Arriving by plane in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, offers a surprising spectacle: everything is green! This peaceful city, nestled in the heart of Lake Tanganyika, the deepest in Africa, is bordered to the north by imposing reliefs. Very quickly, the traveller realizes that these 3,000 hills are much more than an extraordinary geographical feature: they are home to a patchwork of communities organized around each of these hills. In many ways, they reflect the beauty and suffering of the people who live there and earn their livelihood from them. Here lies the soul of ancestors and families who disappeared during past conflicts, especially during the crisis of 1994. These hills tell the story of the country.

But due to the overexploitation of resources and the degradation of the environment, this impressive and majestic landscape is in danger. A threat accentuated by climate change. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA, 2021), climate disasters — first and foremost torrential rains, floods and landslides — caused all forced population displacements in Burundi in 2020. This highlights the urgent need to address the cumulative risks arising from the worsening effects of climate change, fragility and displacement.

A multifactorial vulnerability

Like many African countries, Burundi will suffer the full brunt of the consequences of climate change for which it is not responsible. The lowest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) out of 188 countries, it only contributes 0.01% to global emissions (mainly due to the energy and land use sectors). At the same time, Burundi is extremely exposed to the consequences of climate change and bears the consequences of global emissions: in the Notre Dame (a) global adaptation index, which measures a country's vulnerability to climate change, it ranks 171st out of 181 countries.

In addition, as a result of land degradation, Burundi loses about 38 million tons of its soil and 4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) every year. The coffee sector illustrates the economic dependence of inhabitants on natural resources: half of Burundian households make a living from this activity, which brings in 90% of the country's external revenue. But over the past 40 years, severe soil erosion has reduced coffee production by two-thirds, pushing millions of people into poverty.

In Burundi, the hills are home to more than 90% of the country's mostly rural population, mostly women and young people whose survival depends on agriculture and forestry. They are also a concentration of vulnerability factors: 75% of legal cases are linked to land disputes and the recent and massive return of refugees from neighbouring countries — Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania — regularly fuels conflicts and violence. In Burundi, poverty and conflict are closely linked to dependence on natural resources and climate vulnerability. Since 2015, the country has been the scene of forced displacements on an unprecedented scale: according to the International Organization for Migration's displacement tracking matrix, 131,000 people would have been forced to leave their homes in 2020, 83% of them as a result of climate disasters and 17% due to other socio-economic factors.

In the case of Burundi, climate change is exacerbating pre-existing risks through intensified rainfall and temperature variations, which are expected to increase by 2030 to 2050, while recurrent floods, landslides and soil erosion are already destroying livelihoods and exacerbating poverty. The extreme climate events of recent years — severe floods in 2006 and 2007 and intense droughts between 1999 and 2000 and then in 2005 — have slashed GDP by more than 5% and affected more than 2 million people. Not to mention the flooding of Lake Tanganyika, which is becoming more and more problematic. Particularly disadvantaged, Batwa populations are at the heart of this multifactorial vulnerability, which makes the use of community-led development strategies crucial.

Climate change is the ultimate factor in increasing risks in fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Burundi. The lack of preparation of their institutions in the face of environmental and climate threats, the high level of poverty and the dependence of the economy on agriculture combine to make them particularly vulnerable.

The World Bank's response to lay the foundations for resilience in the hills of Burundi

Committed to Burundi for many years, the World Bank continues to support the country through a voluntary strategy to strengthen climate resilience across all sectors. Several projects supported the government's efforts to build resilient ecosystems and livelihoods. By addressing the causes and consequences of land degradation, the $4.2 million sustainable coffee development project has transformed the country's fragile environment. The approaches tested on a pilot basis were replicated and expanded through the Coffee Sector Competitiveness Project ($55 million), the Landscape Regeneration and Resilience Project ($30 million), and additional funding from the Global Environment Facility (a) (a) ($6 million). Together, these projects reinforce efforts by systematizing landscape restoration, earthworks, and activities to increase the resilience of community livelihoods. They include a land certification program for vulnerable groups, 50% of which involve women farmers. A total of 192,117 hectares of degraded land on 31 hills will be converted to integrated landscape management practices by 2023.

But the remaining 2,608 hills will require a restoration program to increase the productivity of farmers and herders and the resilience of residents in the face of current and future climate risks. The World Bank is committed to expanding activities across the country, to integrate all hills, starting with a study funded by PROGREEN, a global partnership for the promotion of resilient landscapes. For its part, the new Burundian government is committed to investing more in the eradication of the root causes of the degradation and fragility of this environment, making climate change one of its strategic priorities.

This mission is feasible but Burundi will not succeed, alone, in achieving this ambition. In addition to the additional resources raised by the World Bank through its Allocation for Prevention and Resilience, other technical and financial partners must mobilize, in particular among United Nations agencies and other sources of concessional climate finance.

Addressing climate risks in fragile states increases resilience and mitigates the causes of conflict, while promoting long-term growth and sustainable development. To be effective, climate investments must take into account the interdependence between climate risks and the risks of conflict. In Burundi as everywhere else, these investments must also be supported by a strong political and institutional will to drive changes that will improve the resilience of the country of 3,000 hills.