BURNING GROUND

Tackling Climate Change and

Conflict in South-central Somalia

kheira tarif
STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL
PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into

conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966,
SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources,
to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public.
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publications of the Institute.

GOVERNING BOARD

Stefan Löfven, Chair (Sweden)

Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas (Ghana)
Ambassador Chan Heng Chee (Singapore)
Dr Noha El-Mikawy (Egypt)
Jean-Marie Guéhenno (France)
Dr Radha Kumar (India)
Dr Patricia Lewis (Ireland/United Kingdom)
Dr Jessica Tuchman Mathews (United States)

DIRECTOR

Dan Smith (United Kingdom)

Signalistgatan 9
SE-169 70 Solna, Sweden
Telephone: +46 8 655 97 00
Email: [email protected]
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BURNING GROUND

Tackling Climate Change and

Conflict in South-central Somalia

kheira tarif

May 2024
© SIPRI 2024
DOI No: 10.55163/ZZWG4815

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of SIPRI or as
expressly permitted by law.
Contents
Acknowledgements iv
Summary v
1. Introduction 1
The environmental peacebuilding framework 2
2. Climate change, conflict and compounding risks in south-central Somalia 5
Conflict and governance 5
Geography and climate change 6
Climate-related security risks 7
Figure 2.1. Map of Somalia’s Federal Member States and map of the Galmudug 6
and Hirshabelle states, where the Deegan Bile projects took place
3. The environmental peacebuilding approach of the Deegan Bile projects 9
Conflict analysis 9
Project design 10
Box 3.1. The International Organization for Migration 10
Box 3.2. Theories of change for addressing climate change and conflict 11
4. Opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding approach 13
Natural resource management 13
Cross-clan collaboration 18
State–society relationships 20
Box 4.1. The role of SIPRI as a research partner in the Deegan Bile projects 16
Table 4.1. Perception survey data responses 14
Table 4.2. Focus group discussion locations and number of participants 15
5. Challenges of the environmental peacebuilding approach 24
Maladaptation risk: Balancing the interests of humans and nature 24
Political challenges: Sustaining positive outcomes in the context of conflict 26
Evaluation challenges: Capturing long-term changes in communities 27
and the environment
6. Lessons learned from the Deegan Bile projects 28
Lesson 1: Natural resource governance can support local peacebuilding 28
Lesson 2: Climate action can support peacebuilding 28
Lesson 3: Climate action can support the development of formal governance 29
structures
7. Conclusions 31

About the author 32

Acknowledgements
This report is part of a partnership between the International Organization for Migra­
tion (IOM) in Somalia and SIPRI and funded by the European Union Foreign Policy
Instrument. The perception survey and focus group discussions carried out as part of
this research project would not have been possible without Shourjya Deb (SIPRI) and
the Elman Peace team, led by Ilwad Elman. The author is grateful to the people who
reviewed and provided feedback on early versions of this paper: Anniek Barnhoorn,
Virginie Baudais, Farah Hegazi, Osman Jama, Florian Krampe, Karen Meijer and Jason
Mosely. Special thanks go to the International Organization for Migration Somalia
team, led by Daniel Norfolk and Rikka Tupaz, and to Christophe Hodder (United
Nations Environment Programme) for their willingness to share lessons learned and
discuss new ideas.
Summary
Somalia is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, in
part because of the enduring effects of over three decades of violent conflict. From mid-
2021 to early 2023 Somalia experienced its most severe drought on record. At the height
of the drought, in August 2022, clan militias and the Somali Armed Forces launched
operations against the armed group Al-Shabab in areas of south-central Somalia that
have little to no government presence and very limited capacity to cope with the effects
of drought. In 2022, some 1.3 million people were internally displaced by drought and
more than 600 000 (the highest number in over a decade) by violent conflict.
There is an urgent need to address the effects of climate change and the drivers of con­
flict in Somalia, but there are few examples of initiatives that seek to address both issues
in tandem. This paper presents findings from two European Union-funded projects
led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Somalia, in partner­ship
with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and SIPRI. The Deegan
Bile (‘enhancing the environment’ in Somali) projects sought to use climate action as
a platform for reducing violent conflict over natural resources in the Federal Member
States of Galmudug and Hirshabelle.
This paper examines the Deegan Bile projects as examples of environmental peace­
building, which encompasses approaches that address the environmental impacts of
conflict and identify environment-related opportunities for peacebuilding. It finds that
approach used by the IOM can support credible, inclusive local institutions for natural
resource management, foster cross-clan collaboration on climate-smart infrastructure
and nature-based solutions, and forge or strengthen relationships between formal
authorities and rural communities through their joint design, planning and implemen­
tation of activities aimed at both climate action and conflict reduction. All these factors
are essential to the success of climate action and peacebuilding initiatives.
This research has also identified lessons for comparable environmental peacebuild­
ing approaches. Policymakers and practitioners should carefully consider the need to
delicately balance the interests of humans and nature in project design, the imperative to
ensure the political sustainability of project outcomes, and the necessity to comprehen­
sively evaluate both the social and the environmental impacts of a project—which is
difficult given the short time frames of project implementation periods and the narrow
indicators available.
As the global community grapples with the intertwined challenges of climate change
and conflict, there is a real need for iterative responses that facilitate action and learn­
ing in tandem. The Deegan Bile projects therefore offer crucial insights into both the
opportunities and the hurdles for designing and implementing environmental peace­
building approaches that address the impacts of climate change while also contributing
to sustainable peace in fragile contexts. This paper therefore concludes with lessons for
climate action and peacebuilding that could be applied more broadly in Somalia as well
as in other fragile and conflict-affected areas. It highlights lessons for gender-sensitive
environmental peacebuilding, for evaluating the long-term impacts of environmental
peacebuilding, for community-based approaches that are context-specific and flexible,
and for connecting rural development to political peace processes.
1. Introduction
‘The ground beneath our feet is burning. What do you think this will do to livestock?’1
This sentiment, voiced by a participant of a focus group discussion in QodQod, located
in Somalia’s south-central Hirshabelle Federal Member State, echoes the stories shared
of how rising temperatures and prolonged droughts have decimated livestock and
severely affected every household in the community. In 2023, drought became the lead­
ing cause of displacement.2
From mid-2021 to early 2023 Somalia experienced its most severe drought on record;
five consecutive failed rainy seasons led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands
of people and the devastation of livelihoods, and raised the spectre of famine in some
areas.3 Climate change is affecting the Horn of Africa.4 Higher air temperatures and
increasing evaporation have a significant impact on the frequency of droughts, and their
severity—including the most recent one.5 In the midst of this devastation, in August
2022 clan militias and the Somali Armed Forces launched operations against the armed
group Al-Shabab in areas of south-central Somalia that have little to no government
presence and very limited capacity to cope with the effects of drought.6
As climate change accelerates and decades-long conflict persists in Somalia, there is a
pressing need for responses that address both challenges in tandem. The convergence of
climate change and conflict is undermining livelihoods and local economies. Disasters
that are rendered more likely because of climate change, such as droughts and floods,
and military and armed group operations disproportionately affect marginalized
and minority groups, exacerbating an already precarious humanitarian situation and
limiting opportunities to support resilience and peace.7 The projections for climate
change in Somalia indicate it will likely contribute to increasingly intractable climate-
related security risks that are hard to address.
In the light of these challenges, a European Union funded collaboration between
the Inter­national Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Environ­ment
Programme (UNEP) and SIPRI applied an innovative approach to addressing climate
change and conflict in Somalia. Two IOM-led projects, known as the Deegan Bile
(‘enhancing the environment’ in Somali) projects, were implemented in the Federal
Member States (FMS) of Galmudug (from January 2022 to June 2023) and Hirshabelle
(from August 2022 to February 2024). The aim of these projects was to (a) strengthen
nat­ural resource governance in the face of compounding challenges posed by climate
change and conflict and (b) reduce the incidence of violent conflict over natural
resources (including water, pastures, forests and fisheries) by using climate action to
build more resilient livelihoods and local economies.8
As a research partner to the projects, SIPRI explored how the IOM approach of
addressing climate change together with conflict can support both climate action
and peacebuilding. This paper presents findings from the Deegan Bile projects for

1 Participant in a focus group discussion, QodQod, Somalia, 27 Jan. 2024.

2 For data on displacement in Somalia, see Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster,
New Arrivals Tracking Tool, [n.d.], accessed 20 Jan. 2024.
3 For data on the impacts of the drought, see United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA), Horn of Africa Drought Data Explorer, [n.d.], accessed 20 Jan. 2024.
4 Climate change is characterized by long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns.
5 World Weather Attribution, ‘Human-induced climate change increased drought severity in Horn of Africa’,
27 Apr. 2023.
6 International Crisis Group, Sustaining Gains in Somalia’s Offensive against Al-Shabaab, Crisis Group Africa
Briefing no. 187 (International Crisis Group: Mogadishu, Mar. 2023).
7 OCHA, Humanitarian Needs Overview: Somalia, Humanitarian programme cycle 2023 (OCHA: Feb. 2023).
8 The two Breaking the Climate–Conflict Cycle projects, in Galmudug and Hirshabelle, are funded by the
European Commission’s Foreign Policy Instruments.
2 burning ground

researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in examples of climate action

promoting peacebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected areas. The paper combines
these findings with those from community perspectives in the Deegan Bile target areas
and from academic research.
The paper finds that the environmental peacebuilding approach applied by IOM in
the Deegan Bile projects can support credible, inclusive local natural resource manage­
ment that reduces local conflicts. It also finds that the approach can foster cross-clan
collaboration on climate action, including nature-based solutions.9 Furthermore, it
finds that the planning and implementation of such projects can forge or strengthen
relationships among state-level government ministries and bring local authorities
closer to rural communities through participatory design, planning and implemen­
tation of project activities. In addition, the paper identifies and discusses three chal­
lenges or trade-offs associated with the approach used in the Deegan Bile projects: the
risk of maladaptation (unintended, adverse consequences) arising from the projects,
the political sustainability of the projects’ outcomes, and limitations in monitoring and
evaluating and therefore understanding the impacts of the projects.

