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UN Security Council: Climate Change Impacting Stability in Sahel

At a meeting in the United Nations Security Council on the situation in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa, senior UN officials stressed that climate change plays a direct role in the region’s security, development and stability by increasing drought and fuelling conflict.

Speaking via videoconference from Niger, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and Head of the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA), Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said that he had just met President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger as part of a tour of Sahelian countries on the frontline of humanity’s struggle against climate change.

The envoy also noted that Boko Haram had galvanized attention to the effects of climate change. Another regional example of the effects of climate change included the situation of the Niger River, some sections of which had already begun to dry up, he said.

World Bank Photo Collection

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