This paper explores the complex and tangled links between climate variability/change and the proliferation of armed networks operating in northern Niger. It does so by examining the factors influencing livelihood choices among 29 smugglers of people, arms, drugs and gold, working across northern Niger. The report focuses on these smugglers because they are armed and operate in coordinated networks.

To understand how factors may be changing over time, the report also includes interviews with smugglers’ fathers. The report analyses whether extreme weather events and climate variability influence livelihood choices, and pays attention to how changes in the political and economic context impinge on their life trajectories.

Aoife McCullough, Leigh Mayhew and Sarah Opitz-Stapleton with Agali Abouka and Djibrilla Mohamed Botto