Understanding the Climate–Food–Conflict Nexus in Sudan

This part introduces the main ideas needed to understand the climate–food–conflict nexus in Sudan (Figure 1). It does not treat climate change, conflict, or food insecurity as separate problems. Instead, it shows how they interact through livelihoods, governance, displacement, land and resource access, political instability, and environmental variability. The aim is to help readers move beyond simple explanations, especially the idea that climate change alone causes conflict, and towards a more grounded understanding of how vulnerability is produced in Sudan.

 

Figure 1: Conceptual framework for climate–food–conflict nexus in Sudan.

The figure shows how food insecurity in Sudan is shaped by the interaction between conflict, political instability, unequal development, dryland environmental variability, weakened coping systems, and natural resource-based livelihoods. The keywords represent drivers, mediating processes, and outcomes within the nexus.

Sudan’s contemporary history has been shaped by repeated cycles of political instability, armed conflict, displacement and contested state authority. These patterns are rooted partly in colonial legacies and early development policies, including hydro-agricultural initiatives that concentrated investment, infrastructure and political attention in selected areas while marginalising others. Conflicts in Sudan have rarely been isolated events. They have often emerged from deeper struggles over political power, land, identity, resources, representation, and unequal development. These patterns are visible across different historical periods and regions, including southern Sudan before independence, Darfur, South Kordofan, Blue Nile, eastern Sudan, and other areas affected by marginalisation and weak public investment.

 

The current war, which began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, has intensified these older vulnerabilities. It has disrupted agriculture, livestock mobility, markets, trade routes, public services, and humanitarian access. It has also created one of the world’s largest displacement crises. It has been reported in April 2026 that around 14 million people had been forced to flee since the war began, including about 9 million displaced inside Sudan and 4.4 million who had crossed borders.

 

The food-security consequences have been severe. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and UN agencies reporting indicate that nearly 19.5 million people, around 41% of Sudan’s population, faced high levels of acute food insecurity between February and May 2026, with conditions expected to worsen during the June–September lean season. This shows why the current war must be understood not only as a political or military crisis, but also as a livelihood and food-system crisis.

Selected readings

• Assal, M. A. M. (2006). Sudan: Identity and conflict over natural resources. Development, 49(3), 101–105. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100284.
• Bromwich, B. (2018). Power, contested institutions and land: Repoliticising analysis of natural resources and conflict in Darfur. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 12(1), 1–21. doi:10.1080/17531055.2017.1403782.
• Buchanan-Smith, M., & Bromwich, B. (2016). Preparing for peace: An analysis of Darfur, Sudan. In C. Bruch, C. Muffett & S. S. Nichols (Eds.), Governance, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Routledge/Earthscan. doi:10.4324/9780203109793-7.
• Burr, J. M., & Collins, R. O. (1995). Requiem for the Sudan: War, Drought, and Disaster Relief on the Nile. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• IPC (The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification). 2026. Sudan: Acute Food Insecurity Situation for February–May 2026 and Projections for June–September 2026 and for October 2026–January. Link: 2027https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Sudan_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Feb2026_Jan2027_Special_Snapshot.pdf
• Flint, J., & de Waal, A. (2008). Darfur: A New History of a Long War. London: Zed Books.
• Johnson, D. H. (2016). The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars: Old Wars and New Wars. Expanded 3rd edn. Woodbridge: James Currey.
• Mamdani, M. (2009). Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. New York: Pantheon Books.
• 2025. Sudan: Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2025 – Overview. Link: https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/sudan/sudan-humanitarian-needs-and-response-plan-2025-overview
• Verhoeven, H. (2011). Climate change, conflict, and development in Sudan: Global neo-Malthusian narratives and local power struggles. Development and Change, 42(3), 679–707. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01707.x.

Food security in Sudan is closely tied to natural resource-based livelihoods. Large sections of the population depend directly or indirectly on rainfed farming, irrigated agriculture, pastoralism, agro-pastoralism, forestry products, seasonal labour, and local markets. These systems provide food, income, employment, social identity, and local forms of resilience. They also depend on access to land, water, pasture, forests, labour, credit, veterinary services, roads, and functioning markets.