The environmental peacebuilding framework

As a research partner to IOM and UNEP, SIPRI approached the Deegan Bile projects as
environmental peacebuilding case studies. Environmental peacebuilding encompasses
approaches to addressing the environmental impacts of conflict and to identifying
environment-related opportunities for peacebuilding. This framework is applicable
to the Deegan Bile projects because IOM has identified the effects of climate change
on the environment as a driver of both violent conflict and forced displacement and,
as such, has pinpointed climate change adaptation as an entry point to building local
resilience to climate variability, conflict and forced displacement.10
Environmental peacebuilding recognizes that well-designed approaches to cope
with or manage environmental issues ‘can support conflict prevention, mitigation,
resolution and recovery’.11 While the academic literature has sometimes theorized that
environmental issues are drivers of violence and conflict, environmental peacebuilding
rests on the assumption that the environment can incentivize collaboration and over­
come zero-sum logic.12 Environmental and natural resource governance are theorized
to strengthen (a) intergroup relationships (through collaboration), (b) environmental
and other governance norms, and (c) state service provision and state–society relation­
ships.13 Case studies have demonstrated the potential of environmental peacebuilding
to contribute to conflict reduction through capacity building and collaboration on
implementing projects—including those related to ecosystem restoration, equitable
water access and sustainable agricultural practices—which lead to tangible benefits

9 Nature-based solutions encompass actions aimed at protecting, managing and restoring ecosystems.
10 Climate change adaptation encompasses measures to adapt to rather than mitigate the effects of climate
change. Climate variability refers to changes in weather that last longer than individual weather events.
11 Ide, T. et al., ‘The past and future(s) of environmental peacebuilding’, International Affairs, vol. 97, no. 1 (Jan.
2021), p. 3.
12 de Soysa, I., ‘Ecoviolence: Shrinking pie, or honey pot?’ Global Environmental Politics, vol. 2, no. 4 (Nov. 2002);
Collier, P. and Hoeffler, A., Greed and Grievance in Civil War, Policy Research Working Paper no. 2355 (World Bank:
Washington, DC, May 2000); Conca, K. and Dabelko, G. D., Environmental Peacemaking (Woodrow Wilson Center
Press/Johns Hopkins University Press: Washington, DC/Baltimore, MD, 2002); and Dresse, A. et al., ‘Environmental
peacebuilding: Towards a theoretical framework’, Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 54, no. 1 (Mar. 2019).
13 Krampe, F., Hegazi, F. and VanDeveer, S. D., ‘Sustaining peace through better resource governance: Three
potential mechanisms for environmental peacebuilding’, World Development, vol. 144 (Aug. 2021).
 introduction 3

such as supported livelihoods and strengthened relationships between groups in con­

flict.14
The emphasis on joint project implementation in environmental peacebuilding
echoes other research findings suggesting that infrastructure projects can support
peacebuilding when they are used as a platform for dialogue and for building on the
shared interests of parties in conflict. For infrastructure development to be an effective
peacebuilding approach, it must support human-driven, intergroup peace processes;
therefore, its relationship to peacebuilding ‘can emerge only in interaction with what
people actually use [the infrastructure] for . . .’.15 The infrastructure approach is distinct
from post-conflict (re)construction, which is often aimed at supporting post-conflict
development, economic growth and rural–urban integration, because the design and
building of the infrastructure becomes a peacebuilding processes in itself. The infra­
structure approach should also be linked to—rather than operate in parallel with
or be used as a substitute for—other peacebuilding efforts, and it should be able to
adapt—on the basis of close assessment—to the local context before, during and after
construction.16
Environmental peacebuilding is not without pitfalls, and in some cases has been
perceived as a greenwashing effort to normalize existing structural inequalities with­
out providing justice, including environmental justice, to marginalized groups.17
Environmental peacebuilding can also have unintended adverse consequences, such
as depoliticizing structural conflict drivers, displacing communities (e.g. for nature
conservation), reinforcing discrimination and inequality, exacerbating conflict
dynamics, delegitimizing formal authorities and contributing to environmental
degradation.18 Case studies underscore the need to mitigate these risks by conducting
analyses of structural inequalities that can lead environmental peacebuilding initia­
tives to be co-opted by stronger groups or to reinforce the marginalization of weaker
groups. They also highlight the potential for large-scale infrastructure projects (e.g.
dams, peace parks) to cause more damage than localized and tailored environmental
peacebuilding initiatives.19
Taken together, environmental peacebuilding and ‘infrastructure as peacebuilding’
research points to the opportunities that climate change mitigation and climate change
adaptation present for peacebuilding.20 Climate action entails large-scale shifts in pat­
terns of resource extraction, land use and distribution of financial resources, which
increases its potential to generate negative societal impacts by reinforcing existing or
creating new inequalities.21 For climate action to contribute to positive social change,
the environmental peacebuilding literature emphasizes the importance of achieving
peace outcomes with processes of change that are inclusive (e.g. of different societal

14 Johnson, M. F., Rodríguez, L. A. and Quijano Hoyos, M., ‘Intrastate environmental peacebuilding: A review of
the literature’, World Development, vol. 137 (Jan. 2021).
15 Bachmann, J. and Schouten, P., ‘Concrete approaches to peace: Infrastructure as peacebuilding’, Inter­national
Affairs, vol. 94, no. 2 (Mar. 2018), p. 390.
16 Fantini, C. et al., Infrastructure for Peacebuilding: The Role of Infrastructure in Tackling the Underlying Drivers
of Fragility (United Nations Office for Project Services: Copenhagen, Sep. 2020); Bachmann and Schouten (note 15);
and van Tongeren, P. et al., ‘The evolving landscape of infrastructures for peace’, Journal of Peacebuilding and
Develop­ment, vol. 7, no. 3 (Dec. 2012).
17 Ben-Shmuel, A. T. and Halle, S., ‘Beyond greenwashing: Prioritizing environmental justice in conflict-affected
settings’, Environment and Security, vol. 1, no. 3–4 (Dec. 2023).
18 Ide, T., ‘The dark side of environmental peacebuilding’, World Development, vol. 127 (Mar. 2020).
19 Ide (note 18).
20 Climate change mitigation encompasses actions taken to limit climate change.
21 Buhaug, H. et al., ‘Climate-driven risks to peace over the 21st century’, Climate Risk Management, vol. 39 (2023).
4 burning ground

groups and different gender perspectives), conflict-sensitive and cognizant of relevant

power dynamics.22
Environmental peacebuilding is not a new field, yet the number of examples of how
these processes are applied in practice and how they can be sequenced to reinforce
positive outcomes is limited.23 Examples of the impacts of climate change on conflict
and of the opportunities provided by climate action for peacebuilding are even rarer.24
Dresse et al. (2019) proposed filling this gap by examining environmental peacebuild­
ing processes from three angles: (a) initial environmental and sociopolitical con­
ditions; (b) mechanisms by which conflict is addressed and how the mechanisms are
implemented; and (c) direct and indirect, as well as expected and actual, outcomes and
benefits.25 This paper is structured along these lines and utilizes the environmental
peacebuilding framework in exploring the approach used by IOM in the Deegan Bile
projects and in clarifying the lessons that emerge for environmental peacebuilding
approaches in Somalia and other fragile and conflict-affected countries or areas.

Chapter 2 of this paper summarizes the context of the Deegan Bile projects in terms
of conflict and governance in Somalia, Somalia’s geography and vulnerability to climate
change, and compounding risks relating to the interaction between climate change and
conflict in Somalia. Chapter 3 highlights the elements of environmental peacebuilding
incorporated in the design and approach of the projects. Chapter 4 presents the find­ings
from the projects structured along (a) natural resource management, (b) cross-clan
collaboration and (c) state–society relationships. Chapter 5 discusses challenges and
trade-offs of the environmental peacebuilding approach. Finally, chapter 6 concludes
with lessons learned from the Deegan Bile projects and implications for climate action
and peacebuilding in Somalia and other fragile and conflict-affected countries or areas.

22 Bruch, C. and Woomer, A., Toolkit on Monitoring and Evaluation of Environmental Peacebuilding (Environ­
mental Law Institute: Washington, DC, Nov. 2023).
23 For examples of relevant projects, see Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Agro-pastoral Mediation in the Sahel
(Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad) (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue: Geneva, 2021); and IOM
Nigeria, ‘IOM partners with Mercy Corps and Search for Common Ground on a project to mitigate conflict between
farmer and herder communities in Adamawa State’, Press release, 22 June 2022.
24 Krampe, F. et al., ‘Climate change and peacebuilding: Sub-themes of an emerging research agenda’, Inter­
national Affairs, iiae057 (Apr. 2024).
25 Dresse et al. (note 12).
2. Climate change, conflict and compounding risks
in south-central Somalia
Conflict and governance

Somalia has experienced violent conflict for more than 30 years, during which its
governance systems have become fragmented and contested. It is a federal republic, with
a federal government whose seat is in the capital, Mogadishu, five FMS (see figure 2.1)
and a self-declared independent state (Somaliland).26 Governance is based on a model
of clan consociationalism under which the ‘4.5 formula’ allocates most parliamentary
seats to the four main clans, with the remaining seats reserved for minority clans as well
as women from both the major and the minor clans.27 Disagreement over the different
governing roles of the Federal Government of Somalia and the FMS continue to fuel
political tensions, which impede the finalization and ratification of the 2012 provisional
Constitution. In practice, governance remains heavily fragmented between formal and
informal (local) authorities, the latter of which includes civil society groups and non-
state armed groups that provide services in parts of the country without the presence of
formal authorities.28
The armed group Al-Shabab has been the primary focus of counter-terrorism and
stabilization strategies in Somalia for most of the past two decades. While Somali
Government and African Union troops control many cities and the supply routes
between them, Al-Shabab wields significant influence in parts of southern Somalia as
well as in some rural areas and small towns in other parts of the country.29 In towns
under Al-Shabab control, the group’s role in local governance encompasses security
and inter-clan dispute resolution, which includes the enforcement of court orders.
Despite recent territorial gains made against Al-Shabab in Galmudug and Hirshabelle
FMS, the group continues to negotiate agreements with disaffected clans that allow it
to maintain a presence in areas outside its control.30
The conflict with Al-Shabab intersects with other conflict dynamics in Somalia,
including tensions around political power-sharing and local-level violence over natural
resources. In many cases, conflicts in Somalia are framed by clan affiliations and the
competing interests between different clans.31 The UN estimates that inter-clan and
intra-clan conflicts account for 35–40 per cent of reported violence in Somalia.32
Con­flict at all levels has detrimental effects: the threat of attacks on civil­ians and infra­
structure, recurring and protracted displacement, restricted freedom of movement and
food insecurity all affect Somali communities.33 Furthermore, humani­tarian, develop­

26 Somaliland is internationally recognized as part of Somalia. Puntland, one of the five FMS, is a self-declared
autonomous state.
27 ConstitutionNet, ‘Constitutional history of Somalia’, [n.d.], accessed 13 Mar. 2024.
28 Jama, O. M. et al., ‘Participation of civil society in decisions to mitigate environmental degradation in post-
conflict societies: Evidence from Somalia’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, vol. 63, no. 9 (July
2020).
29 See, for example, map 1 (‘Somalia: Approximate Territorial Control, 30 November 2022’ (source: Political
Geography Now)), p. 12, in European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), Somalia: Defection, Desertion and Dis­
engage­ment from Al-Shabaab, Country of Origin Information (EUAA and Publications Office of the European
Union: Luxembourg, 2023).
30 Mubarak, M. and Jackson, A., Playing the Long Game: Exploring the Relationship between Al-Shabab and Civil­
ians in Areas Beyond State Control (ODI: London, Aug. 2023).
31 International Crisis Group, Avoiding a New Cycle of Conflict in Somalia’s Galmudug State, Crisis Group Africa
Briefing no. 193 (International Crisis Group: Mogadishu, Sep. 2023).
32 United Nations Somalia, United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2021–2025 (United
Nations Somalia: Oct. 2020).
33 OCHA, Humanitarian Response Plan: Somalia, Humanitarian programme cycle 2023 (OCHA: Feb. 2023); and
OCHA, ‘Somalia: Flash update on the situation in Laas Caanood, Sool Region’, no. 4, 3 Apr. 2023.
6 burning ground

Figure 2.1. Map of Somalia’s Federal Member States and map of the Galmudug and
Hirshabelle states, where the Deegan Bile projects took place

ment and peacebuilding organizations have limited access to much of the country
owing to conflict.

