From Environmental Peacebuilding Theory to Practice: Lessons Learned from World Bank Pilots in the Sahel

Date & Time
Jun 17, 2026 | 13.30 - 15.00

Participants
Chair: Michelle Rebosio, World Bank (United States)
Phoebe Spencer, World Bank (United States)
Elise Doumergue, World Bank (France)
Frederic Deycard, The Carter Center (United States)

This panel explores the lessons learned from three pilots supported by the World Bank Environmental Peacebuilding team to enhance the conflict sensitivity of natural resource management projects in Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali. The panel will highlight work that demonstrates ways to operationalize environmental peacebuilding in development, drawing especially from the findings of two World Bank publications, Defueling Conflict: Environment and Natural Resource Management as a Pathway to Peace and Defueling Conflict: Notes from the Field. Speakers will highlight project design choices, adaptive management practices, and capacity-building approaches aimed at increasing the ability to remain engaged and deliver lasting results in the places where it matters most. While the pilots focus on examples from the Sahel region, the operational takeaways apply widely to contexts marked by a high dependence on natural resources, where environmental interventions critically shape risks and opportunities.

Defueling Conflict: Notes from the Field

Phoebe Spencer, World Bank (United States)

Operationalizing ‘Defueling Conflict: Notes from the Field’ in Three Sahelian Landscape Restoration Initiatives

Elise Doumergue, The World Bank Group (France)

Discussant

Frederic Deycard, The Carter Center (United States)