 

These livelihoods have always operated in a variable environment. Farmers and pastoralists have historically adapted to rainfall variability, drought, floods, and shifting resource availability through mobility, crop choice, herd management, seasonal labour, social networks, and local knowledge. Pastoral mobility, in particular, has been one of the most important strategies for managing uncertainty in dryland environments. It allows herders to move livestock towards pasture and water when conditions change across space and time.

 

However, these livelihood systems become highly vulnerable when development interventions, land-use change or conflict disrupt access to land, water, pasture, mobility routes and markets. Changes in land rights, agricultural expansion, large-scale schemes, and contested resource access can weaken farming and pastoral systems even before open conflict occurs. Farmers may be unable to reach fields, obtain seeds, or hire labour. Pastoralists may lose access to migration routes, water points, markets, and grazing areas. Traders may be unable to move food safely between production and consumption areas. Humanitarian actors may also be prevented from reaching populations in need. In this way, conflict transforms environmental stress into a much wider food-security crisis.

 

This underlines a key message: climate-sensitive livelihoods are not only affected by weather and rainfall. They are also shaped by security, governance, markets, and people’s ability to move, cultivate, trade, and recover.

Selected readings

• Elagib, N. A, Ahmed, B. M., Sulieman, H. M., Rahma, A. E., Ali, M. M. A., Schneider, K. (2025). Capturing social sensing of farming activities for policymaking in fragile contexts. Journal of Rural Studies, 117(1):103638. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2025.103638.
• Krätli, S., El Dirani, O. H., & Young, H. (2013). Standing Wealth: Pastoralist Livestock Production and Local Livelihoods in Sudan. United Nations Environment Programme and Feinstein International Center, Tufts University.
• Krätli, S., Hülsebusch, C., Brooks, S., & Kaufmann, B. (2013). Pastoralism: A critical asset for food security under global climate change. Animal Frontiers, 3(1), 42–50. doi:10.2527/af.2013-0007.
• Mohammed Ali, I. M. (2019). The ecological, socio-economic and political constraints on pastoralists’ access to water, Blue Nile State, Sudan. Nomadic Peoples, 23(2), 282–302. doi:10.3197/np.2019.230207.
• Pantuliano, S. (2010). Oil, land and conflict: The decline of Misseriyya pastoralism in Sudan. Review of African Political Economy, 37(123), 7–23. doi:10.1080/03056241003637847.
• Robinson, J. (2006). Useful wild tree resources of southern Sudan: A review. Plant Genetic Resources, 4(3), 188–197. doi:10.1079/PGR2006122.
• Sulieman, H. M., & Young, H. (2023). The resilience and adaptation of pastoralist livestock mobility in a protracted conflict setting: West Darfur, Sudan. Nomadic Peoples, 27(1), 25–56. doi:10.3197/np.2023.270102.
• Wahlstedt, E., & Sulieman, H. M. (2024). Supporting Conflict-Resilient Food Systems in Sudan. Conflict Sensitivity Facility – Sudan.
• Young, H., & Ismail, M. A. (2019). Complexity, continuity and change: Livelihood resilience in the Darfur region of Sudan. Disasters, 43(S3), S368–S387. doi:10.1111/disa.12337.
• Young, H., Osman, A. M., Aklilu, Y., Dale, R., Badri, B., & Fuddle, A. J. A. (2005). Darfur – Livelihoods under Siege. Medford, MA: Feinstein International Famine Center, Tufts University.

In this framework, conflict refers not only to armed violence, but also to the wider conditions of insecurity, displacement, militarisation and contested authority that disrupt everyday life and livelihoods. Conflict intensifies climate and food-security risks by limiting people’s ability to farm, move livestock, access markets, obtain services, receive humanitarian assistance and rely on local institutions. A drought may reduce pasture, but conflict can prevent herders from reaching alternative grazing areas. A flood may damage crops, but conflict can prevent households from receiving assistance or replanting. A poor harvest may raise food prices, but conflict can make markets collapse, block trade routes, and reduce labour availability.

