The International Expert Forum (IEF) is a series of seminars meant to facilitate dialogue between experts and policymakers on peace and security. Meeting in Stockholm this past May, the forum explored the connections between environmental issues, peacebuilding, and conflict while considering how environmental governance can aid in peacebuilding. The summary brief produced after the forum provides a useful snapshot of a fast-changing field of study.

While climate change and environmental degradation are frequently assumed to cause conflict, real-world situations demonstrate the links are more complicated than often thought. Research by Elisabeth Gilmore from the University of Maryland shows poor governance may be the catalyst that allows environmental factors, such as the overdrawing of natural resources or climate change, to give rise to conflict. Inequitable legal systems, abuses of executive power, and/or widespread corruption can lead to detrimental coping strategies that disregard the need to increase resilience and adaptation – or worse, do more harm than good. Such governance failings can also result in overexploitation of natural resources, unjust distribution of resources and capital, and illegal trade. These factors in turn drive instability and conflict.

However, when access to resources and their distribution is more equitable, environmental factors can instead lay the foundation for cooperation and conflict prevention. Uppsala University’s Ashok Swain noted that the focus of many researchers has shifted from the risk of armed conflict resulting from environmental degradation to instances of collaboration because the grave predictions of violence lack empirical evidence.

Case studies from the Jordan River Basin and the Nile Basin, presented by Therese Sjömander Magnusson of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), yield important lessons on what it takes for environmental peacebuilding efforts to succeed. Both basins have incentive structures that emphasize the benefits of participating in dialogue and the costs for not doing so. In the Jordan River Basin, SIWI has helped setup a multi-stakeholder platform comprised of representatives from Israel, Jordan, and Palestine, including 28 local communities. This platform allows for cooperative decision-making on transboundary issues and shows how environmental challenges can become an incentive for dialogue rather than a cause of conflict between groups that are normally at odds with one another.

SIWI also works in the Nile Basin, where they promote diplomacy between the nearly dozen countries that run along its length. As a third party, SIWI facilitates dialogue about key issues, such as disputes over water allocation and infrastructure between upstream and downstream countries, supporting cooperation in a region that is otherwise marked by tensions and hostility.

Some experts presented cases from the field that contradict prominent assumptions in the peacebuilding literature. The implementation of micro-hydropower projects in Nepal, for example, has had positive effects from a socio-economic and human security standpoint. They have not, however, resulted in increased trust in the state, according to work by Uppsala University’s Florian Krampe. The international NGOs and individuals involved in the projects were given credit by communities instead of the state, which faces challenges establishing itself after years of civil war.

Agency and how various actors and stakeholders interact with one another are also important to consider. A common theme at the forum was that climate change and environmental degradation are not to blame for violence; political leaders ultimately bear responsibility. Both Darfur and Eastern Sudan have been affected by drought, land degradation, and shrinking pasture areas, for example. However, as the work of Johan Brosché of Uppsala University demonstrates, Eastern Sudan has not experienced significant levels of violence, while in Darfur conflict broke out between nomads and farmers, among local elites, between the rural regions and Khartoum, and between the Sudanese and Chadian governments.

The key difference lies in the relationship between the Sudanese central government and local leaders. Elites in Darfur have been excluded from decision-making because of long-standing tensions between the region and Khartoum, while in Eastern Sudan local actors have had more influence because the government has taken little interest in meddling.

How to improve environmental governance? Even in places where government is willing (not the case in Darfur), organizational silos may prove to be a stumbling block. A study by Maria Therese Gustafsson of Stockholm University highlights the challenges these silos pose for environmental peacebuilding. Most governments and NGOs are organized in such a way that the tools used to address conflict, such as prevention, peacekeeping, or mediation, are compartmentalized into separate institutions; likewise, there are often multiple institutions tasked with addressing environmental issues. As a result, policies that deal with peacebuilding tend to ignore the environment and vice versa.

An ongoing project in Burkina Faso by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) illustrates how a more flexible approach can create synergies between environmental governance and peacebuilding. While implementing this project, SIDA combines environmental considerations with a conflict-sensitive approach to bolster government institutions and encourage peaceful development. The project brings together various civil society actors to jointly develop plans for natural resource management, an important issue given Burkina Faso’s long history of conflict between pastoralists and farmers over land rights and access. The results so far have been positive. The water program, for instance, has helped ensure that 63 percent of the national rural population and 84 percent of the urban population have access to clean drinking water without provoking new tensions over access and allocation.

A strong bottom line conclusion seems to have emerged from the International Experts Forum: governance is crucial to environmental peacebuilding and avoiding the worst effects of climate change. The presence or absence of strong governance structures can determine whether environmental factors contribute to conflict or peace.