Geography and climate change

Climate change is driving up temperatures worldwide, leading to more erratic rainfall

patterns and increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Somalia is
one of the countries most exposed and most vulnerable to climate change.34
Somalia is experiencing an increase in mean annual temperature and a reduction in
Gu season (April to June) rainfall.35 In the next 30 years, temperatures are projected
to rise by 1.5–2.3 °C compared with pre-industrial levels.36 Rainfall projections are less
certain, but inter-annual variability is expected to increase the frequency and severity
of droughts and floods.37
The hottest and driest conditions in south-central Somalia are found in Galmudug’s
northern-most administrative region, Mudug.38 But rising air temperatures and evapor­
ation, more erratic rainfall, and decreasing water availability and vegetation cover
affect farmers and herders (who are estimated to account for 72 per cent of the national
population) across Somalia.39 More frequent extreme weather events leave individuals
and communities with less time to recover from shocks.
In April 2022 the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
estimated that as much 80 per cent of water sources across Somalia had dried up as a
result of successive failed rainy seasons. The lack of rainfall also affected the Juba River
and Shabelle River basins, where water levels were below historical minimums.40

34 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
Con­tribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
eds H.-O. Pörtner et al. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2022); and Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initia­
tive, ND-GAIN Country Index, country rankings, [n.d.], accessed 20 Jan. 2024.
35 World Bank Group, Climate Change Knowledge Portal, ‘Somalia: Current climate—Trends and significant
change against natural variability’, [n.d.], accessed 20 Jan. 2023.
36 Binder, L. et al., Climate Risk Profile Somalia, Weathering Risk and the AGRICA project (Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research/adelphi: Potsdam/Berlin, Feb. 2022).
37 World Bank, Somalia Climate Risk Review (World Bank: Washington, DC, 2023).
38 World Bank Group, Climate Change Knowledge Portal, ‘Somalia: Current climate—Climatology’, [n.d.],
accessed 20 Jan. 2023.
39 United Nations Somalia, Common Country Analysis 2020 (United Nations Somalia: Sep. 2020).
40 OCHA, ‘Somalia: 2022 drought impact snapshot’, 9 Mar. 2022.
 climate change, conflict and risks in south-central somalia 7

Climate-related security risks

Research has contributed to elucidating the complex and context-specific relationships

between climate change, human security and conflict.41 It has become evident that
the effects of climate change can undermine development gains, exacerbate ongoing
violence and disrupt peace—and by fuelling existing inequalities and tensions, climate
change can indirectly increase the risk of conflict.42 Some research has highlighted
that the shifting pattern of resource management from community to private control
increases the risk of conflict over natural resources.43 Violent conflict and political
instability both weaken community resilience to the effects of climate change.44
The compounding effects of climate change and conflict in Somalia undermine the
coping capacities of individuals and households and limit their opportunities to build
long-term resilience to both these challenges. The historic drought in 2021–23 severely
impacted livelihood security in Somalia; exceptionally high water and fodder prices
combined with crop failure and livestock death decimated agropastoral incomes.45
Community resilience to the climate shock was further weakened by conflict, which led
to restricted access to water, pastures and livestock markets. For example, an outbreak
of violence in the Las Anod area in Somaliland led to bans on commercial traffic and
thus reduced livestock flows from neighbouring Galmudug.46
At the height of the drought, in 2022, some 1.3 million people were internally dis­
placed by drought and more than 600 000 (the highest number in over a decade) by
violent conflict.47 Migration can serve as a mechanism for coping with insecurity. This
forced displacement has negative effects on the security of households. For example, in
Hirshabelle, numerous farming households experienced reduced livelihood and food
security when they were forced to abandon their crops owing to military operations
against Al-Shabab.48 Military operations also reduce the physical security of people and
livestock; according to one report, military operations in Galmudug limited pastoral­
ists’ access to their usual grazing grounds and reduced their livestock migration,
which increased their vulnerability to the effects of the drought.49 Displacement can
also heighten local tensions; when different clans come into contact, conflict can arise
over, for example, access to fresh water and pastures for livestock. This is supported by
household survey data collected in Galmudug that suggests conflicts over livestock are
more common in areas where people use seasonal migration to cope with the effects of
droughts.50
Conflict, drought and displacement impact communities and groups in different
ways. A high level of inequality exists between men and women in Somalia, and women
have limited access to education, financial services, employment, political represen­

41 Ide, T. et al., ‘The future of environmental peace and conflict research’, Environmental Politics, vol. 32, no. 6
(2023).
42 Ide et al. (note 41); and Buhaug et al. (note 21).
43 See examples in Tarif, K. et al., Climate, Peace and Security Research Paper: Insights on Climate, Peace and
Security (SIPRI: Stockholm, Dec. 2023).
44 Tarif et al. (note 43); and Buhaug, H. and von Uexkull, N., ‘Vicious circles: Violence, vulnerability, and climate
change’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, vol. 46 (Oct. 2021).
45 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), ‘Somalia: Acute food insecurity and malnutrition
snapshot: June–December 2022’, 12 Sep. 2022.
46 World Food Programme Somalia, ‘Situation report on Laas Caanood response’, 28 Apr. 2023; International
Crisis Group, ‘Time for Somaliland and the Dhulbahante to talk’, 19 May 2023; and Radio Ergo, ‘Hiran farmers’
profits hit by conflict in Somaliland’, 17 Mar. 2023.
47 OCHA (note 7); and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, ‘Country profile: Somalia’, [n.d.], accessed
28 Aug. 2023.
48 Radio Ergo, ‘Conflict forces farming families to abandon their land in Beletweyne to languish in IDP camps’,
18 Nov. 2022.
49 Radio Ergo, ‘Galgadud pastoralists caught between drought and conflict’, 19 Feb. 2023.
50 IOM, DTM Galmudug District Profiling: Household Assessment, Analysis Brief (IOM Somalia: Sep. 2023).
8 burning ground

tation and justice. Men and women experience conflict in different ways because of
different gender norms and roles. Some gender norms and roles have shifted as a result
of conflict, allowing women and girls to assume more responsibility for generating
household income, for example.51 Half of all Somali women live within 50 kilometres
of armed conflict.52 Women and children also make up an estimated 80 per cent of dis­
placed people.53 Men are vulnerable to forced recruitment into armed groups and mass
killings. Gender-based inequalities hamper efforts to identify and address the specific
needs and roles of Somali men and women in climate change adaptation.
Under the current clan-based power-sharing system of the Somali Government,
an estimated 30 per cent of the population is considered to belong to a minority clan.
Minority clans are disproportionately affected by disasters because their coping cap­
acities are undermined by direct violence, in the form of attacks by stronger clans,
as well as by structural violence, discrimination, lack of resources and the prevailing
system of clan patronage, which facilitates the elite’s control of people, information and
resources.54
As the effects of climate change become more pronounced in Somalia, the ways in
which they influence existing conflict dynamics and merge with social, economic and
political realities will become more complex and the compounding risks more difficult
to address. The limited number of practical examples of combined climate change and
conflict responses poses a challenge to implementing such responses. The Deegan Bile
projects can, therefore, offer important lessons in how to evaluate the climate–conflict
nexus and identify entry points to building resilience to the effects of climate change
and reducing the incidence of related conflict, as well as reducing the displacement
related to both.

51 El-Bushra, J. and Gardner, J., ‘The impact of war on Somali men: Feminist analysis of masculinities and gender
relations in a fragile context’, Gender and Development, vol. 24, no. 3 (Sep. 2016).
52 Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) and Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO),
Women, Peace, and Security Index 2023/24: Tracking Sustainable Peace through Inclusion, Justice, and Security for
Women (GIWPS/PRIO: Washington, DC, 2023).
53 OCHA (note 7).
54 Minority Rights Group, ‘Somalia’, [n.d.], accessed 13 Mar. 2024; The United Nations Accountability Project–
Somalia, ‘Neither inevitable nor accidental: The impact of marginalization in Somalia’, eds M. Keating and
M. Waldman, War and Peace in Somalia: National Grievances, Local Conflict and Al-Shabaab (Oxford University
Press: Oxford, 2019); and Majid, N. et al., Another Humanitarian (and Political) Crisis in Somalia in 2022 (Feinstein
International Center, Tufts University: Boston, June 2022).
3. The environmental peacebuilding approach of
the Deegan Bile projects
The Deegan Bile projects were designed by IOM and UNEP and implemented by
IOM Somalia’s Community Stabilization Unit. The unit conducts activities that seek
to address drivers of instability in Somalia, including conflict and climate change. It
implements projects in areas of south-central Somalia that have recently been (re)cap-
tured from Al-Shabab (also called ‘newly recovered’ territories) and supports the
development of credible local governance structures as an alternative to the govern­
ance of non-state armed groups.55 For more information on IOM, including in Somalia,
see box 3.1.

Conflict analysis

The Deegan Bile Galmudug and Hirshabelle projects were designed to address local
conflicts that stem from the contested control of natural resources in communities
segregated by clan affiliations.56 Water and pastures are crucial to local livelihoods and
predominantly agropastoral economies, but decades of weak formal governance have
led to natural resources being managed by informal local committees, if at all. This frag­
mented approach to natural resource management increases the risk of environmental
degradation as climate change leads to higher temperatures and reduced rainfall.
Informal natural resource management can serve as a platform for resolving tensions
around water and pastures, particularly when those resources are situated on the
boundaries of different clan territories. But environmental degradation and increasingly
scarce natural resources can mean that communities are less willing to negotiate access
with other clans for fear that doing so will undermine their own livelihood security—
this increases the potential for conflict over access to natural resources.57
IOM, in its conflict analysis, mapped clan territorial control, pastoralist mobility pat­
terns, water points, vegetation cover and conflict incidents to better understand the
relationship between clan conflicts and natural resource management and to identify
areas in Galmudug and Hirshabelle suitable for implementing project activities. In
Galmudug, data collected during a field assessment showed that conflict over natural
resources can occur during periods of relative scarcity and of abundance, which
sup­ports research findings that demonstrate the importance of socio-economic and
political factors in determining the conflict potential of climate change.58 This analysis
was confirmed in Hirshabelle, where the field assessment found that the effects of the
drought on natural resources and livelihood security were exacerbated by military
operations that restricted mobility and trade. In Hirshabelle’s Mataban District, clan
conflicts over natural resources were found to primarily affect men, whereas relation­
ships between women from different clans were more peaceful; therefore, women
were able to retrieve lost livestock from another clan’s land because they would not be
attacked.59
The analysis conducted by IOM explored how different conflict dynamics feed into
and exacerbate each other, how local clan conflicts increase community vulnerability
to exploitation by non-state armed groups such as Al-Shabab, and how rural conflicts

55 IOM Somalia, ‘Community stabilization’, [n.d.], accessed 4 Jan. 2024.

56 This chapter is based on unpublished IOM project documents and conversations with IOM staff.
57 IOM field teams note that the relationships between climate change, environmental degradation, natural
resource management and clan conflicts are very complex and context-specific.
58 Unpublished IOM field assessment, Galmudug, Aug. 2021.
59 Unpublished IOM field assessment, Hirshabelle, Feb. 2023.
10 burning ground

Box 3.1. The International Organization for Migration

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is part of the United Nations system. Its pri­
mary goal is to facilitate ‘the orderly and humane management of international migration’ through
interventions that span humanitarian assistance and sustainable development.a It was one of the
first intergovernmental organizations to establish an institutional division for developing policies
on migration, the environment and climate change. The objectives of IOM in this regard are to
prevent forced migration resulting from environmental factors; assist, protect and seek durable
solutions for affected populations; and facilitate migration in the context of climate change adap­
tation and resilience-building.b
In Somalia, the IOM works in various dimensions of climate change, including providing sup­
port to the Government of Somalia for implementing its policies on climate change mitigation
and adaptation; contributing to the reduction of climate-related displacement and conflict; and
harnessing climate adaptation practices in durable solutions programming.c

a IOM, IOM Strategy, IOM document no. MC/INF/287, 9 Nov. 2007, p. 3.

b IOM, ‘Migration, environment and climate change’, [n.d.], accessed 13 Dec. 2023.
c IOM, IOM Somalia Strategic Plan 2022–2025 (IOM: Mogadishu, 2022).

between clans have spillover effects on urban political clan tensions (and vice versa).
The need was identified for the Deegan Bile projects to bridge rural development with
political peacebuilding by working in newly recovered territories to support credible
local institutions that can respond to the everyday needs of communities by strengthen­
ing local livelihoods and economies that rely heavily on natural resources.

