by Hélène Glenisson, IOM Senegal
 

Border Officials of the Eastern Caribbean Trained on Cross-Border Displacement in Disaster and Climate Change Scenarios
 

by Pablo Escribano, IOM San José

 
Under the leadership of the Commission of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and the CARICOM Implementing Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS), more than 160 border and custom officials of nine OECS countries and territories have been trained on different aspects of cross-border disaster-displacement.
 
The training has been organized by the OECS Commission, IMPACS, IOM, PDD, GIZ and UNHCR in the framework of the initial implementation of the Caribbean Migration Consultations (CMC) Plan of Action on Human Mobility in Context of Disasters and Climate Change.
 
Divided in three units delivered across the month of June 2020, the training has tackled issues related to environmental migration and disaster displacement experiences in the Caribbean, migration practices and border management in disaster scenarios, and protection needs and psychosocial support for displaced populations.
 
The virtual training consisted of a series of expert presentations complemented by supporting material and exercises designed to build the capacities of border agents potentially confronted with cross-border displacement flows as the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season gets under way.

 

"Collaboration is key to develop solutions for people who migrate or are displaced because of the adverse effects of climate change and disasters. First, we need to plan together. Now is not the moment to multiply competing initiatives and forego coordination. We are in a climate crisis, resources are scarce and they need to be maximized. We know that environmental migration is multi-causal and each partner can bring their own expertise and experience to the table, making the partnership more than the sum of its parts. In that respect, the PDD-IOM-UNHCR partnership can add enormous value as we all have our specific strengths that could be leveraged," says Mr. António Vitorino, Director General of IOM, at the occasion of a breakfast event hosted by French Ambassador H.E Francois Rivasseau representing the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD).

par l'équipe MECC de l'OIM Guinée 

Climate Migration and the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Spotlight in the Latin American and Caribbean UN Issue Based Coalition
 

by Pablo Escribano, IOM San José

IOM organized a webinar focused on the relation between climate migration and the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of addressing the needs of climate migrants and vulnerable populations, in the framework of the UN Issue Based Coalition on Climate Change and Resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean, co-led by UN Environment and UNDRR.

Presentations from IOM, the Platform on Disaster Displacement, UN Women and an independent expert looked at the impacts the pandemic is having on communities which rely on migration to ensure their livelihoods and resilience and at the implications of lockdowns and movement restrictions in displacement scenarios.

The webinar enabled an exchange of views around different aspects of the climate migration-COVID-19 nexus, including the specific resilience and needs of women, the situation of indigenous communities and the particular case of Bolivia.

by Florian Braendli and Juliane Reissig, IOM Ghana

In the context of its regular operations of assisting returning migrants, IOM Ghana is now also supporting beneficiaries to take environmentally conscious business decisions. IOM Ghana works to assist returning migrants in a holistic way: bringing together returnees and their communities and peers to develop businesses that are sustainable and beneficial for the community at large, providing psycho-social support and training, sharing information on safe migration, advocating against stigmatization, and offering capacity building, all with funding from the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) and through the Ghanaian-German Centre for Jobs, Migration and Reintegration (GGC).

Eight projects involving returnees and their communities have been developed since the beginning of 2020, including four farm businesses. To help increase the knowledge on environmentally sustainable methods, five trainings were also organised for beneficiaries in the Bono and Bono East regions by IOM’s implementing partner, the local non-governmental organization, BOK Africa Concern. Participating farmers learned how to make their own bio-pesticides, which helps them become independent from industrially produced agro-chemicals and increases their revenue, while producing healthy food in harmony with nature.

 

par OIM MECC siège

A l’occasion de la Journée internationale des réfugiés célébrée le 20 juin 2020, le Barreau de Paris a organisé une table-ronde consacrée aux migrations environnementales, avec la participation de Alice Baillat, experte en migration et climat dans la division MECC à l’OIM à Genève.

Cet évènement fut l’occasion de faire le point sur l’état des connaissances scientifiques disponibles et la prise en compte politique des mouvements de population liés au changement climatique, aux dégradations environnementales et aux catastrophes, mais aussi de débattre des enjeux juridiques entourant ces questions.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having profound, widespread impacts on migrants, refugees and displaced persons, as well as on migration patterns at local and global level. Its implications for the different facets of the migration and environment nexus are also significant, and very diverse. People evacuating and displaced as a consequence of disasters are facing specific challenges respecting physical distancing and practicing other infection prevention measures. Migrants forced to return towards their home countries and locations might put additional pressures on already fragile ecosystems and livelihoods. Families and communities that were relying on migration as an adaptation or coping strategy have little options to send out their members or have stopped receiving remittances. 

In order to explore the theoretical and practical implications of these dynamics on migration and the environment all over the world, IOM is hosting a series of contributions by practitioners and researchers. This series provides a forum for the environment and migration community to share experiences, knowledge, ideas and recommendations on the linkages between the COVID-19 pandemic and disaster displacement, environmental migration, and the environmental impacts of people’s different movement decisions. This series includes contributions by authors with different disciplinary and professional backgrounds and on all regions of the world, aiming to provide a snapshot of the diversity and complexity of these implications.