Exploring the Link Between Climate Variability and Conflict in Mali: The Moderating Role of Household Food Insecurity

Abstract

As global climate change intensifies, extreme weather events pose a growing challenge to social stability. Focusing on Mali, a highly agriculture-dependent and ecologically fragile African country, this paper explores whether and how climate variability raises the risk of conflict by exacerbating household food insecurity. A multi-source microdata set is constructed, combining high-resolution climate grid data, conflict event data and household questionnaires, and structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to empirically test the causal pathways of ‘climate-food insecurity-conflict’. The results show that moderate precipitation anomalies significantly mitigate food insecurity and indirectly reduce the risk of conflict, while high temperature anomalies increase the medium-term probability of conflict by exacerbating food insecurity (3-9 months lag). In contrast, the direct effect of climate variables on conflict is insignificant, suggesting a central mediating role for the food system in this mechanism. Robustness tests using maize price as a proxy variable and verifying the statistical significance of the mediating effect through the Bootstrap method further support the robustness of the study's findings. This study contributes to the identification of theoretical mechanisms, methodological model innovations, and regional empirical analyses, highlighting the importance of conflict prevention in fragile ecological regions from the perspective of the agricultural system, and providing useful references for policymakers on food security, climate adaptation, and peacebuilding.