of the

Red Cross’ universal principles of humanity and humanitarian imperative may face challenges on

the ground as socially constructed roles and customs grant primacy to the men folk (who are

customarily the breadwinners) or family and social status, rather than women and children. The

allocation of communal land, property and entitlements (including food and money) in some

communities in southern Nigeria is per stipes, not per head. This means that allocation is done


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not according to individual needs, but according to (often polygamous) family sub-groupings

represented by a male child. Hypothetically, departure from this customary mode of entitlement

may constitute a source of conflict or domestic violence.

Disaster Risk Reduction as Conflict Prevention

The multifaceted and reinforcing linkage between disaster, conflict and development—forming

sub-national and transnational pockets of disaster risk, insecurity and fragility—imply a logical

conclusion: DRR can be positioned and integrated to promote development-sensitive conflict

prevention. The recently adopted ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF) 2008

laments the “weak internal coordination, underutilization and misdirection of existing human

capacities as well as the deployment of limited instruments” in implementation of the preventive

aspects of the pivotal Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management,

Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security 1999 (§ 2, ECPF). A significant coherence in policy is

revealed by the fact that Chapter VIII of the 1999 Mechanism and one of the 14 components of

the ECPF is humanitarian assistance. Hitting on a link between disaster and conflict, one of the

objectives of the humanitarian assistance component of the ECPF (§ 93 ff.) is to “mitigate the

impact of humanitarian disasters and emergencies that could result in social and political

upheaval”.

However, ECOWAS’ posture to disasters is overwhelmingly reactive rather than preventive.

There is therefore the need for policy repositioning to make the institution more attuned to the

human security and development challenges of the 21st century. Primary consideration should be

given to the legal and moral responsibility to prevent and mitigate disasters and hazard events,

over the responsibility to react and rebuild. Pursuant to § 94 (c) of the ECPF, mainstreaming

DRR into ECOWAS and member states’ security and development policy will contribute in no

small measure to reducing disaster-induced conflict, and will cushion the debilitating impact of

natural disasters and hazard events in the face of armed conflict.

Planning From the Future

Planning from the future requires institutionalizing a systematic way of identifying, monitoring,

forecasting, and mitigating (long-term) threats that would have a negative impact on security and

development. Mechanisms for early warning of disaster within the ECOWAS system are still


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essentially ad hoc, informal and haphazard. In terms of a cost-benefit analysis, the cost of

institutionalizing and boosting early warning and early response capacity greatly outweighs the

high risk, high probability, and damaging consequences of disaster risk in West Africa. Early

warning systems should comprise four components, viz: (a) hazard detection, observation and

forecasting; (b) warning formulation; (c) warning dissemination; and (d) response to warnings.

However, the potential of the ECOWAS early warning system is yet to be fully maximized.

Fortunately, an early warning system has a cross-cutting, multi-functional capacity, thus making it

interoperable in the areas of conflict prevention, disaster risk reduction, agricultural and human

development. At the level of the ECOWAS Commission, this would entail greater internal

coordination and sharing of information among the departments dealing with Political Affairs,

Peace and Security; Humanitarian Affairs, Human Development and Gender; and Agriculture,

Environment and Water Resources. In fact, there can be no rigid compartmentalization of

development and security concerns from issues of environmental and humanitarian disasters,

drought and famine, as all of these factors impinge on state resilience.

Acknowledging disaster risks as conflict drivers, the ECOWAS Warning and Response Network

(ECOWARN) uses a pool of indicators that comprises disaster events (accident or other hazard

resulting in an emergency situation, acute pollution or environmental damage, flood or wildfire,

severe climatic condition such as drought, and invasion of locusts or other pest) in order to

improve disaster response preparedness. It also includes other heads having a bearing on disaster

risk such as women, children, refugees and IDPs; health and social services; agriculture, farming,

fishing, livestock and mining. Despite this comprehensive coverage, systematic data is usually not

readily available as the development of capacity for disaster monitoring, reporting, and analysis is

still at its embryonic stage.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) monitors and

publishes high risk hazards and countries at risk in West Africa and other regions in its quarterly

Disaster Risk Trends. The monitoring is done by the Virtual On-Site Operations Coordination

Centre which is similar to the model that the Observation and Monitoring Centre (OMC) of the

ECOWAS system intends to establish. Closer home, Nigeria’s geo-stationary Communication

Satellite (NigComSat-1) which was launched into orbit in May 2007 is a multi-functional facility.

