The climate security sensitivity tool: A theoretical approach to peace-positive climate adaptation in agricultural development

Climate adaptation programs that promote climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and services are widely recognized for their role in strengthening resilience. However, their unintended social, environmental and political consequences remain understudied, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. Adaptation interventions that inadvertently create more vulnerability to climate change are referred to as maladaptation. These maladaptive actions can also have negative consequences over security by, for instance, exacerbating social tensions, fueling competition over resources, reinforcing inequalities and power asymmetries, and deepening grievances. Conflict-sensitive design of climate adaptation interventions is therefore imperative for avoiding negative unintended consequences and maximizing potential co-benefits. This paper introduces the Climate-Peace Framework (CPF), a theoretical approach to mainstream climate adaptation and peacebuilding. The CPF lays the theorical foundation of the Climate Security Sensitivity Tool (CSST), a program assessment tool assessing the extent to which climate adaptation interventions in rural settings are conflict-sensitive and peace-responsive. This tool is designed to guide practitioners, policymakers, and development organizations in aligning climate adaptation programs with local and context-specific socio-political dynamics and drivers of conflicts, reducing risks of maladaptation, and fostering social cohesion. This paper tests and validates the underlying assumptions of the tool in two major climate adaptation interventions that were developed by the CGIAR in Ghana and Mali: the Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) of Jirapa and Cinzana. Through a desk-based assessment, a participatory workshop and field data, we qualitatively assess how climate adaptation interventions interact with conflict dynamics and drivers, testing the CSST ability to identify risks and opportunities for peace-responsive climate adaptation programming. The findings demonstrate the tool’s relevance in diagnosing maladaptation risks and identifying entry points for peace co-benefits of climate adaptation interventions, strengthening climate action strategies by ensuring that adaptation investments contribute to both resilience and peace.