 

The nexus approach helps avoid a simple cause-and-effect explanation. Climate stress does not automatically lead to conflict, and conflict does not always produce famine. Rather, the problem lies in the interaction between hazards and vulnerability. When drought, flooding, or land degradation occur in areas with functioning institutions, secure access to resources, and strong local support systems, communities may still be able to cope. But when the same environmental pressures occur alongside violence, displacement, market disruption, and weak governance, the consequences can become far more severe.

 

This complexity and its various outcomes are discussed in Daoudy’s (2021) work, which examines three cases. Droughts struck Sudan before the Darfur conflict in 2003, Syria in 2006-2010 before the uprising that led to the civil war, and Morocco in 2015-2016 after many years of low rainfall, yet not leading to conflict. These cases are analysed within a human-environmental-climate security (HECS) framework. The analysis showed that political, economic, and social vulnerability were much higher in Sudan and Syria than in Morocco. Past political decisions and developments in Syria and Sudan contributed more to environmental vulnerability and to social, economic, and food insecurity than the drought itself. In Morocco, better governance increased resilience and helped avoid such insecurities. This illustrates how droughts may and may not be associated with economic, social and food insecurity. Daoudy’s analysis underscores that a direct link between drought and conflict is reductive. In the case of Sudan, it is stated that “ … environmental drivers of a conflict are better assessed as a function of how governments construct environmental instability”.

 

The current war in Sudan also illustrates these interactions. It has weakened agricultural production, disrupted livestock systems, increased displacement, restricted humanitarian access, and deepened market instability. These pressures interact with drought, rainfall variability, flood risk, and environmental degradation. The result is not a single crisis but a compound crisis, in which climate, conflict, displacement, and food insecurity reinforce one another. This is why climate-security research often describes climate change as a risk or threat multiplier, rather than a direct cause of war, which is a controversial view.

Selected readings

• Akoy, E., Sabbil, A., Altoom, M. B., Nurain, S., & Salim, E. E. (2025). Climate Change, Conflicts and Food Security in North Darfur State, Sudan: Risks and Implications. Sudan Working Paper SWP 2025:4. Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute.
• Anderson, W., Taylor, C., McDermid, S., Ilboudo-Nébié, E., Seager, R., Schlenker, W., Cottier, F., de Sherbinin, A., Mendeloff, D., & Markey, K. (2021). Violent conflict exacerbated drought-related food insecurity between 2009 and 2019 in sub-Saharan Africa. Nature Food, 2, 603–615. doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00327-4.
• Busby, J. W. (2016). Feeding Insecurity? Poverty, Weak States, and Climate Change. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
• Daoudy, M. (2021). Rethinking the climate–conflict nexus: A human–environmental–climate security approach. Global Environmental Politics, 21(3), 4–25. doi:10.1162/glep_a_00609.
• Hanafi, H., Casteran, S., & Vu, M. (2024). If Bullets Miss, Hunger Won’t: Beyond the Numbers – Hunger and Conflict in Sudan. Danish Refugee Council, Mercy Corps and Norwegian Refugee Council.
• Hoffmann, A., Mohamed, M., & van den Tempel, L. (2024). Sudan’s Agricultural Input Supply in Times of War: Proposed Interventions to Counter the Unfolding Famine. The Hague: Clingendael Institute.
• Ide, T., Brzoska, M., Donges, J. F., & Schleussner, C.-F. (2020). Multi-method evidence for when and how climate-related disasters contribute to armed conflict risk. Global Environmental Change, 62, 102063. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102063.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2022). Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009325844.
• Kuemmerle, T., & Baumann, M. (2021). Shocks to food systems in times of conflict. Nature Food, 2, 922–923. doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00435-1.
• Mach, K. J., Kraan, C. M., Adger, W. N., Buhaug, H., Burke, M., Fearon, J. D., Field, C. B., Hendrix, C. S., Maystadt, J.-F., O’Loughlin, J., Roessler, P., Scheffran, J., Schultz, K. A., & von Uexkull, N. (2019). Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict. Nature, 571, 193–197. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1300-6.
• Satti, H. E., Sulieman H. M. (2022). Climate and Conflict Sensitivity: Improving aid’s interaction with climate, environment and conflict in Sudan. Conflict Sensitivity Facility (CSF).