Project design

The theories of change for both Deegan Bile projects established their core objectives,
which are to use climate change adaptation and strengthened local conflict resolution
mechanisms to reduce the risk of maladaptation and the incidence of conflict and
displacement (see box 3.2). Both projects also identified as entry points to reducing
conflict (a) investing in infrastructure, (b) supporting natural resource management
in a manner that includes different groups in the community (e.g. host and displaced
groups, majority and minority clans, women and youth) in related decision making, and
(c) boosting the participation of women in local conflict resolution.
The emphasis on locally driven natural resource management in Deegan Bile project
design corresponds to local peacebuilding approaches that emphasize the importance
of local participation, ownership and governance to achieving peace outcomes.60 Local
peacebuilding approaches are sometimes critiqued as lacking gender-sensitivity, lead­
ing to the exclusion of women from peacebuilding programmes and the reinforce­ment
of patriarchal dynamics when peacebuilding actors engage with (typically male) local
authorities.61 In its conflict analysis, IOM highlighted that while women are socio-
economically and politically marginalized in rural Somali communities, they have
important peacebuilding roles by virtue of their greater mobility and ease of communi­

60 Brinkerhoff, D. W., ‘State fragility and governance: Conflict mitigation and subnational perspectives’, Develop­
ment Policy Review, vol. 29, no. 2 (Mar. 2011); Leonardsson, H. and Rudd, G., ‘The “local turn” in peacebuilding: A
literature review of effective and emancipatory local peacebuilding’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 5 (2015);
Richmond, O. P. and Mac Ginty, R., ‘Where now for the critique of the liberal peace?’ Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 50,
no. 2 (2015); and Ljungkvist, K. and Jarstad, A., ‘Revisiting the local turn in peacebuilding: Through the emerging
urban approach’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 10 (2021).
61 Pratt, N., ‘Reconceptualizing gender, reinscribing racial–sexual boundaries in international security: The case
of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on “Women, Peace and Security”’, International Studies Quarterly, vol. 57,
no. 4 (Dec. 2013); Hudson, H., ‘Decolonising gender and peacebuilding: Feminist frontiers and border thinking in
Africa’, Peacebuilding, vol. 4, no. 2 (2016); and Rigual, C., ‘Rethinking the ontology of peacebuilding. Gender, spaces
and the limits of the local turn’, Peacebuilding, vol. 6, no. 2 (2018).
 the approach of the deegan bile projects 11

Box 3.2. Theories of change for addressing climate change and conflict
The theories of change established for the Deegan Bile projects in Galmudug and Hirshabelle
identify climate change adaptation and local conflict resolution mechanisms as means of reducing
both community vulnerability to climate change and the incidence of violent conflict.
For the Deegan Bile project in Galmudug, the theory states: ‘If target populations in Galmudug
are provided with climate-adaptive awareness, techniques and capacity, and social and physical
infrastructures are strengthened, then forced displacement and conflict due to environmental
factors will be reduced, because negative coping strategies to environmental variability, which
perpetuate the climate-conflict cycle, are replaced by sustainable alternatives and local conflict
resolution mechanisms.’a
For the Deegan Bile project in Hirshabelle, the theory states: ‘If target populations in Hirshabelle
are provided with climate-adaptive awareness, techniques and capacity, and social and physical
infrastructures are strengthened, then conflict due to environmental factors will be reduced,
because negative coping strategies to environmental variability, which perpetuate the climate-
conflict cycle, are replaced by sustainable alternatives and local conflict resolution mechanisms.’b

a IOM, ‘Description of action: Breaking the climate-conflict cycle in Galmudug, Somalia’,

Unpublished project document, n.d.
b IOM, ‘Description of action: Breaking the climate-conflict cycle in Mataban District, Somalia’,

Unpublished project document, n.d.

cation across clan conflict lines. Therefore, bringing women into local decision making
on natural resource management can create opportunities for their empowerment in
community affairs while supporting conflict reduction. Peace research has identified
a positive correlation between women’s participation in peace agreements and the
sustainability of peace outcomes, which could be linked to the positive effects of col­
laboration and knowledge exchange between different groups of women.62
The two Deegan Bile projects differ slightly in intended outcomes, reflecting the
different contexts in the two locations. In Galmudug, the project design placed an
emphasis on knowledge-sharing, training (e.g. on climate change, water sharing and
early warning systems) and resilience-building, while in Hirshabelle, the project was
more directly based on the aim of peacebuilding through the development of local
peace agreements and the roll-out of inter-community activities.
In Galmudug, project activities were implemented in five geographically and
socio-economically diverse rural areas, though in all areas, migratory pastoralism
is the economic cornerstone and many communities were strongly impacted by the
record-breaking drought in 2021–23. In contrast, in Hirshabelle, project activities were
implemented in areas close to the politically contested Mataban District, reflecting the
project’s aim of peacebuilding in seeking to address a political clan conflict affected by
local conflict over natural resources.
The Deegan Bile projects were both based on a conflict analysis that highlighted
the relationships between climate change, environmental degradation, conflict and
weak governance, and that defined the following entry points for addressing these
challenges: (a) local dialogue and natural resource management; (b) infrastructure
that supports resilience to climate change and makes a contribution to peacebuilding;
and (c) the strengthening of the role of formal authorities in providing services to the
community. As such, both projects sought to improve horizontal relationships between
communities and vertical relationships between communities and the authorities
through natural resource management and climate action.

62 Krause, J., Krause, W. and Bränfors, P., ‘Women’s participation in peace negotiations and the durability of
peace’, International Interactions, vol. 44, no. 6 (2018).
12 burning ground

The Deegan Bile projects aimed to promote long-term resilience to the adverse effects
of climate change and to support local institutions already considered to be credible
to become more inclusive; as such, their aims extended beyond reducing direct vio­
lence (sometimes called ‘negative peace’) to addressing structural forms of violence.63
Because the Deegan Bile projects sought to bridge the gaps between rural development
and political peace processes, they also aimed to expand the scope of peacebuilding
beyond elite politics to include community-level dialogue.
In the conflict analysis for the Deegan Bile projects, IOM identified the effects of
climate change as a driver of both violent conflict and forced displacement and, as such,
pinpointed climate change adaptation as an entry point to building local resilience
to climate variability, conflict and forced displacement. The projects were therefore
designed to support environmental peacebuilding by building bridges between com­
munities living in conflict and by strengthening relationships between communities
and the state.

63 Galtung, J. and Fischer, D., ‘Positive and negative peace’, Johan Galtung: Pioneer of Peace Research, Springer
Briefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice no. 5 (Springer: Berlin, 2013).
4. Opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding
approach
The design and implementation of the Deegan Bile projects sought to contribute to three
aspects of environmental peacebuilding: (a) the development of shared mechanisms
and norms for different groups in the community to jointly manage natural resources;
(b) collaboration by parties in conflict on mutually beneficial projects, thereby improv­
ing inter-clan relationships; and (c) the strengthening of state service provision and
fostering of community trust in authorities.64 The findings presented in this chapter
are derived from various sources: information provided by IOM staff; the final narrative
report of the Galmudug project, prepared by IOM; and data collected from perception
surveys (see table 4.1) and focus group discussions (see table 4.2), which were designed
by SIPRI and conducted by Somali researchers in IOM target locations (see box 4.1 for
further details).

Natural resource management

In countries experiencing violent conflict, the effects of climate change on natural

resources (e.g. water and pastures) strain local mechanisms for managing community
access to those resources and for resolving local conflicts over access. When livelihoods
are closely linked to natural resources and alternative livelihood options are limited,
the risk of tension and conflict increases in communities affected by climate change.65
Environmental peacebuilding research suggests that the promulgation of norms for
community management of the environment and of natural resources is one way for
international actors to make progress in environmental peacebuilding in post-conflict
contexts.66 Therefore, in the newly recovered territories of Galmudug and Hirshabelle,
the Deegan Bile projects could support sustainable natural resource management as
a means of reducing the incidence of conflict. In designing the projects, this obser­
vation was framed as the aim to align existing norms with communities’ expectations
of governance by injecting knowledge and capacity into existing, credible local natural
resource management institutions in the target communities.67

Locally legitimate natural resource management

The aim of the Deegan Bile projects was, ultimately, to reinforce the potential for nat­
ural resource management committees to reduce the incidence of local conflicts over
resources such as fresh water and pastures. The projects used community dialogues to
build consensus for strengthened local natural resource management. These dialogues
were facilitated by convening members of the community in natural resource manage­
ment committees (or working with existing natural resource management committees),
which served as a platform for discussion on shared challenges and decision making
on joint responses. These committees were provided with training focused on sustain­
able natural resource management practices that can improve ecosystem health and
resilience to climate change, where a transfer of knowledge and norms took place. This
transfer offered an entry point to and could inform the subsequent community-level
dialogue on how to promote climate-sensitive natural resource management and how

64 Krampe, Hegazi and VanDeveer (note 13).

65 Buhaug et al. (note 21); and Mobjörk, M., Krampe, F. and Tarif, K., ‘Pathways of climate insecurity: Guidance for
policymakers’, SIPRI Policy Brief, Nov. 2020.
66 Krampe, Hegazi and VanDeveer (note 13).
67 Ljungkvist and Jarstad (note 60); Leonardsson and Rudd (note 60); and Mac Ginty R. and Richmond O. P., ‘The
local turn in peacebuilding: A critical agenda for peace’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 5 (2013).
14 burning ground

Table 4.1. Perception survey data responses

Number Percentage of total responses
Federal Member State
Galmudug 377 48.7
Hirshabelle 396 51.2
Gender
Female 383 49.5
Male 390 50.4
Age
Youth (18–24) 48 6.2
Adult (25–59) 628 81.2
Senior citizen (60+) 97 12.5
Location
Afbarwaaqo 78 –
Beer-Gadid 50 –
Bilcil 41 –
Buqaloc 36 –
Cardo 45 –
Duqaqo 42 –
Hobyo 56 –
Mataban 129 –
Merqasim 51 –
QodQod 52 –
Qofey 49 –
Qoryoweyne 39 –
Saaqiro 40 –
Takaraale 65 –

to develop community-led action plans for addressing those aims. The transfer of know­
ledge and norms also lends itself to the development of a locally accepted governance
structure for the resolution of disputes that prevents their escalation into violence and
political spillover effects. In its final narrative report on Deegan Bile Galmudug, IOM
found that the natural resource management committees brought about a reduction in
the number of conflicts in the Deegan Bile projects’ target areas. The report suggests
that the incidence of conflict was reduced because local natural resource committees
were able to respond more quickly to disputes and conflicts than formal governance
structures.
IOM also found that the Deegan Bile Galmudug project contributed to more inclusive
management of water, land and forestry resources. While male clan and village elders
remained the preferred means of resolving community-level disputes, the natural
resource management committees supported by the project facilitated an increase
in the participation of women and young people in local decision making. In its final
evaluation of Deegan Bile Galmudug, the IOM noticed a shift from individual to com­
munity-based management of water, land and forestry resources.68 This trend appears
to be linked to women’s increased participation in decision making. For example, in

68 IOM, ‘Reducing climate-induced conflict in Galmudug’, Unpublished final narrative report, Dec. 2023.
 opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding approach 15

Table 4.2. Focus group discussion locations and number of participants

Female Male
Galmudug
Afbarwaaqo 6 8
Beer-Gadid 3 8
Hobyo 7 7
Hirshabelle
Mataban 6 5
QodQod 6 6
Qoryoweyne 6 7

Bilcil and Hobyo, women were found to play a stronger role in the management of water
resources when communities had selected kitchen gardening as a project activity.69 In
Duqaqo, women who had participated in environmental peacebuilding training under
the Deegan Bile project approached their village leaders with a proposal to use a piece
of land to establish a communal farm with a drip irrigation system (which can save
water and nutrients). When the leaders resisted the idea, the women staged a peace­
ful demonstration that pressured the leaders into designating a portion of land for the
farm.70
In the case of the Deegan Bile Galmudug project, an increase in women’s partici­
pation in local natural resource management might also translate to stronger decision-
making roles in other local social, economic and political affairs. However, evaluating
and attempting to understand the longer-term impact of more robust participation of
women in community-led natural resource management is challenging in a short pro­
ject period of 18 months.

