Over the coming eight years, progress in anticipating, managing, and harnessing climate mobility can be made through partnerships that:

Use forecasting methods and shared analysis to identify potential climate mobility hotspots and start early consultations with local populations on anticipatory actions for risk mitigation, including contingency planning for evacuations and protocols between neighbouring countries and communities. Such effort should also considers long-term planning for relocations where the limits of local adaptation may be reached, taking account of emerging lessons and good practices from around the world.

Facilitate regular, safe, and orderly cross-border climate mobility, including in the context of regional free movement agreements and the OAU Convention, using refugee, humanitarian, family, education, and work-related grounds, as appropriate, to facilitate people’s admission and stay, while working to keep families together.

Refrain from returning people to countries experiencing acute disasters and find solutions for cases where adaptation in or return to the country of origin is not possible.

Support receiving communities of both internal and cross-border climate mobility through anticipatory planning, community engagement, and by aligning humanitarian and development assistance to advance locally-led strategies for strengthening public infrastructure and services, promoting labour market inclusion of newcomers, and pursuing social cohesion.

Support the expansion of social protection programmes to mitigate climate vulnerability, improving coverage of rural areas and ensuring eligibility to social services regardless of migration status.

Encourage the use of remittances for building household and community resilience and support trade and productive links as well as collaboration between communities and countries connected by climate mobility.

Anticipate and plan for climate-forced displacement and migration, including permanent relocation, to foster social cohesion in affected communities, prevent involuntary immobility, drive economic growth, sustain peace, and protect people on the move. 

Anticipate and plan for climate mobility

Over the coming eight years, progress in addressing climate mobility in the African continent can be made through partnerships that:

Recognise and support mobility as a legitimate strategy for climate adaptation in local, national, regional, and international climate strategies, plans and policies, including National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), through actions that support 

adaptation, movement with dignity, reception in communities, and multilocal and transnational household risk management strategies.

Pursue cross-sector collaboration to harness new sources of data for improving the monitoring and forecasting of climate risks and climate mobility patterns in Africa.

Significantly increase funding and financing for climate adaptation in the most vulnerable cities, countries, and regions, and pursue cross-sector alliances to scale up the use of innovative financing instruments, including green and blue bonds, municipal bonds, CAT bonds and parametric insurance, as well as debt-for-climate and nature swaps.

Create a dedicated funding vehicle to support anticipatory action on climate mobility, in particular planned relocations that meet criteria around community participation, equity, justice, and sustainability.

Work with migrant-led organisations and displaced people – especially the most vulnerable – to co-design and drive local climate adaptation and mobility solutions that reflect their needs and aspirations.

Recognise and support mobility as a legitimate strategy for climate adaptation in local, national, regional, and international policies, and build cross-sector partnerships to support people and communities in staying, moving, and receiving.

Integrate climate mobility in climate action and finance commitments

Over the coming eight years, progress on promoting climate literacy can be made through partnerships that:

Increase the availability of African-owned, localised, and timely weather and climate data through improved data collection, analysis, and forecasting capabilities.

Raise awareness of the human-made nature of climate change, its localised impacts and adaptation options, particularly among vulnerable and marginalised populations and trusted information and service providers, such as agricultural extension officers, radio hosts, local authorities, faith leaders, youth and migrant-led networks, cultural institutions, and professional associations.

Ensure climate information is child-friendly, available in languages that minorities and migrant and displaced populations understand and shared through communication channels that are accessible.

Harness local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge to co-develop climate adaptation solutions that are compatible with people’s culture and belief systems.

Ensure nationally and locally owned disaster and climate risk early warning mechanisms and response protocols that account for the needs of migrants and displaced people, as well as other potentially marginalised populations such as the poor, less-educated, children, women, and ethno-linguistic minorities.

Enhance public understanding of climate risks and threats, including through building climate change literacy, the co-production of actionable climate information services and access to early warnings, to support informed decisions on how to adapt, whether and when to move, and where to settle.