Sudan’s vulnerability to climate change and food crises is rooted not only in environmental change but also in long-term patterns of unequal development. For decades, investment, infrastructure, services, and political power have been distributed unevenly across the country. Many rural and peripheral regions have experienced weak public services, poor infrastructure, limited agricultural support, insecure land rights, inadequate water infrastructure, and limited access to markets. These inequalities have shaped how different communities experience climate shocks and conflict.

 

This historical legacy is important because climate hazards do not affect everyone equally. A drought, flood, or failed agricultural season has very different consequences in a region with functioning markets, credit systems, roads, , and conflict-resolution institutions than in a region where these systems are weak or absent. Vulnerability is therefore not simply a natural condition. It is produced through political decisions, institutional weaknesses, and long-term patterns of exclusion.

 

Traditional coping mechanisms have also been weakened over time. Customary institutions, seasonal pastoralist migration agreements, flexible land access arrangements, reciprocal support networks, and local mediation systems once helped many communities manage environmental variability and resource disputes. These systems were not perfect, and they often reflected unequal power relations, but they provided important mechanisms for negotiation and adaptation. War, displacement, land grabbing, militarisation, administrative changes, and politicised identity categories have eroded many of these mechanisms.

 

The erosion of coping systems is central to the climate–food–conflict nexus. In this sense, climate vulnerability is not only caused by rainfall failure or environmental degradation. It is also caused by the weakening of the social and institutional systems that once helped people manage uncertainty.

Selected readings

• Bromwich, B. (2018). Power, contested institutions and land: Repoliticising analysis of natural resources and conflict in Darfur. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 12(1), 1–21. doi:10.1080/17531055.2017.1403782.
• Chavunduka, C., & Bromley, D. W. (2011). Climate, carbon, civil war and flexible boundaries: Sudan’s contested landscape. Land Use Policy, 28(4), 907–916. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.03.007.
• de Waal, A. (1989). Famine That Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984–1985. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• El Zain, M. (2006). Ruling elite, frontier-caste ideology and resource conflicts in the Sudan. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 3(1), 36–47. doi:10.1080/15423166.2006.221681318062.
• Jaspars, S. (2018). Food Aid in Sudan: A History of Power, Politics and Profit. London: Zed Books.
• Jaspars, S. (2022). Resilience, food security, and the abandonment of crisis-affected populations. In G. Bankoff & D. Hilhorst (Eds.), Why Vulnerability Still Matters: The Politics of Disaster Risk Creation. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003219453-10.
• O’Brien, J. (1985). Sowing the seeds of famine: The political economy of food deficits in Sudan. Review of African Political Economy, 12(33), 23–32.
• Oesterdiekhoff, P., & Wohlmuth, K. (1983). The “breadbasket” is empty: The options of Sudanese development policy. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 17(1), 35–68.
• Sulieman, H. M. and Ahmed, A. M. (2016). Mapping the Pastoral Migratory Patterns under Land Appropriation in East Sudan: The Case of the Lahaween Ethnic Group. The Geographical Journal, 4: 386–399, doi: 10.1111/geoj. 12175.

Sudan’s drylands are naturally variable environments. Rainfall differs across years and locations, pasture and water are unevenly distributed, and farming and pastoral systems have historically adapted to this uncertainty. In such environments, mobility, flexibility, diversification, and negotiation are not marginal practices. They are central strategies for survival and production.

 

The concept of disequilibrium is useful for understanding this. It challenges the idea that dryland ecosystems are naturally stable systems that should remain in a fixed balance. Instead, disequilibrium thinking recognises that variability is normal in drylands. Pastoralists and agro-pastoralists have adapted to this variability directly by moving animals, using different grazing areas andadjusting herd composition, but also indirectly by relying on social networks and negotiating access to water and pasture. Farming systems have also adapted through crop choice, timing of cultivation, labour arrangements, and use of local environmental knowledge, for instance, for water harvesting.