Local perceptions of natural resource management

The perception surveys conducted in Galmudug and Hirshabelle found that respond­
ents were generally positive about the health of natural resources in their areas.
Responses from people who identified livestock as their primary source of income
showed optimism regarding the health of pastures: 46 per cent said they were in ‘good’
health and 42 per cent said they were ‘improving’. These overall positive responses
could be linked to the very severe drought Somalia experienced in 2021–23. Rainfall
recovered in 2023 as a result of an El Niño event, which warmed Pacific Ocean
temperatures and increased rainfall in the Horn of Africa. By the time the surveys were
carried out in January 2024, it is likely that water, pastures and other natural resources
had recovered to some extent.
Survey respondents in Galmudug and Hirshabelle were also mostly positive about
local natural resource management, with 76 per cent saying that the community
works together in sharing resources and 68 per cent agreeing that their community is
getting better at managing resources together. People in Hirshabelle had more positive
responses to both questions than those in Galmudug, which may indicate that natural
resource management is stronger in Hirshabelle or that natural resources are more
plentiful, making collaboration easier. The survey results on natural resource manage­
ment support the IOM conflict analysis that informed the Deegan Bile projects, which

69 Kitchen gardening refers to small-scale vegetable, fruit and herb farming, in which women traditionally play
a strong role. IOM (note 68).
70 IOM (note 68).
16 burning ground

Box 4.1. The role of SIPRI as a research partner in the Deegan Bile projects
As a research partner to IOM and UNEP on the Deegan Bile projects in Galmudug and Hirshabelle,
SIPRI’s role was to explore the conflict analysis of the IOM and its approach to conflict reduction
in target locations in order to identify lessons for peacebuilding and climate change adaptation
applicable to other fragile and conflict-affected areas.
This entailed conducting a literature review of Somalia’s country context and of IOM projects in
Somalia. SIPRI staff also engaged in regular discussions with IOM Somalia staff and participated in
their internal and external meetings. The research partnership fostered a more participatory and
bilateral working relationship throughout the project cycle than comparable partnerships. The
benefits of this close collaboration include two-way learning and information-sharing; the draw­
backs include potentially less objective project assessments due to the proximity of the researcher
to the implementing team. This concern has been mitigated by SIPRI’s peer review process, which
ensured that internal and external feedback was provided on the findings presented in this paper.
Another challenge to the partnership relates to the time frames for project implementation, moni­
toring and evaluation, and learning through research. While implementation of the Galmudug
project concluded in June 2023, and IOM had conducted a final evaluation and prepared a narra­
tive report on the project outcomes, the Hirshabelle project concluded in February 2024 and the
IOM evaluation and report were pending at the time of preparation of this paper. This discrepancy
made it easier to identify lessons learned from Galmudug than from Hirshabelle.
SIPRI complemented its research with perception surveys and focus group discussions, carried
out in January 2024, to explore how target communities perceive the effects of climate change;
the health of natural resources and the effectiveness of their management; and the relationships
among clans and between clans and formal authorities. The aim of doing so was to facilitate a
better understanding of the relevance of the IOM conflict analysis and its approach to conflict
reduction to the lived experiences of people in Galmudug and Hirshabelle. While IOM and other
organizations active in Somalia collect data for the purpose of humanitarian, development and
peacebuilding actions, including perceptions regarding the nexus of climate change, natural
resources, and inter-clan and government relationships, this data has not been published. There­
fore, the data from this research can serve a broader purpose.
SIPRI worked with a Somali partner organization, Elman Peace, to design and deploy the per­
ception surveys.a The surveys utilized the following multi-stage sampling method: (a) stratified
sampling, to collect data in IOM target communities in Galmudug and Hirshabelle; (b) quota
sampling, to ensure a balance in female and male respondents from each location; and (c) random
sampling, to give every adult female and male from the target locations an equal chance of being
selected as a survey respondent. The surveys captured insights from more than 700 respondents
using a series of yes or no, single answer, multiple choice, and open-ended questions designed in
consultation with researchers at Elman Peace and deployed in Somali using the KoboToolbox data
collection tool. See table 4.1 for more details.
Elman Peace also convened the focus group discussions, bringing together small groups of men
and women to discuss six broad topics: weather changes, environmental degradation, community
relationships, the local government, security in the community and the Deegan Bile projects. Six
group discussions were convened, three in Galmudug and three in Hirshabelle. See table 4.2 for
the locations and number of female and male participants at each.
The short timeline for implementing the Galmudug and Hirshabelle projects (18 months) posed
a challenge for identifying the positive impacts on natural resource management, cross-clan
relation­ships and community perceptions of formal authorities.

a Elman Peace is a non-profit organization founded in 1990 and based in Mogadishu, Somalia,
with offices countrywide. It promotes peace and supports empowerment and leadership among
marginalized groups. For more information, see <http://elmanpeace.org>.

pointed to the credibility of local natural resource management institutions and their
potential to serve as the foundation for formal governance structures.
Focus group discussion participants were generally less positive about natural
resource health and management, more closely reflecting previous findings regarding
 opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding approach 17

perspectives on environmental degradation in Somalia.71 Participants in the Deegan

Bile target locations were aware of changing weather patterns and their impacts on the
environment, including natural resources, and on human activities. They demonstrated
a strong awareness of how increasing temperature and declining rainfall affect local
ecosystems, as well as animal and human health. Many also showed an awareness of
natural resource management practices that are damaging and should thus be avoided;
however, participants also noted that their capacities to adapt are limited and that
they are more concerned with survival than with managing resources sustainably. For
example, in Beer Gadid, people spoke of the desperation of livestock herders, who had
resorted to cutting down trees in order to use foliage as animal fodder, despite knowing
that this practice leads to soil erosion. People also reported that despite their attempt
to collaborate on a community rainwater harvesting system, its lack of success led to
many people being displaced. Environmental peacebuilding approaches can identify
and then build on existing efforts to improve local natural resource management and
local resilience to drought, and in supporting those efforts can contribute to better
relationships between different groups in a community. The findings of the focus group
discussions overall indicate that, as posited by other environmental peacebuilding
research, the diffusion of norms around the environment and natural resource manage­
ment, especially nature-based solutions, can support communities in making decisions
that will lead to more sustainable outcomes.
In both Galmudug and Hirshabelle, a slight majority of perception survey respond­
ents reported that they are not concerned with tensions around natural resources in
their community, and of those that did express concerns (40 per cent), most (81 per
cent) believe that their concerns are being addressed (primarily by clan elders). These
responses confirm the legitimacy of traditional authorities in local natural resource
management and in addressing related tensions. People surveyed in Hirshabelle were
more positive on this matter than those in Galmudug, and women were slightly more
positive than men. Participants in the focus group discussion in Beer Gadid noted that
sharing between clans is constrained by resource scarcity and that water scarcity in
particular strains even the strongest of community bonds, agreeing that ‘Sharing
becomes challenging when there’s not much to share’.72
A slight majority of perception survey respondents reported conflicts in their com­
munity in the past year—either ‘sometimes’ (41 per cent) or ‘often or always’ (27 per
cent). Overall, most people in the Deegan Bile project target locations indicated that
when conflicts arise in their community, they are primarily between different pastoral
groups, between different farming groups, or between pastoralists and farmers. In
Galmudug, respondents pointed more consistently to conflicts involving pastoralists
and farmers, but also to conflicts with displaced people. In Hirshabelle, respondents
indicated more diverse types of local conflict; although many also pointed to conflicts
between farmers and pastoralists, they highlighted conflicts involving Somali Govern­
ment forces. Since August 2022, the Somali Government’s military operations against
Al-Shabaab have led to an increase in the occurrence of conflict in both Galmudug and
Hirshabelle; the survey responses may indicate that government forces are more visible
in areas of Hirshabelle than of Galmudug.73
When asked about issues driving conflict, half of the perception survey respondents
pointed to access to water. Access to pastures and other land as well as clan identity
were also noted. These responses confirm the Deegan Bile projects’ emphasis on nat­

71 Jama et al. (note 28).

72 Participant in a focus group discussion, Beer Gadid, Somalia, 29 Jan. 2024.
73 For data on the number and fatalities of conflict events in Somalia in 2022, see the Armed Conflict Location and
Event Data Project (ACLED) website, <https://acleddata.com/dashboard/#/dashboard>.
18 burning ground

ural resource management as a means of reducing the incidence of local conflicts. One
experience shared in the Beer Gadid focus group discussion highlights the convergence
of conflict issues: a livestock herder explained that, historically, he undertook seasonal
migration, moving his animals between different grazing areas, but that recently, he had
been unable to find pastures without confronting armed livestock herders from other
clans, who were similarly hard-pressed in sustaining their animals. Other participants
pointed out that men had recently received weapons from the Somali Government
in order to join military operations against Al-Shabab, which increases the risk that
confrontation between herders will escalate to violence. This anecdote supports the
conflict analysis of IOM as well as the aim of the Deegan Bile projects to address both
the pressures of climate change on natural resource availability and the clan divides
that prevent shared natural resource management during times of scarcity by situating
those dynamics in the broader conflict context.

Cross-clan collaboration

Clan affiliations inform social, economic and political structures in Somalia, and clans
are a source of identity, social capital, financial support, conflict resolution and more. As
such, clan affiliations are important to the resilience of clan members. Clan affiliations
also often frame conflicts over natural resources in Galmudug and Hirshabelle, and
local capacities to manage tensions between clans are limited by the absence of shared
mechanisms for managing these resources and resolving related disputes. Clan elders
resolve conflicts with other clans and manage the distribution of financial compen­
sation for injury caused to the members of other clans or damage done to their property.
Indigenous mechanisms for resolving land disputes, such as xeer, and other dispute
resolution mechanisms can empower local communities through access to justice, but
they can also reinforce structural inequalities by favouring stronger clans.74
The Deegan Bile projects aimed to improve local water infrastructure and increase
the efficiency of water and energy use in the agropastoral sector while fostering cross-
clan collaboration on projects that would have immediate, tangible benefits for the
community. The validity of this approach is supported by findings from research on
environmental peacebuilding that suggest natural resource management can serve as
the basis for improving interaction and collaboration between groups living in conflict
and can support peace outcomes by reducing intergroup biases and building relation­
ships of trust.75 Taking these findings a step further, IOM staff saw the Deegan Bile
projects as an opportunity to link the outcomes of intergroup trust-building with col­
laboration on specific projects aimed at creating benefits that could be shared by both
groups or on the resolution of specific conflict issues.76 This approach echoes research
on the potential for infrastructure projects to support peacebuilding when they create
shared interests for parties in conflict and when they can be used by parties in conflict
in ways that support positive interaction between groups in the community.77

74 International Development Law Organization (IDLO), Strengthening Climate Justice in Somaliland: The Role
of ADR Centres, Issue Brief (IDLO: Rome, Mar. 2023); and Schlee, G., ‘Customary law and the joys of stateless­ness:
Idealised traditions versus Somali realities’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (2013).
75 Krampe, Hegazi and VanDeveer (note 13).
76 IOM staff, workshop on Deegan Bile projects, Nairobi, 27 Sep. 2023. The benefits of linking dialogue and trust-
building to collaboration on specific joint actions is also supported by research on the implementation of peace
agreements: Colchester, F., Henao Izquierdo, L. and Lustenberger, P., Implementing Peace Agreements: Supporting
the Transition from the Negotiation Table to Reality, Discussion Points of the Mediation Support Network (MSN)
no. 10 (MSN: 2020); and Ramsbotham, A., Implementing Peace Accords Sustainably: Alternative Avenues to Bypass
Blockages and Mitigate Resistance (Conciliation Resources: London, Apr. 2022).
77 Bachmann and Schouten (note 15); Fantini et al. (note 16); and van Tongeren et al. (note 16).
 opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding approach 19

