Solomon Obanla
May 18, 2021
The global and regional civil society networks including Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT), Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), the Cross Regional Center for Refugees and Migrants (CCRM), the Civil Society Action Committee (CSAC), Alianza Americas, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)and the Climate Migration and Displacement Platforms (CMDP).organized an online webinaron Tuesday 18th of May 2021 which started at 3pm CEST and lasted for two hours. The webinar was titled “Climate Change, Migration and Vulnerability”.
Evalyn Tennant was the moderator. She is an associate of Global Migration Policy Associates (GMPA) and one of the founder and Steering Group member of the Climate Migration and Displacement Platforms. She mentioned in her introduction speech that the webinar series hope to mobilize civil society in the year between now and the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) which will be the first time at the global level that the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is reviewed. The webinar also hopes that civil society will reflect on and mobilize around the real priorities for migrants agenda at this time, during the pandemic, coming out of the pandemic; and mobilizing in difficult circumstances when borders have been closed, when access to social services has been curtailed, and when migrants have been suffering particularly due to loss of work, discrimination, impossible to move around and take up jobs; and others discussed in the previous webinars.
Evalyn introduced all the panelists and move to the first speaker, Professor Tasneem Siddiqui, Political Science Professor at University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and also the Founding Chair, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) for her speech.
Climate Change is the Cause of Migration
Evalyn Tennant asked Professor Siddiqui whether climate change is the cause or a cause of migration. She also asked her the future of what climate related migration looks like and how the COVID-19 pandemic may have altered it. According to Professor Siddiqui:
“Earlier we use to think that climate change automatically affects migration but over the years we have learnt that it is multi causal. There are many other issues that interact with each other’s and produce migration in a climate change scenario.”
She explains further that climate change will not directly affect or cause migration in many cases but it does exacerbate the pre-existing socio-economic inequalities which then compel migration. She also pointed out that many of the migrants use climate change migration as one of the adaptation tools whereas National and State level policies would like to see migration as a failure to adaptation. She said if the right measures and policies around gender, ethnicity and race are put in place, much climate change related migration will be reduced to a great extent.
On the question of how the COVID-19 pandemic may alter the future of what climate related migration looks like, she explained that COVID-19 affect migrants differently in destination countries. Most climate related migrants come back to their State of origin without jobs and other way of adapting. They are back to square one. She emphasizes that COVID-19 has put migrants into more stressful situation. Nobody is looking into their issues and letting them handle those issues on their own.
Gender dimension of migration in the context of climate change
The moderator, Evalyn Tennant, also asked Jean D’Cunha her perspective on some of the challenges of migrants and their family member, emphasizing on the gender dimension of those issues. The moderator requests her to state the issues they are facing primarily in the Middle East context that we should be paying particular attention to when we are flagging on actionable agenda to address the section of climate change and adaptability.
Jean D’Cunha is a Senior Global Advisor on International Migration with UN Women. She said Arab region is really seeing the high level of drought and inter regional migration.
“In the last 15 years, there has been clear connect established between climate change, migration and displacement because of lack of investment in sustainable development. For example, in 2020, there are 631 people displaced as a result of stream, climate disasters and these are conflict induce displacement that has added up to 9.6% of the global total, so huge movement resulting from drought of Somalia, Syria, Iraq, in the cities across nation boundaries with huge movement because of tropical storms from Yemen, Somalia, etc.”
Jean explains further that most of the affected are poor, particularly women who are overwhelmingly employed in agricultural sector which expose them heavily to climate change. Women come to build much than men, to ecosystem, greenhouse gas emission, to human created disasters because of the social and immediate domestic roles as nurturers and small scale traders; low subsistence farmers or small scale livestock raisers or providers, managers of foods or natural resources, or consumers of low intensive goods and services. But women are relegated to the low means of value chains, in agriculture, manufacture sectors and this proportionate marginalize them from productive access to all material resources of all kinds, and this diminishes their migration resilience much more than men.
