LIFS

Horn of Africa Conference
On Horn of Africa and Peace: The Role of
Environment

Date: 7-9 August 2009
Place: City Hall, Lund, Sweden

The environment has gained attention among policy makers
around the world in recent years, much due to climate change. For
developing countries in Africa and in other regions of the world, the
environment and climate change have already and will most likely
have continued great impacts. Many people in Africa depend
heavily on natural resources. Access to clean water is a vital
resource to people’s survival. Clean water is not merely the issue.
The Horn of Africa region is dangerously suffering from drought and
water shortages.
A majority of the Horn of Africa population is pastoralists and
farmers, who depend increasingly on land. For many of these
groups, desertification is causing an enormous hardship. Human
induced changes and stresses have produced conditions that
generate catastrophic vulnerabilities in the Horn of Africa. The
culprint is systemic, but centrally involves lack of capacity of the
states to react and states development policies .
The severity and extent of human insecurity and the consequences
of environmental degradation are great in the Horn of Africa.
Environmental challenges--such as land degradation, deforestation,
climate change, and water scarcity and pollution—can threaten
national and human security. These factors can contribute to
conflict or exacerbate other causes such as poverty, migration, and
infectious diseases.
However, managing environmental issues and natural resources
can also build confidence and contribute to peace by facilitating
cooperation across lines of tension. It is also to be noted that the
environmental survival, socio-economic activity and social stability
are inter-linking factors.

Recent work with the United Nations and other international
collaborators continues to build the case for environmental
peacemaking, which uses cooperative efforts to manage
environmental resources as a way to transform insecurities and
create more peaceful relations between parties in dispute.
Therefore, the 8th international Horn of Africa conference focuses
on Horn of Africa and Peace: The Role of Environment.
There are special invitations to political scientists,
environmentalists, geographers, historians, economists,
practitioners, lawyers, civics, institutions, and policy-makers to
conference as presenters. Your inputs and perspectives bring vital
insights into peaceful solutions to environmental issues in the Horn
of Africa.
Papers:
The conference calls for inter-disciplinary papers within the
following areas:

Proposed papers for session 1
The nature of environmental questions in the horn of Africa and
who are the drivers:
• State
• Civil society organisations
• International development agencies
• Donors and Aid policies
• The structure of the trading system
• Farmers & pastoralists
• Population growth
• Migration
Papers focus on the core causes of the environment/peace
questions and how power has been deployed to deal with conflicts,
peace and environmental issues.
Papers also focus on how environmental cooperation can contribute
to peace, instead of environmental degradation and inter-group
violent conflict. Can environmental cooperation be an effective
catalyst for reducing tensions, broadening cooperation, fostering
demilitarization, and promoting peace? Is peace a prerequisite for
environmental cooperation?

Country papers for session 2
Djibouti
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Somalia
Sudean
Papers focus on identifying country level actors and issues and how
people are working across borders around natural resource issues.
In what places and around what issues have they coalesced most
strongly? What aspects of human livelihood do they target, and for
whom? What is working and what is not?

Papers for session 3
• Local adaptation and coping to climate change impacts:
- Water
- Desertification
- Land use
- Forests
- Energy
- Dumping industrial wastes
- Declining marine resources
Papers focus on what local level activities are currently underway,
some based on indigenous knowledge systems, others on local and
national government initiatives. What can we learn from adaptive
capacities and coping strategies that can be emulated in other local
contexts? What information and knowledge can local resource
users teach us about avoiding environmentally induced conflict?
What support is needed to continue local adaptive strategies?
You are invited to send a one page abstract which should include a
working title, the author’s discipline and field, address, institutional
affiliation and e-mail address to either of the conference
coordinators written below before 30th March 2009. Deadline for the
complete paper is 30th June 2009. Papers are expected to be of
high quality and follow the time limitations. All guest speakers are
requested to take an inter-sectional approach to their papers. We
look forward to receiving your abstract.
For more information please contact:
Abdillahi Jama, Conference Coordinator
Somalia International Rehabilitation Centre (SIRC)
BOX 974,
220 09 Lund, Sweden,
Tel/fax: +46 46-2114502,
Mobil: +4673-989 75 33,
sirc@zeta.telenordia.se, http://www.sirclund.se,
Former Ambassador to UN, Count Pietersen,
Conference Co-Coordinator
Somalia International Rehabilitation Centre (SIRC)
BOX 974
220 09 Lund, Sweden
Tel: +46 46-2115269
E-mail: count.pietersen@home.se
sirc@zeta.telenordia.se
www.sirclund.se