The matching grant approach for collaboration among clans

A key component of the Deegan Bile projects was the use of the matching grant
approach.78 This approach was designed to facilitate community ownership of joint
actions and incentivize intergroup collaboration for broader community benefit.79 By
emphasizing the development of community-led projects that advance climate change
adaptation, the Deegan Bile projects demonstrate how climate action can be used to
support peacebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected areas.
In the matching grant approach, local natural resource management committees and
dedicated community implementation units formed by IOM take part in a dialogue
facilitated by technical specialists aimed at defining community prior­ities for adapting
to the effects of climate change and developing action plans to address those priorities.
IOM supports units in outlining the project budget, aims and expected benefits, which
are published on a public crowdfunding platform, Sokaab.80 Once the project has
reached its funding goal, IOM matches the community-raised funds on the basis of a
ratio system: IOM contributes more to a project when it has a wider geographical scope,
a more diverse group of collaborators or broader community benefits.81 The implemen­
tation of the project is then carried out by local businesses, which has the added value
of strengthening the local economy, and the outcome is a wholly community-owned
infrastructure or service. The matching grant approach can, therefore, support climate
action that is tailored to the needs of local communities; enhance communities’ access
to technical information and training to develop skills for implementing climate action;
and facilitate participation in decision making around local climate action.82 This can,
in turn, mitigate the risk of maladaptation, which can include an increased risk of
insecur­ity and conflict.83
Application of the matching grant approach yielded various results across Galmu­
dug, indicating the context-specific nature of project design and implementation and
reflecting the different social, economic and political realities of local communities. In
Bilcil, the community’s selection of a water infrastructure project—a borehole and drip
irrigation system for a local farm—was found to increase access to water and support
the return of households who had been displaced to nearby Abudwaq because of water
scarcity. In Hobyo, communities agreed on shared land for sand dune stabil­ization
pro­jects (this land management practice prevents the erosion and encroachment of
sand dunes in coastal and desert environments), and in Buqaloc and Qoryoweyne,
two pastoral­ist groups engaged in joint fundraising for two community multipurpose
centres where local businesswomen, among others, were allocated space for marketing
local produce.84

78 IOM, ‘Matching Grant IOM Somalia overview’, 18 Oct. 2022.

79 Krampe, F., ‘Ownership and inequalities: Exploring UNEP’s Environmental Cooperation for Peacebuilding
Program’, Sustainability Science, vol. 16 (2021).
80 See the Sokaab website, <https://www.sokaab.com>.
81 From 2021 to 2022, target communities raised a total of $350 000 as part of the Deegan Bile projects, primarily
from family and clan networks, which was subsequently matched by IOM. IOM staff, workshop on Deegan Bile
projects, Nairobi, 27 Sep. 2023.
82 Ben-Shmuel and Halle (note 17).
83 Schipper, E. L. F., ‘Maladaptation: When adaptation to climate change goes very wrong’, One Earth, vol. 3,
no. 4 (Oct. 2020); Swatuk, L. A. et al., ‘The “boomerang effect”: Insights for improved climate action’, Climate and
Development, vol. 13, no. 1 (2021); and Dabelko, G. D. et al. (eds), Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Change
Adaptation and Mitigation, Environmental Change and Security Program Report vol. 14, no. 2 (Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars: Washington, DC, 2013).
84 IOM (note 68).
20 burning ground

Local perceptions of relationships among clans

The environmental peacebuilding literature suggests that the matching grant approach
offers an example of how climate action can be used as a platform for interaction, dia­
logue, trust-building and peacebuilding between groups living in fragile and conflict-
affected areas. But community perceptions of the relationships between different clans
in Galmudug and Hirshabelle reveal how embedded clan divides are and indicate the
importance of providing opportunities for collaboration that leads to shared benefits.
Most perception survey respondents in Galmudug and Hirshabelle reported that
people in their community live together peacefully and that they would be happy living
next door to a person from a different clan. Respondents also reported being optimistic
about relationships between different clans in their community: a combined 85 per cent
‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ with the statement ‘Relationships between different clans
in my community are better than they were in the past’. It is impossible to attribute the
optimism that came across in these survey responses to one specific factor—including
to the positive impact of the Deegan Bile projects—but the trend is notable and some­
what unexpected given the recent drought and ongoing military operations that affect
communities in Galmudug and Hirshabelle.
While focus group discussions highlighted the importance of clan affiliations as a
source of identity, social capital and support, they also confirmed that support stays
within the clan. The discussions indicated that examples of cross-clan support and col­
laboration are rare. Participants expressed an understanding of and empathy for other
clans experiencing the same hardships as their own, but they also highlighted that com­
municating across clan divides is challenging because it can be perceived as culturally
inappropriate and because clans live in segregation, even in the same location. As one
focus group discussion participant put it: ‘I have never had a man from a different tribe
come to me seeking help. I don’t think I will ever see that.’85
This confirms the finding of the IOM conflict analysis that collaboration between
clans should be based on actions that deliver tangible results benefiting both clans in
order to overcome the deep divisions between them.
Perspectives on inter-clan relationships in Galmudug and Hirshabelle captured in
perception surveys and focus group discussions seem to be in contrast to each other.
Many survey respondents expressed the view that inter-clan relationships in their com­
munities were better than they had been in the past. This may reflect a real reduction
in tensions and conflicts between clans but participants in focus group discussions, in
contrast, raised numerous examples of the physical segregation that clans continue to
live under, which raises the possibility that people in Galmudug and Hirshabelle do not
necessarily understand ‘better’ relationships with other clans to be the same as ‘closer’
relationships. In this context, approaches that create incentives for collaboration on
tangible climate action that benefits both communities—such as the matching grant
approach applied by IOM in the Deegan Bile projects—may be an important opportun­
ity for clans to build not only relationships, but also shared physical spaces where they
can regularly interact.

State–society relationships

Despite political gains in recent years, Somalia’s governance systems remain contested.
Political tensions and conflict limit the capacity of the authorities to establish formal
institutions and services that would link the government with citizens, and the social
contract in Somalia remains closely tied to traditional clan affiliations. Informal govern­

85 Participant in a focus group discussion, Afbarwaaqo, Somalia, 28 Jan. 2024.

 opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding approach 21

ance, including village, clan and religious leadership, continues to be the most trusted
form of governance in rural areas.
State-building, which aims to build or restore government institutions, has become
a central feature of ‘liberal peacebuilding’ strategies. But the approaches under this
umbrella often exclude an analysis of the environmental challenges in post-conflict
contexts.86 Environmental peacebuilding theory suggests that formal authorities can
improve their legitimacy by addressing environmental issues and providing services
that address fundamental community needs, for example natural resource manage­
ment. Service provision is expected to lead to increased community support for the
authorities, including in the form of payment of taxes. State legitimacy in divided
societies is also tied to the equitable delivery of services—especially in marginalized
rural communities.87
The approach of the Deegan Bile projects of building relationships between informal
and formal authorities can, therefore, contribute to improving the legitimacy of local
government institutions by connecting them with existing informal governance
mechanisms and through delivering services to the target community.88 This approach
is supported by research showing that external actors have supported responsive,
effective governance mechanisms in Somalia by working in a context-specific manner
with local municipalities and local customary, religious and business groups.89

The role of the government in newly recovered territories

The Deegan Bile projects were designed to strengthen relationships between com­
munities, local authorities and FMS governments. IOM worked with local authorities
to deliver projects based on the matching grant approach. The role of local governments
was context-specific, but often involved selecting the project’s location. For example,
under the Galmudug project, local authorities in Hobyo allocated land for the con­
struction of soil bunds, a nature-based solution utilizing the contours of soil to reduce
water run-off and soil erosion and support groundwater recharge.90 This example
highlights how local governments can play a role in managing natural resources and
promoting the resilience to climate change of communities and ecosystems. Such an
approach may be especially beneficial in rural communities where the presence of the
state is limited or non-existent.
The Deegan Bile projects identified livestock markets as a location that provides
the opportunity to connect livelihoods and economies across clan divides through the
joint development of infrastructure projects that support climate change adaptation
and provide shared benefits for different clans. But the Deegan Bile projects also envis­
aged livestock markets as an opportunity for furthering the government’s role in the
provision of basic services and in tax collection.91 Some communities in Galmudug
chose to use their matching grant projects to improve livestock health services, so
IOM collaborated with the Galmudug Ministry of Livestock to train members of rural
pastoralist communities in animal health with the aim of improving access to livestock
health services. This project was expected to have immediate tangible benefits for local
communities, especially in the context of the drought being experienced at the time,

86 Kostić, R., Krampe, F. and Swain, A., ‘Liberal State-building and environmental security: The international
community between trade-off and carelessness’, eds R. Amer, A. Swain and J. Öjendal, The Security–Development
Nexus: Peace, Conflict and Development (Anthem Press: London, 2012).
87 Krampe, Hegazi and VanDeveer (note 13).
88 Stepputat, F., ‘Pragmatic peace in emerging governscapes’, International Affairs, vol. 94, no. 2 (Mar. 2018).
89 Menkhaus, K., ‘State failure, State-building, and prospects for a “functional failed State” in Somalia’, Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 656, no. 1 (Nov. 2014).
90 IOM (note 68).
91 IOM staff, workshop on Deegan Bile projects, Nairobi, 6–10 Nov. 2023.
22 burning ground

as well as to strengthen relationships between pastoralists, local veterinarians and the

district-level state veterinary section. 92 While animal health was not the primary aim
of the Deegan Bile projects, it provides an example of the importance of emphasizing
community-led decision making and connecting communities with formal authorities
and shows how flexible programming can support unintended positive outcomes.
Another potential unintended benefit of the Deegan Bile projects was the strength­
ening of informal intergovernmental dialogue and collaboration. IOM sought the
participation of relevant line ministries in Galmudug and Hirshabelle in the planning,
implementation and reporting of project activities by establishing an interministerial
steering committee comprising both active and observer ministries. In practical terms,
the committee coordinated line ministry input to the Deegan Bile projects and encour­
aged buy-in during implementation and support for future activities. More broadly,
in Deegan Bile project target communities, the involvement of line ministries in joint
planning and implementation of activities, and in decision making relating to the pro­
jects, contributed to intragovernmental dialogue, the building of interministerial work­
ing relationships and improved coordination on issues related to climate change and its
impacts on political priorities. In this way, the Deegan Bile projects sought to contribute
to political peacebuilding, that is, to the alignment of the interests of different groups in
government around environmental and natural resource governance and even climate
action priorities. The potential for climate action in other fragile contexts to contribute
to political dialogue that improves political coherence and delivers concrete results to
constituencies is important to recognize.

