Interview with Christophe Hodder, the United Nations Climate Security and Environmental Advisor to Somalia, United Nations Environment Programme

This is an interview with Christophe Hodder, the United Nations Climate Security and Environmental Advisor to Somalia, United Nations Environment Programme. In the interview, Hodder explains why it is so important for conventional security practitioners to build environmental considerations into peacebuilding. He explains how natural resource conflicts between groups are key sites of contestation in Somalia, more salient as the country experiences climate change. He talks about how militant groups use resource and resource conflicts to their advantage. Resolving natural resource conflicts is also important entry points for action, for addressing sources of conflict and building a foundation for peace. In the current moment, even as Somalia is beset by a difficult drought, it is important to work on long-run peacebuilding efforts through environmental restoration. Hodder provides examples of river bank protection programs and water catchment as areas ripe for cooperation.

Somalia in particular periodically also have faced severe drought risks, likely accentuated by the El Nin˜o weather phenomenon and climate change.On two occasions, in 1992 and 2010-2011, Somalia experienced famines that led to the large-scale loss of life (Busby, 2022;Maxwell and Majid, 2016;Menkhaus, 2014).
Somalia's ongoing violence and climate exposure have led to resolutions from the UN Security Council noting that climate change contributes to the country's ongoing instability (United Nations Security Council, 2022).In 2020, the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) became the first special political mission to have a climate security advisor tasked to mainstream climate and environment in the mission's work, coordinate climate action with the UN, government actors, and NGOs, and supporting the government.Christophe Hodder has served as the climate security advisor for UNSOM since 2020.Climate security advisors are being created in other UN missions (Fireside chat with Christophe Hodder: Stemming climate change and insecurity, 2022 ;Hodder, 2021;Russo, 2022).
Hodder's role reflects a resurgent interest in environmental peacebuilding, whether efforts to address environmental problems like climate change can diminish political violence in countries like Somalia.The emergent practice of environmental peacebuilding accompanies a renewed scholarly emphasis on the topic, as the field has matured from studying the causal connections between environmental change and violence/instability to start identifying solutions to the security problems associated with environmental and climate change.

