• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Reading Radar

    The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Assessment on Food Security, Famine and Migration in the Sahel

    January 26, 2016 By Gracie Cook

    DNIThis fall, the National Intelligence Council released an intelligence community assessment of the extent to which factors such as climate change, severe weather, conflict, resource scarcity, disease, poor governance, and environmental degradation will impact peoples’ purchasing power and food availability over the next decade. They found “the overall risk of food insecurity in many countries of strategic importance to the United States will increase.” Countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and South Asia are most vulnerable to food insecurity due to a combination of these factors. They assessed the potential benefits of an amalgam of educational, technological, and modern agricultural approaches to prevent food insecurity. Considering the importance of these high-risk countries and the United States’ position as a “leader in promoting global food security,” the United States should expect more demand for help and may find new strategic opportunities through such leadership.

    GrolleIn order to better understand the patterns of famine and migration seen today in the West African Sahel and predict patterns of the future, John Grolle analyzes three case studies of famines that occurred in rural Nigeria in the late twentieth century in Population and Environment. These famines drove populations out of the Sahel and into the savannah in search of more suitable lands for farming and living, mainly in response to drought. As the effects of climate change pile up, meteorological phenomena are intensifying in both magnitude and frequency. Though traditional understandings of migration patterns out of the Sahel have focused on drought as the main catalyst, it is time for new attention to be paid to the impacts of heavy, untimely rainfall, Grolle says. Ultimately, he determines that in light of changing climate patterns, new research is needed to determine how regional migration will be affected by climate change and its subsequent effects.

    Sources: National Intelligence Council, Population and Environment.

    Topics: Africa, agriculture, development, environment, food security, global health, Latin America, Middle East, migration, population, Reading Radar, Sahel, security, South Asia, U.S.

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • World Population Day Shines a Spotlight on Inequities
    george Denniston: When I was born in 1934, there were only 2 Billion people on earth. As I grew up, I watched it...
  • AGU_1959_photo1 Melting Ice Threatens to Expose Former U.S. Nuclear Base in Greenland
    Charles Diemont: And who is responsible for the cleanup of this debacle.? Ler the Americans clean up their own mess....
  • World Population Day Shines a Spotlight on Inequities
    Sam Sellers: Kathleen is quite right that World Population Day presents an important opportunity to reflect on...

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2022. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000