Farmer-herder conflicts in Nigeria: the role of climate change and religious cleavages

In recent years, violent conflict between sedentary farmers and nomadic herdsmen has claimed tens of thousands of lives across the West African Sahel zone, with a heavy concentration of casualties occurring in Nigeria. Conflicts and competition over land and water resources between these groups have a long history, but their intensity and lethality have risen sharply in recent decades. What explains this intensification of farmer-herder conflicts? One explanation emphasizes increased competition over water and land resources as a result of climate change, and droughts in particular. An alternative explanation puts farmer-herder conflicts in the wider context of religious conflict and extremism that have affected Nigeria and the wider Sahel zone since the end of the 1990s. Using geo-referenced data on violent farmer-herder conflicts, droughts, and religious composition, as well as original data from a survey in Kaduna state, we show that in the absence of religious cleavages, conflict intensity is low, and droughts have little impact. In the presence of religious cleavages, however, conflict intensity is much higher and gets exacerbated by the occurrence of droughts.

Please note that this event takes place in English only with no translation.

The event is part of the WZB Talks series.