Local perceptions of the role and performance of the state

The perception surveys carried out in Galmudug and Hirshabelle suggest an even split
regarding whether or not formal authorities are representative of the community, with
some differences in perspective evident between respondents of different clans.
The Hawiye clan plays a major role in both Somali national and FMS politics. Polit­
ical tensions between clans have played out in both Galmudug and Hirshabelle, some­
times leading to armed violence. Perception survey data suggests that self-identifying
members of the Hawiye Habar Gidir and Hawadle sub-clans held generally positive
views of government authorities in their areas (the Habar Gidir sub-clan is a dominant
political force in Galmudug and the Hawadle sub-clan dominates the Hiran Adminis­
trative Region of Hirshabelle FMS). Self-identifying members of the Ayr sub-clan of
the Habar Gidir sub-clan held less positive views of the formal authorities. Members of
sub-clans of the Dir clan also held less positive views of the government.93 Respondents
who chose not to declare their clan affiliations reported more negative views of how
representative the government is of them. One explanation for these results may be
that respondents from outside the majority (dominant) clans preferred not to disclose
their affiliation, and thus more members of minority clans may be represented in the
‘undeclared’ clan results.94
In Beer Gadid and QodQod, focus group discussion participants expressed the view
that formal authorities continue to follow the traditional clan models, in which clan
elders either act as brokers between governments and communities or become govern­
ment representatives themselves. This view reflects the finding that in some areas,
people primarily see formal authorities as an extension of the clan system rather than a

92 IOM (note 68).

93 These findings reflect political fault lines between the Sacad sub-clan of the Hawiye, the Ayr sub-clan of the
Habar Gidir, and the Dir clan, which have defined Galmudug FMS since its establishment in 2015. See International
Crisis Group (note 31).
94 Mushtaq, N., ‘State-building amidst conflict: The urgency of local reconciliation’, eds Keating and Waldman
(note 54).
 opportunities of the environmental peacebuilding approach 23

body that represents all residents. One exception was in Mataban, where participants
in the discussion noted the government’s recent role in mediating clan conflicts, which
showed them that—unlike the clan system—the government can protect all citizens.
These findings are tightly linked to environmental peacebuilding theory, which recog­
nizes the potential for formal authorities in divided societies to improve their legitim­
acy by delivering services in an equitable way.95
The findings of the focus group discussions strongly suggest that the primary role
of the formal authorities in rural Galmudug and Hirshabelle is seen as being the pro­
vision of security. Many participants acknowledged that the government is effective in
this role, but many also expressed a wish to see more proactive involvement from the
government in conflict resolution and other services. Participants from urban areas,
such as Mataban and Hobyo, seemed to expect more from the government in terms of
service provision than participants in rural areas. In Hobyo, participants said that the
government does not have the capacity to deliver services and expressed more con­
fidence in receiving assistance from aid agencies in the case of a drought, flood or other
disaster. They also reported that government presence rarely extends beyond the town.
Focus group discussion participants in the rural area of Qoryoweyne said the lack of
confidence in the government leads to feelings of abandonment and the need for self-
reliance in the community.
Findings from the focus group discussions also suggest that many people do not
expect the formal authorities to have a broader role than the provision of security in
their community. In Afbarwaaqo and Mataban, participants spoke favourably of the
government taking a proactive role in managing natural resources and preventing
conflicts. However, perception survey responses showed that most people would first
go to village leaders for resolution of a land dispute, with clan elders being the second
choice and the district government the third.96 This lack of clarity around the role of
the government is an important opportunity for advancing community relationships
with the state through the provision of services that can have a positive impact on local
livelihoods and economies.
The findings from both perception surveys and focus group discussions suggest that
people in Galmudug and Hirshabelle are open to government involvement in advancing
effective natural resource governance, resolving local conflicts over natural resources
and assisting communities in adapting to the adverse effects of climate change. These
activities offer entry points for dialogue between communities and local formal author­
ities—and within government at all levels—on how formal authorities can expand their
role through the provision of services in, for example, natural resource management.
This finding is supported by previous research that identified examples where local
governments successfully provided services (such as water, policing and the adminis­
tration of land titles) to their constituencies in south-central Somalia, and research
arguing for connecting state-building with addressing environmental concerns in
fragile and conflict-affected countries.97 The potential impacts of this approach to fur­
thering the provision of government services in the area of natural resource governance
are particularly important in communities whose members do not feel represented or
assisted in any way by the government.

95 Krampe, Hegazi and VanDeveer (note 13).

96 According to perception survey data, women were more likely than men to choose religious leaders and police
officers for resolving such a dispute, suggesting that they may expect their claims to be treated more favourably by
those arbiters.
97 Menkhaus, K., If Mayors Ruled Somalia: Beyond the State-building Impasse, Policy Note no. 2 (The Nordic
Africa Institute: Uppsala, 2014); and Kostić, Krampe and Swain (note 86).
5. Challenges of the environmental peacebuilding
approach
As examples of environmental peacebuilding, the Deegan Bile projects in Galmudug
and Hirshabelle offer lessons on three challenges or trade-offs of implementing such an
approach. The first relates to the balancing of the interests of humans and nature in pro­
ject design to avoid maladaptation; the second relates to the political sustainability of
the project outcomes; and the third relates to limitations in monitoring and evaluation
of the impacts of the projects on the natural environment and the target communities.

Maladaptation risk: Balancing the interests of humans and nature

One challenge in designing the Deegan Bile projects in Galmudug and Hirshabelle was
the imperative of balancing needs identified by the community and the need to take into
account the effects of climate change.98
Human needs and priorities can be more immediate and experienced over a shorter
term than the best practices in climate action can be aligned with. The Deegan Bile
projects were implemented during and immediately after the most severe drought
on record in Somalia, so the priorities of many communities revolved around access
to water—not only drinking water but also water for agriculture and livestock.99
The maladaptation risk here was that increasing access to water and concurrently
improving social relations in the short term would contribute to the unsustainable use
of groundwater, which exacerbates longer-term water insecurity. Conversely, creating
new sources of water (e.g. boreholes and reservoirs) can fuel competition between
groups desiring their control, in particular during dry seasons or under drought
conditions, which constitutes another risk of maladaptation. Because tensions around
water can be tied to how different groups use it (for livestock, agriculture or other
purposes), the findings from the Deegan Bile projects raise the questions of whether
cross-clan collaboration on natural resource management is easier to facilitate between
groups who use natural resources in the same ways and whether it is more challenging
to advance environmental peacebuilding in communities where different clans pursue
different livelihoods.
The challenges for communities in balancing human and environmental interests
were made clear during focus group discussions. Participants showed a strong under­
standing of changing weather patterns and their negative consequences for ecosystems
and animal and human health. They cited the adverse effects of deforestation, soil
erosion and declining vegetation cover in addition to the increasing severity of heat-
related health risks for humans, such as heatstroke, dehydration and malaria. But com­
munities also highlighted their limited capacities to adapt, even when they know what
they should and should not do to protect the environment and the long-term security
of their livelihoods. Participants in the Beer Gadid focus group discussion admitted
that they are not attempting to adapt to changes in the climate—not because they are
unconcerned about the environment, but because they are more concerned with their
survival.
The focus on the livestock sector in the Deegan Bile projects presented both opportun­
ities and risks for economic development. In the conflict analysis conducted to inform

98 The challenges were discussed by IOM, UNEP and SIPRI staff on numerous occasions, which exemplifies
how partnerships between organizations can support the identification and evaluation of challenges and trade-offs
during implementation.
99 IOM (note 50).
 challenges of the environmental peacebuilding approach 25

the Deegan Bile projects, IOM found that the livestock sector is the cornerstone of
livelihoods, food security and trade in Galmudug and Hirshabelle, and recognized that
the sector represents a credible institution for building good governance through cli­
mate action and for strengthening formal governance through the collection of taxes.100
However, focusing on the livestock sector may be maladaptive in the long term, given
the climate projections of increasing temperatures and more erratic rainfall, which
pose challenges in terms of the availability and reliability of the resources—water and
pasture—that are key to the sector.101 Furthermore, Somalia is one of the fastest urban­
izing countries in Africa, suggesting that in the long term, a greater emphasis on the
diversification of livelihoods will be needed in urban centres in addition to rural areas,
where migratory pastoralism remains the predominant lifestyle.102
Regarding the livestock sector, IOM observed the need to continue investing in cred­
ible institutions that already exist in Somalia’s rural areas, the majority of which are
oriented towards the predominant pastoralist livelihood, as a means of building the
capacities of communities to work together peacefully in order to facilitate future eco­
nomic and political transitions.103 Forty-four per cent of perception survey respondents
in Galmudug and Hirshabelle reported that their primary source of income is livestock,
reflecting the predominance of a livelihood that relies on natural resources and is,
therefore, sensitive to the effects of climate change. Furthermore, the survey indicated
that 79 per cent of respondents received no education or Quranic education only,
and that 76 per cent of respondents are in a low wealth index bracket. These socio-
economic factors impact the capacities and options that people have for diversifying
their livelihoods as a way of adapting to climate change, but opportunities to shift to
alternative income sources are also defined by the predominance of pastoralism in the
economies of Galmudug and Hirshabelle.
While implementing the Deegan Bile Galmudug and Hirshabelle projects, IOM
recognized the need for longer-term strategies for addressing environmental degrad­
ation and improving the health of local ecosystems so that they can cope with the
growing pressures of climate change. Both projects were designed to reduce conflict
in target locations through investment in water infrastructure, improved efficiency
of water and energy use in the agropastoral sector, dialogue and natural resource
management.104 But as implementation of the Galmudug project occurred first and
could provide some lessons for the Hirshabelle project, IOM shifted from its emphasis
on water infrastructure (such as boreholes and water reservoirs) towards nature-based
solutions (such as rainwater harvesting) when implementing the Hirshabelle project.
Nature-based solutions give greater consideration to ecosystem restoration and the
feedback loops between ecosystem components to achieve the same goals of strength­
ening collaboration and reducing conflict between clans.105

100 IOM staff, workshop on Deegan Bile projects, Nairobi, 27 Sep. 2023.
101 Somali Ministry of National Resources, Somalia National Adaptation Programme of Action on Climate
Change, Apr. 2013. Available at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change website, <https://
unfccc.int/topics/resilience/workstreams/national-adaptation-programmes-of-action/napas-received>.
102 Halakhe, A. B. and Miller, S., ‘No going back: The new urban face of internal displacement in Somalia’, Refu­
gees International, 25 May 2023.
103 IOM staff, workshop on Deegan Bile projects, Nairobi, 27 Sep. 2023; and IOM staff, workshop on Deegan Bile
projects, Nairobi, 6–10 Nov. 2023.
104 IOM, ‘As climate change strains Somalia’s path to peace, communities hold the key’, The Storyteller, 13 July
2022.
105 IOM (note 68).
26 burning ground

Political challenges: Sustaining positive outcomes in the context of conflict

The Deegan Bile projects sought to improve the presence and strength of formal govern­
ance and state–society relationships in Galmudug and Hirshabelle FMS. In doing so,
they also sought to address the disconnect between development and peacebuilding
interventions in Somalia, where rural development projects are implemented without
engaging in politics and where political peacebuilding processes focus on engaging
with urban elites. As such, the projects recognized and strived to overcome one of the
drawbacks of environmental peacebuilding approaches, that is, that they conceive
of environmental problems as depoliticized or fail to recognize the political ecology
that influences people’s experience of environmental problems.106 Experience from
environmental peacebuilding in Nepal and Sudan shows that successful local-level
projects can be challenged when they seek to engage in fractious national-level polit­
ics.107 This is also a risk in Somalia, where political rifts within each FMS and between
the FMS governments and the Government of Somalia have often undermined local
stability. As Galmudug is slated to hold elections in 2024, and as conflict with Al-Shabab
continues in both Galmudug and Hirshabelle, the potential for local environmental
peacebuilding initiatives to be subsumed or manipulated by more powerful actors is
high.108 Peacebuilding actors have previously identified challenges to community-based
peacebuilding initiatives, which include engaging with formal authorities, working in
contexts of high levels of insecurity and operating without legal frameworks.109 But the
broader risks identified in the environmental peacebuilding literature also speak to the
potential for elites to manipulate initiatives in ways that reinforce marginalization—a
particular risk in highly fragmented societies.110
In Galmudug and Hirshabelle, IOM engaged with government decision makers at
the district and FMS level. The internal dynamics of the government became a factor in
the ease of implementing the Deegan Bile projects. In the case of the Hirshabelle FMS
government, it took several months of coordination to establish the interministerial
steering committee (described in chapter 4), which significantly delayed the project’s
launch. Nevertheless, the Deegan Bile projects’ support of district- and FMS-level
government capacities is a core component of ensuring that longer-term formal govern­
ance can sustain the projects’ positive outcomes.
There are challenges here too. The capacity of the formal authorities to implement
and run projects is impacted by the limited tax collection and revenue sources of the
Somali Government. IOM has received requests from communities in Galmudug and
Hirshabelle to implement matching grant projects in different localities; it aims to tran­
sition the matching grant project process to the FMS governments, but this may have
mixed results. IOM does not foresee being able to evaluate the impact the Deegan Bile
projects have had on government service delivery, which is a barrier to understand­
ing the potential for the environmental peacebuilding approach to contribute to an
improvement in formal governance.