Inform people of climate risks

Over the coming eight years, progress in empowering women as agents of change can be made through partnerships that:

Prioritise women and girls for climate information services, risk reduction measures, and green economy training and employment opportunities to improve their adaptive capacities in the face of increasing climate risk.

Improve legal, social, and physical protection of women and girls on the move, including cross-border traders, migrant, refugee, and displaced women, as well as returning women.

Boost age and sex-disaggregated data collection, research and local awareness raising on the gender-specific ways in which climate change risks, including climate displacement, disproportionately affect women and girls, and establish clear context specific targets and indicators for reducing their vulnerability in collaboration with the affected communities.

Take targeted actions to ease the climate adaptation burden for women, especially caregivers and female headed households, by expanding social protection and health services, safe access to water, sanitation, and renewable sources of energy, and climate information and agricultural extension services for women active in smallholder agriculture and livestock keeping.

Scale up financial and technical support to local and national women’s groups and rights organisations that work to build power among women, including migrant and displaced women, to secure their access to livelihood opportunities and decision-making processes, and to shift gender norms and practices.

Work with champion men and boys – including cultural, community, camp, and religious leaders – to drive change in attitudes and norms among peers and foster a culture that denounces all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls.

Empower women with climate information, adaptive skills, social and legal protection to bolster their agency in decisions on climate adaptation and in climate mobility.

Amplify women’s agency

Over the coming eight years, progress in empowering children and young people to be leaders in shaping climate adaptation strategies and driving development can be made through partnerships that:

Develop climate literacy from an early age by incorporating climate and environmental science insights and knowledge into school curricula and other educational offerings for children and youth and engaging young people as climate educators and ambassadors.

Invest in, replicate and significantly scale up solutions and programmes developed by and with African youth, including migrants and displaced youth, to advance climate and environmental action, such as waste collection and recycling, tree planting, urban greening and farming, forestry, and coastal ecosystem restoration.

Strengthen the ecosystem that supports youth with the development of green skills and entrepreneurship in green sectors as well as green jobs generation in the continent, including as part of efforts to make the agriculture, energy, construction, and mining sectors more sustainable.

Work with the private sector, interested sectors of industry, training institutes, and labour unions to improve the transferability of skills and worker mobility within and across Africa’s regions, exploring innovative skills and training schemes for young people between places of origin and destination, with a focus on upskilling for jobs of the future and advancing the low carbon transition.

Enable youth from all backgrounds – including those on the move – to effectively participate in local, national, regional and African Union deliberations and decisions on climate strategies and inclusive climate action by developing leadership skills for youth and creating inclusive platforms that elevate youth voices and promote their engagement as climate negotiators.

Foster and leverage the creativity and potential of Africa’s already-mobile youth, to build resilience, economic prosperity, and advance the green transition.

Harness the ambitions of the youth

Over the coming eight years, progress in localising solutions for climate adaptation and climate mobility can be made through partnerships that:

Strengthen inclusive and shock-responsive services and take measures to keep essential services running after disaster strikes to provide non-discriminatory access to services, including food, education, healthcare, child protection and water and sanitation, regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, or status.

Empower and promote locally led cooperation and development strategies in borderland areas that are forecast to be hotspots of climate mobility, focusing on the provision of basic services, shared infrastructure, inclusive natural resource management, trade and value chain development and support to community organisations promoting social cohesion.

Ensure that climate finance is allocated to the local level and involves community participatory processes, by mapping the baseline of climate finance that reaches the local level in Africa and use it to set an Africa-wide goal for local climate finance, targeting the most climate vulnerable areas and communities.

Leverage local resources by bringing together stakeholders from public, private and research sectors to explore how best to support community priorities, facilitating dialogue, building coalitions, and sharing skills, technology, and knowledge.

Invest in local capacities for community-led data collection and analysis, fundraising and financial management, and the monitoring and assessment of programmes and policies.

