This document discusses resource-based conflicts in Darfur and Gambella related to agriculture, livestock, land and water resources. In both regions, population growth, environmental degradation, and unclear land tenure systems have increased competition over scarce resources. While early conflicts stemmed from agricultural and pastoralist disputes, political actors have increasingly manipulated ethnic identities and militias, transforming local resource conflicts into larger political conflicts with national and international dimensions. Growing pressure on land and water resources risks further conflicts without improved governance and resource management.

1. Contested natural resources
and political conflict:
case-studies from Darfur and Gambella
European Conference on Africa Studies Ana Elisa Cascão
Leipzig, Germany King’s College of London, UK
4-7 June 2009 CEAUP, Portugal

2. Ethiopia and Sudan:
Territory and Natural Resources
Agriculture and Livestock:
• Main economic sectors
• Main source of livelihoods
• Inputs: Land and Water
• Competition for control
• Patterns of cooperation and conflict
Environmental challenges:
• Overexploitation of land and water resources
• Environmental degradation
• Uneven patterns of rainfall
• Desertification
Other challenges:
• Population growth
• Population movements (migrations, refugees, etc)
• Resource-grabbing

3. Land Use
Darfur
Gambella

4. Livestock Density
Darfur
Gambella

5. Human Density
Darfur
Gambella

6. Ethiopia and Sudan:
Political dimensions of resource-based conflicts
Blurred political setting:
• Property rights/Land Tenure
• Acess and distribution
• Unclear development options
• Traditional conflict-resolution mechanisms
• Alternative conflict-resolution mechanisms?
Power politics:
• Marginalisation
• New competition: for political power and weatlh
• Political manipulation of group-identities
• Selective empowerement
“Extra” political dimensions:
• Porous administrative borders
• Spillover effects of neighbouring conflicts

7. DARFUR – A local water war?
Roots of the Conflict: Resource-based
• Semi-arid region
• Concentration of population
• Longstanding competition for fertile/grazing
land – land tenure problems
• Competition for water access
• Agro vs. Pastolarist disputes
• Customary conflict resolution
1980s:
• Increasing desertification/degradation
• Limited water supplies
• New agro-pastoralist migrations
• Growing competition for resources
• Governance failure
“Darfur is an environmental crisis – a conflict that grew at least in part
from desertification, ecological degradation and a scarcity of
resources, foremost among the water”
(Ban Ki-Moon, 2007)

8. DARFUR – how a resource-conflict
became a political conflict
1990s:
• Darfur: Underdeveloped and marginalised region
• Increasing competition for natural resources
• Increasing competition for political influence
• Increasing political unrest
• Local/National governance failure
2000s:
• “Black Book”: call for power/wealth redistribution
• Intra-state spillover effects (Central government + SPLM
involvement)
• Instrumentalisation of identities (ethnicity)
• Empowerement of militias
• Inter-state spillover effects (Sudan-Chad relations)

9. GAMBELLA – Resource-based conflict?
The setting
• Marginalised and underdeveloped
region
• Political instability
• Federal/regional complexity
• Population movements
• Spillover effects from Sudan
Gambella
region The competition(s)
• Competition for land and water –
farmers, pastoralists, new comers
• Problematic land tenure
• Patterns of cooperation and conflict
• Competition for political power
• Instrumentalisation of identity politics
The environment?

10. GAMBELLA – The environment
White Nile River
Sobat River
Baro River
Akobo River Gilo River
Vast water supplies and fertile land
But...
• Increasing ecological degradation/deforestation
• Increasing pressure over riverian areas
• Potential land grabbing

11. GAMBELLA – Pressure over riverian areas
90s U l er s
+ Mo
Dwel ent
8
vem
r b an
an 0s A
d R rm
ef u y
ge
es
0s
00 ists
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90 tora
s
Pa
s
Conflict
r al s
i st
0
Pa s/200
sto
90
80s
Hig
hlan
00 i st s
der
0s s
0s
00 ists
0s oral
/2
0s oral
9 t
/2
9 t
s
s
Pa
Pa

12. CONCLUSIONS
• Potential for resource-based conflicts in Ethiopia and
Sudan is high
• Growing pressure over land and water resources
• Environmental degradation – social, economic and
political impacts
• Trend: political instrumentalisation of resource conflicts
• Growing competition for political resources
• Risk for transboundary spillover effects