106 Ide (note 18).

107 This experience was relayed by an IOM staff member at the workshop on Deegan Bile projects, Nairobi,
27 Sep. 2023. United Nations Environment Programme and European Union, Climate Change and Security Partner­
ship Project Final Report: March 2017–February 2022 (UNEP/EU: Sep. 2022).
108 Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), ‘Somalia: Al-Shabaab regains lost territories amid
run-up to state elections’, Situation Update Mar. 2024, 28 Mar. 2024.
109 Saferworld, Conflict Dynamics International (CDI) and Knowledge Platform Security and Rule of Law
Secre­tariat (KPSRL), Sustainable Community Approaches to Peacebuilding in Securitised Environments: Case Study
of Somalia, Learning Paper (Saferworld, CDI and KPSRL: Feb. 2020).
110 Ide (note 18).
 challenges of the environmental peacebuilding approach 27

Evaluation challenges: Capturing long-term changes in communities and the

environment

Evaluation of the impacts of the Deegan Bile projects was, as for many peacebuilding
projects, affected by the short duration of the project life cycles. While Somalia’s civil
war began over three decades ago, and climate change is measured over decades and
centuries, IOM sought to reduce conflict and build climate resilience in specific areas
of Galmudug and Hirshabelle, and evaluate the impacts of doing so, in just 18 months.
Some of the potential peace outcomes of the projects may not be evident for some
time, so it is challenging to identify any shifting perceptions and behaviour—both of
communities towards the environment and between communities—in the short time
frame of a project’s implementation period. This challenge applies when evaluating
and attempting to understand the longer-term impact of more robust participation
of women in community-led natural resource management. While the example from
Duqaqo described in the subsection ‘Locally legitimate natural resource management’
above shows some evolution of women’s roles in the community within the project
period, it is impossible to plan for and fund a return to the same community in five
to ten years to explore whether local women have been empowered to assume other
responsibilities in the community. Similarly, the true impacts of training a group of
women from different clans as community mediators may never be fully understood,
especially when established indicators (the indicators used by IOM are defined by the
project donor, the European Union) on women’s participation and engagement focus
on quantitative measurements such as the percentage of ‘targeted women reporting
access to tools to improve resilience to climatic shocks’.111
A recent review of monitoring and evaluation practices for environmental peace­
building projects found that one key challenge to advancing this field relates to the
traditional silos environmental projects and peacebuilding projects are placed in—
theories of change focus on one but neglect identification of the potential outcomes,
whether positive or negative, for the other (i.e. they have ‘blind spots’).112 In the Deegan
Bile projects, IOM aimed to address vulnerabilities to conflict and climate change in
tandem, however, monitoring and evaluation for the projects focused on measuring
conflict reduction using social, economic and political indicators. This restricted
identification of the projects’ impact on ecosystem health and understanding of the
outcomes of the community-led, IOM-implemented project activities, for example,
activities to improve soil and water quality, natural resource management and the
sustainability of agropastoralism.
Furthermore, given the many humanitarian, development and peacebuilding
initiatives under way in Somalia and the often-limited published information about
these initiatives, distinguishing between the impact of IOM-led activities and other
organizations’ initiatives that may precede, overlap or follow them in the same target
locations is difficult.
To fully assess environmental peacebuilding approaches, there is a need to monitor
and evaluate both social and environmental project impacts. This is crucial to under­
standing both intended and unintended consequences of project implementation in
local ecosystems and in local communities.

111 IOM (note 68).

112 Bruch and Woomer (note 22).
6. Lessons learned from the Deegan Bile projects
As climate change and conflict continue apace in Somalia, the need for robust responses
that mitigate climate-related security risks has become urgent. Yet, while there is grow­
ing awareness of this need, few real-world examples showing how such responses
can be designed, planned and implemented exist. The Deegan Bile projects offer a
number of lessons for researchers, practitioners and policymakers with an interest in
real-world examples of how climate change mitigation and adaptation can be designed
and implemented to advance peacebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected areas. This
chapter summarizes the three key lessons.

Lesson 1: Natural resource governance can support local peacebuilding

The Deegan Bile projects were designed to address local conflicts in rural areas of
Galmudug and Hirshabelle. The conflict analysis conducted by IOM found that these
conflicts stem from the contested control of natural resources within segregated clan
communities. To tackle this issue, the projects sought to strengthen local natural
resource management as a tool for conflict prevention. This aim was intended to be
achieved using two strategies: transferring knowledge and norms on environmental
governance to community natural resource management structures and making natural
resource management more participatory and representative through the inclusion of
women and youth. The final narrative report on the Deegan Bile Galmudug project
suggests that the potential for women to play a larger role in community decision
making around natural resources is influenced by the types of environmental project
that the community chooses to implement. If communities opt to pursue a project in a
sector that already involves local women (e.g. kitchen gardening) there is more scope
for women to participate in allocating resources to that activity (water in the case of
kitchen gardening). This lesson is relevant to other gender-sensitive environmental
peacebuilding processes in countries with a high level of gender inequality.
However, comprehensive understanding of the potential for environmental peace­
building approaches to enhance the role of women in broader community decision
making requires longer-term monitoring and evaluation of how their increased
participation in natural resource management can lead to increased agency in other
social, economic and political spheres. Similarly, to improve understanding of how
natural resource management can support conflict reduction, environmental peace­
building projects require time to assess the political sustainability of their outcomes.
Environmental impact assessments should be conducted as part of these projects as
a matter of course in order to analyse their impacts on local ecosystems and whether
any unintended (positive or negative) consequences have arisen as a result of their
implementation.
Over the 18-month implementation period of the project in Galmudug, IOM noticed
both a reduction in the incidence of conflicts and a shift from individual to community-
based management of water, land and forestry resources. This suggests that improved
local natural resource management can surpass conflict reduction in terms of enhancing
intra-community relationships and building communities’ capacities for collaboration.

Lesson 2: Climate action can support peacebuilding

The theories of change for the Deegan Bile projects in both Galmudug and Hirshabelle
established the core objectives of the projects, namely, to use climate change adaptation
and strengthened local mechanisms for conflict resolution to reduce reliance on nega­
 lessons learned from the deegan bile projects 29

tive coping strategies and the incidence of conflict and displacement. Both projects
also identified investing in climate-smart infrastructure as an entry point to conflict
reduction.
For the Deegan Bile projects, IOM placed an emphasis on infrastructure to demon­
strate how climate action can be used to support peacebuilding in fragile and conflict-
affected contexts. Further, its matching grant approach showed how mitigation and
adaptation initiatives to combat climate change can be designed in ways that prioritize
community ownership of the resulting infrastructure while anchoring intergroup col­
laboration in the tangible benefits they produce, thereby functioning as a platform for
peacebuilding.
Application of the matching grant approach yielded various results in Galmudug, indi­
cating the context-specific nature of project design and the flexibility needed in project
implementation. Whether crowdfunding as a source of project funding would work as
effectively in other countries and regions as it did under the Deegan Bile projects is
unclear. However, IOM Somalia’s Community Stabilization Unit has successfully used
the matching grant approach to mobilize communities to work together across conflict
lines and to connect with family and clan networks within Somalia and the Somali
diaspora to crowdfund actions aimed at building resilience to climate change. This
approach offers an important example of how the pressing need for climate change
mitigation and adaptation in fragile and conflict-affected areas can be aligned with
peacebuilding efforts and supported with improved access to financial resources.113

Lesson 3: Climate action can support the development of formal governance

structures

The conflict analysis conducted by IOM for the Deegan Bile projects found that various
conflict dynamics feed into and exacerbate each other; for example, local-level clan
conflicts can increase community vulnerabilities to exploitation by non-state armed
groups, and rural clan conflicts can produce political spillover effects.
As it was operating in newly recovered territories, IOM identified the need to bridge
rural development with political peacebuilding in order to support credible local insti­
tutions that can respond to the everyday needs of communities, with an emphasis on
supporting local livelihoods and economies that rely heavily on natural resources.
In complex and fragile contexts, as in parts of south-central Somalia, formal author­
ities can improve their legitimacy through climate action by connecting with existing
informal governance structures; the Deegan Bile projects contributed to building
such vertical relationships. Formal authorities can also improve their legitimacy by
delivering tangible benefits to local communities; the projects facilitated government
involvement in improving natural resource management and local livelihoods, which
may contribute to improving community understanding of the potential role of formal
authorities beyond their provision of security.
One of the unintended consequences of the Deegan Bile projects appears to have
been the creation of a space for informal intergovernmental dialogue and collaboration
on issues related to climate change and its impacts on the national priority of political
stabilization. This finding indicates the potential for climate action to bridge grassroots
peacebuilding and political peacebuilding and foster alignment of the interests of com­
peting groups with climate action priorities.
However, this paper identified the limited capacity of formal authorities to imple­
ment similar projects as a possible challenge to the sustainability of the positive

113 Reda, D. and Wong, C., Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace: Making Climate Finance Work for Conflict-
affected and Fragile Contexts (United Nations Development Programme: New York, 2021).
30 burning ground

contributions to environmental peacebuilding of the Deegan Bile projects, and in this

regard, highlights the importance of identifying and supporting methods to evaluate
the political impacts of such projects and any long-term shifts in government service
delivery in the areas of environmental and natural resource management and climate
change mitigation and adaptation.
7. Conclusions
The IOM-led Deegan Bile projects implemented in Galmudug and Hirshabelle FMS,
Somalia, offer valuable insights into how organizations with relevant mandates can
work at the intersection of climate change, conflict and peacebuilding. The examples of
environmental peacebuilding these projects constitute are crucial because, as climate-
related security risks intensify in the country and elsewhere, there is a real need for
iterative responses that facilitate action and learning in tandem.
This paper has examined the context, approach, implementation and outcomes of the
Deegan Bile projects. It finds that the approach followed by these projects can support
credible, inclusive local institutions for natural resource management, foster cross-clan
collaboration on climate-smart infrastructure and nature-based solutions, and forge or
strengthen relationships between formal authorities and rural communities through
their joint design, planning and implementation of activities aimed at both climate
action and conflict reduction. All these factors are essential to the success of climate
action and peacebuilding initiatives.
However, the research also underscores the challenges to be navigated in applying
environmental peacebuilding approaches. Policymakers and practitioners should
carefully consider the need to delicately balance the interests of humans and nature in
project design, the imperative to ensure the political sustainability of project outcomes,
and the necessity to comprehensively evaluate both the social and the environmental
impacts of a project, which is difficult given the short time frames of project implemen­
tation periods and the narrow indicators available.
As the global community grapples with the intertwined challenges of climate change
and conflict, the Deegan Bile projects offer insights into both the challenges and the
opportunities for designing and implementing responses that mitigate the impacts of
climate change while also contributing to sustainable peace in fragile contexts.
About the author
Kheira Tarif (Algeria/United Kingdom) is a Researcher in the SIPRI Climate Change
and Risk Programme. She conducts research and policy advice on climate change,
vio­lent conflict and peacebuilding, working with governments, peace operations and
multi­lateral organizations.
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