Pursue community-led solutions for climate-resilient development, disaster response and climate mobility across the continent, and invest in locally anchored climate adaptation and resilience pathways, including strong connections in border areas.

Build from the Local

Over the coming eight years, progress in enabling cities to address climate mobility dynamics, promote the inclusion of migrants and displaced people, and mitigate climate impacts on marginalised communities and fast-growing, at-risk urban areas can be made through partnerships that:

Involve city governments in, and harness their lessons for, national, regional and AU level deliberations and policy processes related to climate action, disaster risk reduction, sustainable development and migration, refugees, and displacement.

Plan for greater urban growth and density by overhauling outdated zoning laws and codes to match contemporary urban needs and realities and by designating and equipping areas of prospective settlement with basic infrastructure and transportation links to economic opportunities.

Ensure natural and built environment planning and regulatory practices are transparent and led by sub-national and city governments, allowing for more context-appropriate plans and practices as well as greater oversight of local adherence to land use rules and regulations.

Support the development of Africa’s intermediary cities, by providing incentives, such as additional funding from national budgets, to encourage collaborative governance among regional networks of local governments that agree to share personnel and pool resources to deliver local infrastructure and public services more efficiently.

To ensure the provision of infrastructure and inclusive public services, support African cities, in particular smaller cities, in increasing own revenue generation, including the use of technology to collect data, fees and taxes and enhance the transparency of transactions, as well as allowing cities access to international and private financing through intermediary institutions and pooled funding mechanisms.

Improve the availability of localised data on population dynamics, climate risks and vulnerabilities, including the profile of migrant and displaced populations, to inform urban planning and support participatory, community-level priority setting for urban development in the context of intensifying climate risks.

Reinforce rural-urban links for inclusive food systems, by ensuring market access and supporting value chain development for small-scale producers, especially women farmers, to address the food needs of urban dwellers and by supporting transport and market infrastructure in poor urban neighbourhoods.

Enable cities with the actionable data, financial and technical resources, and political agency needed to facilitate planned, resilient, and inclusive urban growth, social inclusion, and social protection, while building stronger ties across cities and between cities and rural areas and economies.

Invest in resilient and connected cities

Over the coming eight years, progress in reducing the climate vulnerability of people and the ecosystems they rely on can be made through partnerships that:

Create or reinforce national and local structures for the cooperative governance of shared and cross-boundary water resources, adopting the river basin as the unit for water-resources management; strengthening river-basin and aquifer management; and creating an enabling environment for cooperation between countries sharing international water basins, including management at the lowest appropriate level and institutional arrangements for full stakeholder participation.

Introduce transparency and flexibility in land governance and encourage context-appropriate and conflict-sensitive solutions to manage a continuum of land rights and use needs, using technology to map and record land rights and uses, knowledge networks to share information and good practices, and mediation mechanisms to mitigate land conflicts and address the marginalisation of women and female-headed households under traditional land tenure arrangements.

Roll out Sustainable Land and Water Management Practices for agriculture and food security across the continent by promoting systematic data collection, monitoring and evaluation of practices, knowledge-sharing and peer-learning among farmers, and capacity-building for the communities and institutions managing land and water resources.

Build research and development (R&D) capacity in the agricultural sector in Africa to ensure better alignment between R&D and the needs and conditions of African countries and communities and improve adoption rates of climate resilient agricultural practices and technologies.

Protect oceans and build coastal resilience at scale through the creation of connected seascapes that foster regional collaboration for ecosystem restoration and protection and mobilise resources for blue economy development to generate sustainable livelihood opportunities in coastal communities.

Manage land, water, and other shared natural resources cooperatively and sustainably to support agricultural and ecosystem-based livelihoods and boost productivity, while reducing environmental impact and harnessing ecosystems and biodiversity protection for economic development and climate resilience.

