Climate Change, Hunger and Migration: A Vicious Circle in Africa?

The problem of food insecurity has never gone away, but there has been some progress in the fight against hunger since the 1990s and 2000s. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), almost 800 million people worldwide were undernourished in 2000, compared to around 500 million in 2015. As a result, the percentage of people suffering from hunger as a proportion of the total population worldwide also fell significantly – from around 13% to less than 8%. However, this trend has reversed in recent years, and both the absolute number of undernourished people and their proportion of the global population are rising again: The FAO estimates their number at 733 million in 2023, which corresponds to over 9% of the world's population.

In addition, the global problem of hunger is increasingly becoming an African problem. At the beginning of this millennium, the proportion of people suffering from food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for around a fifth of the total number of hungry people worldwide. By 2023, this proportion had risen to well over a third. These figures are based on many trends and causes – from the economic impact of the war in Ukraine to the successes in the fight against hunger in other regions (e.g. South Asia). However, climate change is a factor that is increasingly being mentioned in the context of food insecurity on the African continent.

Climate change is already a major problem for Africa today

Climate change is no longer an abstract vision of the future for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. On the contrary, it has already triggered or at least contributed to serious environmental changes. The African continent is warming faster than the global average, which is reducing the availability of water and exacerbating the problem of drought in many areas. In 2020, around 620 million people across the African continent lived in drylands, which equated to over 45% of the continent's total population.

Another serious problem is the ongoing desertification and land degradation caused not only by the effects of climate change, but also by excessive water extraction and unsustainable agricultural practices. In the Sahel region, fertile land is increasingly being lost, which is exacerbated by recurring and severe droughts. In addition, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall – which often causes flooding – or cyclones are increasing in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, climate change is leading to increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns in large parts of the continent. The result: On the one hand, longer dry periods during the (actual) rainy seasons are becoming more frequent and, on the other, heavy rainfall is increasing.

Serious consequences for food security

These changes caused by climate change have a significant impact on food security in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Droughts, floods, heatwaves and fluctuations in rainfall directly affect agricultural productivity and lead to lower crop yields overall. This applies not least to cereals such as maize, millet and sorghum, which are of great importance for feeding the estimated 500 to 600 million people in Africa who have to live exclusively or at least predominantly from the yields of smallholder or subsistence farming. Losses in agriculture, which is the main source of income for a large part of the population in many African countries, also lead to a loss of purchasing power, which also jeopardises food security. Climate change also leads to an increase in food prices, as lower yields drive up prices. This also affects the cultivation of important foods such as rice or wheat, which are produced elsewhere in the world and imported into African countries. Countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal import food on a large scale. This means that the poorer population groups in these countries are particularly vulnerable to global price fluctuations.

Although many smallholder farmers are investing heavily in climate adaptation, far greater investment in climate-resilient agriculture, sustainable irrigation systems or greater diversification of cropping systems is needed to effectively address the challenges of climate change in African agriculture. However, the available financial and technological resources remain rather limited.

What role does migration play?

An important question is what role migration plays in this context: Are climate impacts and the associated effects on food security driving millions of people to the big African cities – or even to Europe? An important conclusion from research on ‘climate migration’ over the last 20 years is that the widespread fear, especially in Europe, that a huge wave of African ‘climate refugees’ is expected in the Global North in the near future is unlikely to be true. Migration related to environmental change mainly takes place within countries or between neighbouring countries. Therefore, the fear that climate change will soon trigger massive population movements is unfounded.

Another important finding of research on the links between climate change and migration is that migration can be an important coping or even adaptation strategy. For example, if people who live mainly from agriculture and suffer from crop failures due to increasing droughts or rainfall fluctuations decide to migrate permanently to a city to earn a living there, this can – if everything ‘goes well’ – be seen as a successful adaptation strategy. In the African context, however, it is not so much permanent migration, but rather forms of circular migration – i.e. migration that involves several temporary moves or migrations between two or even more countries, regions or cities – that play a special role here. Seasonal migration, for example during the dry seasons when rain-fed agriculture is not possible in many agroecological zones, remains widespread in the smallholder context to this day. If money is earned through this form of migration, which is used to compensate for climate-related damage and losses, it can also be a coping or even adaptation strategy.

Circular migration was not “discovered” by people in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of climate change. Rather, this form of mobility has long been used, particularly in West Africa, to overcome crises of all kinds. In terms of food security in particular, seasonal or circular migration also has the great advantage that the temporary absence of one or more family members eases the food situation of the household members left behind. Even though this may sound strange to European ears, this ‘reduction of mouths to feed’ is a positive effect of migration for many smallholder families south of the Sahara, which should not be underestimated in view of the enormous challenges posed by the climate crisis.

Multi-layered perspectives and muti-layered policies

There certainly are signs that climate change and its threat to food security will ‘fuel’ migration dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa to some extent in the future. Not least, this will lead to a further influx into the cities.

On a global scale, African cities are experiencing particularly high dynamics in urbanisation, even if natural population growth is usually the stronger driver of these dynamics than the factor of migration. Urban centres are increasingly becoming hotspots of the climate crisis due to flooding or water shortages, which places an additional and considerable burden on urban infrastructure. People who move from the countryside to the city therefore experience situations where they change “from the frying pan into the fire” where climate change is concerned.

On the other hand, most people in sub-Saharan Africa who live in rural areas and are already suffering greatly from the effects of climate change do not have the means to be mobile at all. These are particularly poor and marginalized households. The potentially positive prospects of migration, or the ability to migrate at all, depend to a large extent on a household's economic means. In many cases, people who are very poor and thus condemned to immobility are more severly affected by climate change and, above all, food insecurity than those who are able to migrate.

In conclusion: Overall, it is necessary to take a differentiated look at the phenomenon of migration in the context of food security, rural development and climate change on the African continent. Generalised interpretations of migration either as a precursor to the apocalypse or as a panacea are not helpful. A differentiated view of migration and its effects and contexts must come to the conclusion that it is neither generally ‘good’ nor ‘bad’. Political strategies based on this with the aim of developing effective solutions for greater food security and climate resilience must deal with the factor of migration depending on the specific context.

Dr. Benjamin Schraven istAssociate Fellow at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and ath the Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn.

Ishmael Adjei is a researcher and doctoral candidate at Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey. He works on international relations with a focus on migration pollicy, climate migration, food security and human security.