She rounds up saying, in all of these, it is important to not just address women with the most vulnerable of women but other women, women with disability and the likes. She wants us to focus on women not just as victims but also as agents, as subjects that bring local knowledge of equal systems, with their attributes, skills, leadership, network; to bear on the situation of stress and to transcend it to build their capacities.
Challenges of migrants in IGAD region
The moderator move on to the third speaker, Lucy Daxbacher, Project Officer, Free Movement Protocol, IGAD. The moderator requests her to tell us a little bit more about the situation in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region, one of the East African countries and touch on some of the conditions in Somalia. The moderator also asked her to say more about the challenges in the region and how the free movement protocols are going to be useful in the region and its communities.
Lucy explains that IGAD region is 70% hybrid and semi hybrid, that gives an indication that the issue of climate change is very important to the core of the survival, adaptation mechanism, resilient of 270 million citizens of IGAD region. “IGAD region has migration policy framework which put migration at the heart of our work because we realized that IGAD region is a region on the move.”
“Challenges of migrants in IGAD region range from legislative vacuums, policy challenges, institutional weaknesses, governance challenges or limitation because the region has experience a lot of climate change effects, severe heat, landslides, drought and therefore we realize that you can actually observe that climate change and migration are very close actively link, and citizens exhibit that behavior in which climate change is seen as one of the drivers of migration in IGAD region”.
Lucy explained further that citizens grease the desert to move from their country of origin through desert and the red sea trying to make it up to those countries they feel have better economy opportunities, especially the gulf countries. Another challenge she mentioned has to do with the protection of migrants’ population. There are conflicts across the region which includes but not limited to civil and pastoralist conflicts. The conflicts has created more advance vulnerability which compel people to move but at the same time climate change has also been a contributing factor especially among the pastoralist communities where access to water and pasture is basically determined by amount of rain or no rain, therefore the struggle for resources is also evident in the region.
What natural resources, governance can do in addressing the issues around displacement, human mobility and migration
Iliana Monterroso is a Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research. She explains the role and what natural resources, governance can do in addressing the issues around displacement, human mobility and migration and how they relate to climate change agenda in terms of mitigation and adaptation, referring specifically to the north and triangle countries in central America; and this includes Honduras, Salvador and Guatemala comprising of over 130 million people who are lances cape forest dependent communities. She explains that the region is also known for the corridors for trafficking of people and drugs, that is pushing people away from the territories.
She also mentioned that the environmental degradation of the region is tied to socio political situations which include poverty, inequality, food insecurity, governance corruption and violence. These are interlinked issues and should be addressed as such in the climate change agenda according to her.
Challenges that Women Groups Face in Pacific Region
PefiKingi is a migration Focal Point for Pacific Civil Society, Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organizations (PIANGO).
“You may or may not know that the Pacific is indeed a region that has long been characterized by substantial migration flows. And so in recent years, it has seen in it increased diversification of this migration which includes temporary and seasonal labor migration but especially climate change migration”.
Pefi says some of the challenges women groups face in the Pacific region are: they are experiencing the famine in districts, villages and others; language and communication barriers, racism and discrimination, affordable housing problems, finding a decent job, problem of getting a decent rate paid job, community attitudes, impact of disrupt education on schooling, learning English, distance and lack of communication with their own family in their country and countries of asylum where they are indeed seeking refuge, especially those who have suffered conflicts and domestic violence.
Opportunities and the Connect to Governance
After the last speaker, the webinar moved into the second round where panelists were asked to briefly share solutions around their topics, opportunities and their connection to governance. They were told to give examples of government practices where gender, climate change and migration have actually been addressed together. All the speakers gave importance insights around possible ways to women and migrants in resolving climate change migration and adaptation, and government policies.
Moderator read comments and questions on the message box. She also allowed Helena Olea, Rani Mehta, Laura Morel, Serge Hounton, Patrick Taran and Marvie Misolas, all asked questions and made comments. Panelists made final remarks and the webinar came to a close.
Solomon Obanla is a trained diplomat, migration consultant, social researcher, gender and peacebuilding analyst, peer educator, facilitator and community mobilizer. He obtained a Master’s degree in Gender and Peacebuilding at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Twitter @obanla_oluwafe