It was (before its untimely malfunctioning) reputed to have the capacity for real-time disaster

monitoring services and is supposed to enable access to even the remotest rural villages through

the internet. NigComSat-1 is a public-private-partnership venture under the Nigeria’s Ministry of

Science and Technology. Such existing local capacity should be tapped into and improved upon


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in order to achieve rapid and coordinated deployment of humanitarian relief according to need,

which would in turn cushion the harsh effects of disasters on populations and boost resilience in

affected states. The draft ECOWAS Policy for Disaster Risk Reduction—one of which focus

areas is improving identification, assessment, monitoring and early warning of disaster risks—

already provides an entry point for cooperation.

Disaster Risk Indexing: Beyond Early Warning

If ECOWAS is to reverse the negative trend of disaster risk, surmount the threat to sustainable

development, and mitigate future consequences, then it needs to be more anticipatory, adaptive

and agile. Reducing disaster risk requires venturing beyond reacting to imminent or subsisting

threats on the early warning radar. Notably, the “shiny tools” wielded by the OMC are periodic

assessment reports—Daily Highlights, Incident Report, Situation Report, and Strategic

Assessment—based on data gathered from the field on a daily basis. These tools are ill-adapted

to deal with the complex social, political and developmental factors that underline disaster risk in

West Africa. Rather than seeing every disaster or hazard that arises as a one-off event, DRR

strategy should adopt a more integrated and sustainable way of reducing vulnerabilities and risks.

Technological expertise already exists to develop a Geographical Information System for disaster

mapping and indexing for the region which would inform long-term policy formulation in an

increasingly complex and uncertain era. A Disaster Risk Index (DRI)—an easily updatable and

interactive electronic database—will, among other things:

complement bottom-up early warning signals by recording, tracking, mapping disaster

events, thereby developing long-term predictive capacity for emerging disaster risk trends

such as the effects of climate change on the ecosystem and human populations;

improve crisis prevention, preparedness, response and recovery by enabling empirical

and systematic analyses of risk and probability indices of geographically-defined disasters

and hazard events;

increase awareness, sequence initiatives and target action to boost resilience in high-

vulnerability areas, especially areas where disasters are recurrent (this method has worked

in the management of tropical cyclones in Bangladesh);

inform policy and action to control and/or reverse slow-onset natural disasters such as

desertification and soil erosion, and to manage and prevent sudden-onset disasters and

hazard events such as floods and epidemic diseases.


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Fundamentally, DRI will bridge the gap between systematic research and early warning analysis

on the one hand, and long-term policy formulation on the other. The output will also support

the process of adaptation and periodic review of the ECOWAS Policy for DRR (§ 8.5, page 23).

The needed impetus to move from policy to action will come with (a) demonstrating the political

commitment (adoption of the Policy by the Council of Ministers and the Authority of Heads of

State and Government of ECOWAS, and transmission to member states); and (b) providing the

financial muscle (the disaster management window under the ECOWAS Peace Fund would

serve as the principal source) to secure our future.

Next Steps for the ECOWAS Policy for Disaster Risk Reduction

The ECOWAS Policy for DRR is not a panacea for disaster risk but only a first step. It contains

an expression of agreed principles, objectives, priorities and institutional aspects of developing

effective disaster risk management capacity in the sub-region. While the Policy makes problem-

solving simpler and more structured, the process of generating a blueprint eliminates essential

context-specific nuances and complexities. For instance, the manner of holistically addressing

disaster caused by flooding in Lagos, Nigeria is quite different from the manner of addressing

disaster caused by drought in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. An overarching regional policy can better

be directed to address generic manifestations and humanitarian consequences of disasters,

thereby mitigating their impact. However, it may do little to decipher the less visible dynamics

and matrix of interactions that underline vulnerability to disaster risk in each case.