Pursue nature-positive development

This visual introduction to contemporary African life examines the effects of the climate crisis on people’s lives and how it influences their decisions to move.

THE GALLERY

The Africa Climate Mobility Initiative recommends eight key actions which, if undertaken as a whole over the next eight years (2023-2030) can harness climate mobility to support adaptation journeys that are both people positive and nature positive, contributing to Africa’s collective resilience.

AGENDA FOR ACTION

Watch our documentary and explore how climate mobility affects frontline communities.

Stories from Africa

In the Climate Mobility Data Portal we share the main data sets used in the Africa Climate Mobility Model. This tool allows you to understand and grasp the importance of the critical factors affecting climate mobility in Africa.

EXPLORE THE DATA

Understanding coastal risks will help the 122 thousand people projected to move out of Dar es Salaam by 2050 plan and adapt to climate change.

Expected number of people leaving their home due to climate change by 2050 under the Rocky Road scenario (30 - 15k people)

People leaving

Climate Justice

African
Shifts

A significant part of the population in the Nile delta will be exposed to sea level rise risk, including part of the 5.3 million people projected to live in Alexandria and surroundings by 2050.

Projected population by 2050 under the Rocky Road scenario (5k – 500k inhabitants)

Population

Sea level rise

Deep Roots

Around 750 thousand people may need to leave Ethiopia’s Adama Valley by 2050 as a result of climate risks like droughts.

Expected number of people leaving their home due to climate change by 2050 (5k – 150k people)

Drought risk by 2050

A Mobile Future

Lay of 
the Land

While currently affected by severe droughts, river floods upstream from Humbe (Angola) are expected to drive 153 thousand people to move away by 2050.

Expected number of people leaving their home due to climate change by 2050 (1k – 2M people)

Flood risk

Land & Water

Borderlands around the Rift Valley are projected to become major climate mobility hotspots. Rwanda’s border area with Uganda could see up to 1.1 million new arrivals by 2050. 

Expected number of people moving to this areas due to climate change by 2050 under the Rocky Road scenario (1k – 700k people)

People arriving

Cross-border Ties

Lusaka is projected to become a climate mobility destination for up to 82 thousand people evading flood risk in the surrounding areas by 2050.

Expected number of people moving to these areas due to climate change by 2050 (50 – 30k people)

Urban Engines

Big
changes

Droughts could force traditionally mobile communities – including 300 thousand pastoralists in Senegal – to seek stability and settle beyond their usual grazing lands.

Expected number of people leaving their home due to climate change by 2050 (50 – 40k people)

Pasturelands

Pastoral Ways

Preparing youth for future climate challenges will make the population in Kano (Nigeria’s North West), expected to grow in 10.3 million people by 2050, more resilient.

Projected population growth by 2050 (compared to 2010) under the Rocky Road scenario (35k – 900k people)

Population growth

The Young Lead the Way

Ensuring that women are not left behind after 54 thousand people may leave Ouahigouya (Burkina Faso) and other climate mobility hotspots that today host refugee camps will be a priority to reduce their vulnerability.

Expected number of people leaving their home due to climate change by 2050 (50 – 10k people)

Internally displaced people and refugee camps (UNHCR)

Refugee camps

Women at Risk

On the 
forefront

At risk of cyclons and floods, climate adaptation will be crucial for the 483 thousand people who will continue to call Beira home by 2050.

Projected population by 2050 under the Rocky Road scenario (500 – 275k inhabitants)

Harnessing Hope

Stronger rural-urban connections could help Johannesburg – projected to see 1.3 million people move into the city and its surrounding areas by 2050 – adapt to climate change.

Expected number of people moving to these areas due to climate change by 2050 under the Rocky Road scenario (5k – 60k people)

Working Together

Stepping into 
tomorrow

Climate change is reshaping our world and exposing Africans, across the continent, to increased hardship. How can its people be empowered to face climate shocks and stressors and make informed decisions to move or stay now and in the future?