Joshua Busby, Interviewer:
Tell me a bit about your position and how long you have been in the job, and maybe just a quick introduction of yourself.Actually, the work that I was doing in the field really made me understand this linkage between natural disasters and climatic-driven events such as landslides, such as displacement of people and competition over resources.Those sort of approaches actually led me into understanding more and more.In Nepal, what we did was really try to integrate a lot of this climate, insecurity, and instability and how that worked in disaster response, but also how do you link disaster and humanitarian and development with security.So that's why I really got interested in climate and security.I then moved to Kenya for my wife's job, and then was working on this conflict resolution program in some of the areas in Kenya and then got this opportunity to work with the UN in Somalia, so it was really exciting.Joshua Busby: People who are superficially, or at least tangentially, aware of the situation in Somalia are familiar with its almost 30 years of instability and long-standing violence.Some of these issues may be beyond the scope of your ability to influence, but what is the broader theory of change that you and the organization have for Somalia?That's sort of one question and the other is in terms of environmental peacebuilding, does the violence have to end or reduce dramatically to address environmental problems or can we think about environmental problems as a route to ending violence?How should we think about policy sequencing?Christophe Hodder: So I think, as usual, the answer is very complicated, and has multi-levels.It's hard to have a very sequential policy theory of change, because things happen, and conflict and climate are so interlinked and underlie each other.It is very hard to unpack it all.It's been 30 years of conflict.There are multi-facets to the conflict in terms of clan dynamics between the different groups and there are regional dynamics at play.There are movements of populations which then exacerbate conflict both internally and regionally, and there are fragilities in terms of both systems of governance, but also local systems of leadership.And, on top of that, then you also have the armed actors and the different militant groups.Those armed actors and the militant groups contribute to the instability, and so you have this mix of a really fragile state.All of this put together means that it's quite a complicated situation.But what we're seeing is that the environmental angle is really one of those underlying parts.The theory is that climate change and environmental degradation do not directly lead to a conflict, but what it does is it exacerbates or enhances some of those conflict dynamics.So what we can see is that the dynamics definitely change as the drought situation happens, or flood or climatic events.On top of all that we also have quite an unprecedented or quite a large population rise, and a very young population as well.
In answer to your question, what we're trying to do is to raise the importance of looking at environmental aspects, because you do need a stable environmental base to build on.Unless you have that, there will always be competition over the sharing of resources.If we can look at environmental stability at the same time as looking at political and economic stability, then hopefully that will lead to a longer lasting peace that everybody is trying to drive toward.
We can't only focus on political and economic and social stability, but there is an imperative to focus on environmental stability, one that climate change is making more visible especially in fragile states.That angle of looking at environmental stability is also a lens driving some of the negotiations and peace processes.What we're seeing now is that there's a bit of a bell curve almost between competition over resources such as water and grazing lands.As the conflict gets more tense and complicated, there's a point where conflict dynamic levels reduce, and then actually it can be used as a period or a window of collaboration.Communities can actually come together and start using climate change or using the fact that there isn't water to try to find solutions.However, this is a short window and must be used productively and linked to climate adaptation and development funding to sustain the collaboration.Without it, the competition will increase and impact dynamics further.For example, different militant groups will hide in the forest.The government forces or the communities often then would chop down the trees around the village.While that would stop the militant groups from hiding in that forest, then part of the problem after that is that contributes to energy lack of security, because then, there's no charcoal left for use.It then contributes to soil erosion, which then causes a lack of ability to provide agricultural services.So there's a link there.We really need to understand how the cycle of climate shock and human degradation really works.
Part of this is awareness raising, and it's not just around the forest.There are other examples of a police force or military protecting and first of all securing some of the physical infrastructures like roads, offices, and the police stations.But actually what we're noticing is the militant groups will take over things like the water wells as one of their first operations.Therefore, actually securing the water sources and the river banks, which then can be used for irrigation canals, should be some of the high priorities in terms of what we're doing in terms of the military offensive.
A lot of it is around awareness raising at first, then the next steps are really around how do you work on building adaptation, and I think there's a lot of discussion happened around that at COP 27, how do you build in climate adaptation in fragile states specifically in areas that really need it the most.
Unless there is proper adaptation and support, unless long-term thinking about environmental stability is happening for communities, unless that is brought on very soon after insecurity in unstable areas, that opens a gap and competition over resources and that's where militant groups can easily come in.It's really key that we look at adaptation of the financing and support to newly liberated areas or areas that are susceptible to where militant groups could take over.
There's the security and the military part.Raising awareness is quite a key part of that.But then, after that, there's obviously more of the stabilization angle.And this is how do we build in this adaptation at the early stages.Too often stabilization or security teams will do a quick fix.There will be a political level agreement, often without enough in terms of real inclusion of all levels of society, and that's another sort of side process to this.But really understanding how you build in environmental peacebuilding and environmental approaches to stabilization is another story.Now, the other part of this is environmental mediation, and we are trying to do that in several places.Understanding how do you bring two clans together to actually start talking about resource sharing and natural resource management.
We're realizing that almost all conflicts actually do have some aspects of natural resource competition.If we can really build that out in terms of understanding of the environment side, looking at longterm sustainable approaches from the environmental perspective to peacebuilding, that's really the key.So, for example, this is where security actors really need to start thinking about how to build in environment sustainability to the actual implementation of solutions in peacebuilding approaches.
So, for example, a security organization will just dig a well.But we've got to think about how do you make that much more sustainable?How do you look at the catchment area?How do you look at the underground water reservoirs to make sure there is enough?How do you look at the resource sharing around that well?How do you look at the longer-term aspects of the grazing lands linked to the water?How do you look at the ecosystem?
Really, it's about building awareness.But it's also more technical around nature-based solutions, opportunities at that local level to build a longer lasting environmental approach to peacebuilding.Joshua Busby: There's some things that I may want to come back to.But it's making me think about the current drought situation in the Horn, which has gotten a lot of international attention and worry about famine, large numbers of people at risk of starvation.That exigency of the moment, how does that affect the ability to do work in this space?Just trying to reconcile if it's even possible to do the kinds of long-run adaptation when What I'm trying to argue is that you could actually do things at the same time.An example of this is the work we are doing around river bank stabilization.One of the issues we've been doing last year where we mapped out all the breakage points on the river and so as part of that mapping the breakage points, we located sandbags on those areas.There are several breakage points that then cause flooding, which causes this disruption to agriculture, to humans, to the cities.There are about one hundred identified breakage points where we knew that the river would break its bank.We pre-positioned sandbads before the flooding last year.
At the same time, we did a river bank stabilization program.We did compressed earth, and then we also planted trees along it to try to use the roots to stabilize the banks more effectively.We also did some work around vegetative gabion walls, not the traditional stone and metal iron cages that are often put down.We try to use fast-growing roots that would then bind the rocks together, which made it much more of a nature-based solution in terms of a proper gabion wall.
The short term was the humanitarian response, and we also did training and work with disaster management at the local level.But we also did then work in the medium term, where we did this bank stabilization.We also did a modeling out of the nature-based solution.We modeled out if we were to manage the flood plain by planting the right type of trees and the roots.Then when the river came in, we could then use storage along the drought sites.So in those areas we actually have put some storage where we managed to capture some of the water for agricultural purposes.
What I'm trying to say is that you can do short, medium, long term at the same time in the same place.What we need to do is to change this mindset that we can only do short-term quick responses.We need to do it together, and so I'm not at any point saying we cannot do humanitarian aid.What I'm saying is, you can do humanitarian aid at the same time as doing longer-term development programs and doing it together more collaboratively.This is where I think that we need to change the funding mechanism.We need to change policies.We need to change mental approaches.
Joshua Busby: So maybe unpacking that a little more, what does that look like in terms of the actual work?It sounded like in areas that are very insecure, that's coming in after conflict and trying to do certain activities to facilitate dialogue over resource sharing and solutions.In other areas, there's a little bit more space where the security situation is less tenuous.Maybe you can walk us through what you and partners are doing specifically to give us a feel for what it looks like on the ground.Christophe Hodder: To give you a concrete example, what we're trying to do is with the military offensive happening at the moment, and as part of that, what we're trying to do is to build awareness of environmental degradation as well as environmental peacebuilding approaches.How do you work with military and police and local forces to get more awareness of the impact of climate change and of climate-related events but also around environmental degradation?One way is to build on the awareness to find solutions together, such as refocusing military strategy on water points and water management.
they're just such grave needs at the moment.Maybe in some places it's possible to do this sort of long-run adaptation and peacebuilding work, but in other places there's just a tremendous need for emergency resources.How should audiences who are less familiar with the actual specific situation in different parts of the country try to reconcile this with what they're what they're reading about the famine risks and the kinds of work that you're doing?Christophe Hodder: To be honest, it's incredibly hard.Everybody is thinking we have to save lives now.We have to really make a difference now.We do have to try to save as many lives as possible.That's undeniable.What I'm saying and what we can do is try to do things at the same time.It's not that we could only just save lives by intervening right now.