 

With a disequilibrium understanding, a reduction in productivity is part of normal variability in drylands, not a sign of long-term environmental degradation. Species are adapted to these variations. In terms of vegetation, species can survive long dry periods or regenerate during the next rainfall.

 

Still, land-use change and climate change may lead to environmental degradation, adding further pressure to these systems. Climate change may intensify these pressures through higher temperatures, more variable rainfall, more frequent extremes, and increased stress on water and land. However, these environmental changes do not produce uniform outcomes. Their impacts depend on governance, security, mobility, markets, land rights, institutional capacity, and the ecosystems in which they occur. In conflict-affected settings, cascading effects may also become more common, as one shock can trigger others, for example, when drought reduces pasture, livestock losses reduce income, food prices rise, and displacement increases

 

This is why the climate–food–conflict nexus in Sudan must be understood as a socio-ecological system. Climate change matters, but it acts within a landscape already shaped by war, displacement, unequal development, resource politics, and environmental degradation. Understanding this interaction is essential for designing recovery, adaptation, and peacebuilding policies that fit Sudan’s dryland realities.

Selected readings

• Ahmed, S.M.; Dinnar, H.A.; Ahmed, A.E.; Elbushra, A.A.; Turk, K.G.B. 2024. A Deeper Understanding of Climate Variability Improves Mitigation Efforts, Climate Services, Food Security, and Development Initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate: 12, 206. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli12120206
• Altoom, M. B., Adam, E., & Ali, K. A. (2023). Mapping and monitoring spatio-temporal patterns of rainfed agriculture lands of North Darfur State, Sudan, using Earth observation data. Land, 12(2), 307. doi:10.3390/land12020307.
• Anwer, H. A., Mohamed, T., & Hassan, A. (2025). Assessing vegetation dynamics in Al Jazirah, Sudan using NDVI-based remote sensing techniques. Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences, 24, Article 18. doi:10.1007/s44447-025-00011-0.
• Behnke, R. H., Scoones, I., & Kerven, C. (Eds.). (1993). Range Ecology at Disequilibrium: New Models of Natural Variability and Pastoral Adaptation in African Savannas. London: Overseas Development Institute.
• De Juan, A. (2015). Long-term environmental change and geographical patterns of violence in Darfur, 2003–2005. Political Geography, 45, 22–33. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.09.001.
• Kevane, M., & Gray, L. (2008). Darfur: Rainfall and conflict. Environmental Research Letters, 3(3), 034006. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/3/3/034006.
• Mohmmed, A., Zhang, K., Kabenge, M., Keesstra, S., Cerdà, A., Reuben, M., Elbashier, M. M. A., Dalson, T., & Ali, A. A. S. (2018). Analysis of drought and vulnerability in the North Darfur region of Sudan. Land Degradation & Development, 29(12), 4424–4438. doi:10.1002/ldr.3180.
• Reynolds, J. F., Stafford Smith, D. M., Lambin, E. F., Turner, B. L., Mortimore, M., Batterbury, S. P. J., Downing, T. E., Dowlatabadi, H., Fernández, R. J., Herrick, J. E., Huber-Sannwald, E., Jiang, H., Leemans, R., Lynam, T., Maestre, F. T., Ayarza, M., & Walker, B. (2007). Global desertification: Building a science for dryland development. Science, 316(5826), 847–851. doi:10.1126/science.1131634.
• Samra, R. M. A., & Ali, R. R. (2025). The Arab world at a crossroads: Assessing future risks under changing climate. Environmental Sciences Europe, 37, 130. doi:10.1186/s12302-025-01162-1.
• Sulieman, H. M. (2024). Causes and impacts of farmer-herder conflicts through a political economy and food production lens: Case study in Gadarif State, Sudan. International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Nairobi: SPARC. Link: https://www.sparc-knowledge.org/publications-resources/causes-and-impacts-farmer-herder-conflicts-through-political-economy-gadarif-sudan
• United Nations Environment Programme. (2007). Sudan: Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment. Nairobi: UNEP.