Therefore, there is the need to develop a Programme of Action (POA) for implementation of

the Policy which would detail components of priority actions in member states in operational

language. Such POA would elaborate a workable strategy, relevant activities, realistic timeline,

measurable indicators, and key stakeholders. The ECOWAS Policy for DRR points to this

development, but remains mute on the empirical bases for the Programme of Action, and on the

procedure for identifying the priorities.

Conclusion: A Safer Future

Until a few decades ago, natural disasters were viewed as one-off events, unrelated to social and

developmental processes. The overriding contingency planning approach emphasized disaster

preparedness as a means of increasing the effectiveness of delivery of emergency relief, and as a


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stopgap between the disruption of development process by disaster events and the continuance

of development after recovery. However, the exponential increase in the human and material

impact of disaster events in West Africa and in other parts of the world over the past three

decades indicates that the consequences are directly related to an increase in human vulnerability.

In turn, vulnerability to disaster risk is often induced by the humanitarian consequences of armed

conflict. This trend therefore necessitates policy repositioning to prioritize disaster prevention

over reaction, and a holistic and integrated approach to conflict prevention and DRR.

Home grown remedial and strategic actions that have been taken in parts of Nigeria include:

the plant-a-tree initiative supported by government, community groups and civil society

targeted at controlling deforestation, desertification and soil erosion;

mapping out grazing reserves in parts of northern Nigeria in order to curb north-south

migration and conflict between pastoralists and farmers;

informing people in local languages through the media to store grains, salt, blankets,

firewood, and other subsistent reserves to serve as first aid in the event of disaster;

government and private sector initiatives in recycling waste to clear the environmental

hazard constituted by refuse dumps in cities;

educating people on the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, and

the need for emergency preparedness (the British Council and Radio Nigeria partner on a

programme, Climate Change and You, broadcast every Tuesday evening on the national

radio network); and importantly

preparation and dissemination of a National Disaster Reduction Plan by the National

Emergency Management Agency which was established in 1999, and enactment of the

Environmental Impact Assessment Act by the National Assembly (Ghana, Mali and

Senegal have also followed suit).

While these efforts are commendable, taken together, they amount to just a drop in the ocean

considering the social and humanitarian consequences of disasters. West African states are at risk

of falling behind the targets of the Millennium Development Goals due to the present danger

constituted by disaster risk and hazard events. According to the State of the World’s Cities Report

2008/2009, over one half of urban populations in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau,

Senegal and Sierra Leone live in slum areas with the associated dangers of outbreak of epidemic

diseases, social unrest and insecurity. The trickle-down effect of the global economic recession

on vulnerable societies in West Africa may yet become apparent with the looming drying-up of


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emergency relief and humanitarian aid from international agencies and donor countries. To form

a buffer against this possibility, ECOWAS needs to complement and support local and national

initiatives and coping mechanisms. ECOWAS policy and initiatives should target enhancing

multi-tiered and cross-cutting institutional anticipatory and adaptive capacity, both at the national

and regional levels.


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AfDB, AU, NEPAD, UN/ISDR (2004), Guidelines for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Assessment in

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AfDB, et al. (2003), Poverty and Climate Change: Reducing the Vulnerability of the Poor Through

Adaptation

Kaplan, Robert (1994), “The Coming Anarchy”, Atlantic Monthly @

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/199402/anarchy, last accessed 10 March 2009

Mitchell, Thomas (2003), An Operational Framework for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction,

Benfield Hazard Research Centre Disaster Studies Working Paper 8

UN/ISDR (2004), Disaster Risk Reduction, Governance and Development, UN/ISDR Africa

Educational Series, Volume 2, Issue 4

UNDP (2004), Reducing Disaster Risk: A Challenge for Development, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and

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http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/199402/anarchy

interface between disaster risk and armed conflict

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