How armed groups shape climate adaptation efforts in Yemen
Yemen has lost 60 percent of its per capita water availability since 1990, yet received just USD 0.60 per person in adaptation finance between 2015 and 2021.
In the gap, armed groups are regulating water, leading emergency response, and banning construction in flood corridors. The motives of these armed groups are mixed, and there are real ethical risks. But climate action doesn't need a functioning central state, and it can work if it's built on legitimacy and led by communities.
How Al-Shabaab shapes climate adaptation in Somalia
Somalia's climate finance goes almost entirely through the state, so it largely stops where government control ends. Many of the country's most climate-vulnerable communities live beyond that line, under or alongside Al-Shabaab. Drawing on 42 interviews and an archive of around 50,000 Al-Shabaab media outputs, this report examines how the group regulates trees, grazing, water and the sea, and how it responds to droughts and floods. Some of its rules protect resources. Most serve its security, revenue and control, and many close off the coping strategies households rely on when a shock hits. The report sets out four distinct operating environments, from government-held towns to areas under full Al-Shabaab control, and what adaptation programming is realistic in each.
Climate adaptation in no-man's land: bridging the conflict-climate gap
This paper examines climate change and armed groups, specifically the failure the address climate adaptation in areas beyond state control.