The twin challenges of conflict and climate risks pose significant challenges to agro-pastoral communities in Africa and the rest of the developing world. The Karamoja cluster that straddles the borderlands of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Sudan is among the most affected regions by protracted conflicts and climate change, thus reducing their capacities for resilience and sustainable livelihoods. The ecological context of the cluster, together with a history of marginalization, predisposes it to various conflict types (particularly natural resource conflicts and other low-level conflicts such as banditry and road ambushes), and the various types of conflicts often take an internal or cross-border dimension, involve multiple actors, and their evolution makes them much more complex.

If interventions in the Karamoja cluster, such as the Cross-Border Community Resilience (CBCR) Activity (project) are to have meaningful impact among the communities, it is imperative that the conflict and climate context of the cluster is clearly understood. It is against this background that the CBCR Activity commissioned this conflict and climate assessment to lay the technical evidence base for identifying the main conflict and climate trends in the Karamoja cluster, their dynamics and drivers, as well as opportunities for furthering social cohesion and climate risk adaptation initiatives.

On the conflict assessment front, this report supports the CBCR Activity in understanding the context, drivers and dynamics of conflicts, as well as the key actors or parties to the various conflict types in the Karamoja cluster. The evidence emanating from this assessment is thus critical for designing evidence-based and context-sensitive social cohesion projects in addition to ensuring conflict sensitivity in project implementation. Additionally, the climate assessment investigates the common and differentiated climate risks in the Karamoja cluster, including the impact of climate change on livelihoods, the coping and adaptation mechanisms used by individuals and communities, and the barriers in and opportunities for addressing climate risks.

Overall, the CBCR Activity presents this report as a knowledge base that is not only useful for its programming, but also in project implementation by government and non-government organizations interested in intervening in the Karamoja cluster. The CBCR Activity believes that shared knowledge and action is instrumental in contributing to the resilience of cross-border communities with the goal of reducing the need for their reliance on humanitarian assistance.