Female Education and Conflict Dynamics in the Lake Chad Basin

Abstract

The Lake Chad Basin faces persistent armed conflict and humanitarian instability, while extremely low levels of female education may contribute to the continuation of violence and socioeconomic fragility across the region.This study examines the association between female education and conflict incidence at the sub-national level in the Lake Chad Basin, mobilizing a spatial panel analysis covering 820 PRIO-GRID cells across four riparian states (Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria) over 2005-2015 (9,020 cell-year observations). We estimate six specifications using the count of conflict events per cell-year (UCDP-GED) as the dependent variable and average female years of schooling (PRIO-GRID) as the main variable of interest. The preferred negative binomial specification yields an incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 0.936 (95% CI: [0.883; 0.992]; P = .026), indicating that one additional year of female schooling is associated with a 6.4% reduction in expected conflict events. These results are robust across nine alternative specifications and reveal a particularly strong protective effect in Nigeria (83% relative reduction). These findings support the systematic integration of girls' education investments into conflict prevention strategies in fragile Sahel regions.