Sökformulär

Environmental management

Climate Change and the Risk of Violent Conflicts in Southern Africa

Upphovspersoner: Themnér, Anders | Swain, Ashok | Bali Swain, Ranjula | Krampe, Florian
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Uppsala centrum för hållbar utveckling, Uppsala universitet | Nationalekonomiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet | Pretoria ; Uppsala : Global Crisis Solutions ; Uppsala centrum för hållbar utveckling
År: 2011
Ämnesord: Climate change, Civil war, conflicts, Shared water resources, Environmental management, Economic implications, Southern Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambezi River, Political science, Statsvetenskap
This study aims to identify regions in the Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa that are prone to risk of violent conflicts (collective violence, popular unrest) induced by climatic changes/variability. The Zambezi River is 575 kilometres long and the basin covers eight countries: Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia. Besides the ecological impact, the study argues that socio-economic and political problems are disproportionately multiplied by climate change/variability. Climate change/variability amplifies stresses on the socio-political fabric because it affects the governance of resources, and hence, is linked to the weakened mitigation and adaptation capacity of societies, that are already facing economic challenges (rising food prices, etc.). Society becomes highly vulnerable to climate induced conflicts when it suffers from poor central leadership, weak institutions and polarized social identities. Taking all these factors into consideration, this study identifies Bulawayo/Matableleland-North in Zimbabwe and the Zambezia Province in Mozambique as the most likely regions to experience climate induced conflicts in the near future. The reasons for arriving at this conclusion are: a) Climate change/variability will have a significant impact on these two regions; due to increasing water scarcity in Bulawayo/Matabeleland-North; and intensified flooding, sea-level rise, and costal erosion in the Zambezia Province. b) Due to climate change/variability, agricultural production in these two regions will become highly volatile, leading to severe food insecurity. c) Both regions are suffering from low quality political governance, having unscrupulous elites, weak institutions, and polarized social identities.

Producing nature and poverty in Africa

Medarbetare: Broch-Due, Vigdis | Schroeder, Richard A.
Utgivare: Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2000
Ämnesord: natural resources, poverty, Environmental management, Colonial and postcolonial interventions, Africa, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
Development donors have supported thousands of environmental initiatives in Africa over the past quarter century. The contributors to this provocative new collection of essays assess these projects and conclude that environmental programmes constitute one of the major forms of foreign and state intervention in contemporary African affairs. Drawing on case study material from eight countries, the authors demonstrate clearly that environmental programmes themselves often have direct and far-reaching consequences for the distribution of wealth and poverty on the continent. Individual essays in the collection theorise specific forms of environmental intervention; the degree of historical discontinuity that exists between contemporary and past environmental policies and practices; the effect environmental programmes have had on localised systems of knowledge and value regimes; the strategies of accumulation that have been spun out of heavy donor and state investment in environmental programmes; and the numerous social, cultural and political-economic dislocations these initiatives have produced in African environments all across the continent.

Twice humanity : implications for local and global resource use

Medarbetare: Berger, Amelie
Utgivare: Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 1998
Ämnesord: Agriculture, Ecology, Environmental effects, Environmental management, Research, Resources management, Sustainable development, Developing countries, Conference papers, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
This book is the result of the conference "Twice Humanity - Implications for local and global resource use", and consists of select papers which all contribute to the discussion of sustainable development in relation to the growing population and the unbalanced use of resources which will limit our future way of life.