Executive Summary:
Ecological threats, including climate change, food insecurity,
and water scarcity, are increasingly recognised as significant
factors that affect the dynamics of armed conflict. This fifth
annual edition of the Ecological Threat Report (ETR)
surveys current ecological risk levels. It takes an in-depth
look at the impact of water scarcity and analyses the
potential of improving water capture to mitigate multiple
ecological threats in some of the world’s worst-affected
areas.
The report finds that countries with higher levels of
ecological threat are more likely to have higher levels of
conflict, and lower levels of societal safety and security.
Without concerted international action, ecological
degradation will continue to accelerate, intensifying a range
of social issues, including malnutrition and forced migration.
When combined with further stressors, such as demographic
pressure and poor governance, the likely result will be an
increase in conflict. However, with appropriate action,
involving micro water capture, enhanced agricultural yields
and better local governance, the effects can be substantially
mitigated.
The ETR covers 207 countries and territories, of which 50
face high or very high levels of ecological threat. IEP
estimates almost two billion people will live in these
countries by 2050. At present, they are home to just under
1.3 billion, and seven in ten of these people reside in
countries with low levels of societal resilience, highlighting
that whole-of-system approaches are needed to rectify the
deteriorating situation. The resilience of many of these
at-risk communities is already being tested: global food
prices remain almost 25 per cent higher than pre-pandemic
levels.
Sub-Saharan Africa faces the most acute ecological threats
of any region. This is driven by its high levels of food
insecurity, related issues of water stress, large increases in
population, and poor governance. Moreover, although many
countries around the world have stable or shrinking
populations, sub-Saharan Africa’s population is projected to
increase by more than 70 per cent by 2050, placing further
pressure on already strained food and water supplies.
One of the key findings of this year’s report is that, through
improvements in water capture for food production, an
economically viable model can be developed that shows
attractive returns on investment. This has the potential to
reduce hunger and poverty and substantially boost
economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa. For sub-Saharan
Africa to meet its basic food needs by 2050, it will need to more than double its production of cereals, which represent
the foundation of the region’s diet.
Ecological threats are strongly correlated with peacefulness.
If multiple ecological threats related to food insecurity, water
risk and demographic pressure occur simultaneously, they
can converge and amplify each other, causing a multiplier
effect. Improvements in water and food security will also
improve a range of other factors, including health,
development, and societal resilience. Combined with
improvements in local governance, the likelihood of future
conflict can be substantially lessened.
IEP uses a multi-dimensional analysis of food insecurity, the
impact of natural events, demographic pressure, and water
risk, broken down into 3,518 sub-national areas covering
99.9 per cent of the global population, to derive a score for
ecological threat levels.
The analysis identifies 27 ecological “hotspots”, which are
countries facing high ecological risks that intersect with low
societal resilience. Seventeen of these countries are in
sub-Saharan Africa, six are in the Middle East and North
Africa, and just four are in all other regions.
Although much of this report focuses on sub-Saharan Africa,
the lessons are applicable to other regions. Climate change
is going to stress water resources in the glacier-fed
ecosystems of South Asia and South America, rising sea
levels are going to increase salinity in some of the world’s
most fertile agricultural regions, particularly in Southeast
Asia, and more extreme weather in China and India will
make it harder to feed the 2.8 billion people who live there.
Water availability can also affect international relations, as in
the case of rivers that flow through multiple countries, giving
upstream areas greater control over the resource. For
example, the damming of the Nile in northeastern Africa and
the Mekong River in Southeast Asia have severely affected
the livelihoods of tens of millions of people in downstream
communities.
Sub-Saharan Africa has both unused arable land and large
and under-utilised water resources. The World Bank says
that sub-Saharan Africa has 200 million hectares of unused
land suitable for agriculture. Moreover, there are nearly 35
million hectares of cropland with untapped irrigation
potential.
Read more here.