Climate & Disaster-Induced Human Mobility within national strategies & policies
Communities, especially in the Arab region are increasingly being exposed & vulnerable to a variety of hazards and pressures leading to stresses & shocks that impact their everyday lives.
These set back sustainable development gains, and slow down progress in achieving the SDGs.
The MENA region is a crucial node in global and regional networks, given that it is an origin, destination, and transit region for those on the move.
It an area hit hard by climate change: while the temperature of the earth is warming at unprecedented rates, the MENA region is heating up twice as fast.
The region is badly hit by a variety of natural disasters.
The region contains countries grappling with a deadly collision between environmental calamities and political conflict.
The climate crisis is an amplifier of disadvantage, making hard lives of threatened communities even harder and pushing more people onto human mobility pathways.
The MENA region lays bare the complexity in addressing issues of climate-induced mobility.
Immigration advocates have cautioned those interested in climate- induced mobility not to exclusively use the language of refuge, or of climate refugees.
One reason behind this insistence is that the vast majority of those displaced—including in the MENA region—never actually leave their country of origin because they lack the financial resources necessary to do so.
In other words, the climate displacement crisis significantly includes internally displaced people.
A second reason is that, with a few exceptions, climate degradation and disaster occurrence rarely works in isolation to motivate movement.
Rather, it occurs in concert with other important factors, such as weakened state infrastructure and socioeconomic disadvantage, to compel people to leave their homes.
It is important to understand and reflect on the causes of internal and external displacement and either develop effective stand-alone strategies to address climate & disaster- induced human mobility or to ensure that climate disaster induced human mobility is comprehensively integrated within existing strategies on disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, sustainable development and other sectoral strategies.
Objectives
• Understand current policy gaps to address climate & disaster- induced human mobility, within national & regional on-going efforts coordinated by LAS Arab Mechanism, UNDRR, CSO Major Groups regionally and internationally.
• Highlight localized solutions, using an inclusive & participatory approach,
• Emphasise why effective local solutions are required
Expected Outputs
• Showcase locally led solutions that helped communities adapt to climate & disaster- induced human mobility.
• Recognise challenges of climate and disaster induced mobility and ways to tackle them.
• Recognition of the need for national, regional and international actions.
Draft Agenda
Opening Remarks (10 min)
Dr Emad Adly, General Coordinator, RAED
Ms. Nina Birkland, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
Panel Discussion (60 Min) Moderator Dr Emad Adly
• Dr. Mahmoud Fathallah, LAS
• Mr. Fadi Al Jannan, UNDRR ROAS Deputy Chief
• Ms. Samah Hadid, NRC
• Ms. Alice Baillat, IDMC
• Eng. Marie Therese Seif, HEAD Lebanon
Q&A session (15 min)
Key messages & Closing remarks (5 min)
