Africa Regional Civil Society Consultation: Human Rights in the Context of Climate-induced Migration and Displacement

In collaboration with FES Geneva , the Climate Migration and Displacement Platform (CMDP) and ACT Alliance, the FES Flight and Migration Competence Center organized a two-day consultation on 10-11 May 2023 in Addis Ababa, exploring the human rights implications of climate migration in the African continent. The workshop brought together over 25 experts working in civil society and academia in different parts of the continent.

Recognizing the unique opportunity 2023 presents for the advocacy of human rights in the context of climate migrants, FES, CMDP and ACT Alliance decided to implement a set of activities at national and regional levels. These activities reflect the common concern for human rights and justice in responses to climate change impacts on displacement and migration. Starting with regional consultations in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands, the project seeks to bring messages from civil society organizations to key policy makers in Bonn and Geneva in June 2023. The goal is to develop shared understandings on current and potential future trends in climate-induced human mobility, including displacement and migration, and to identify strategies for targeted institutional and structural advocacy engagement. During the June 2023 UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva which will focus on climate justice and the UNFCCC Intersessional taking place in Bonn three delegates from each consultation are set to present the findings of the regional workshops.

The two-day consultation started with presentations from experts working with FMCC on exploring current trends of climate-induced migration in the Central Sahel and East and Horn of Africa Regions. The experts highlighted climate migration trends in the aforementioned regions, sharing with participants their findings on climate migration trends, existing challenges as well as policy and legal gaps that exist in responding to climate mobility. This session was followed by a panel discussion which consisted of colleagues working in different global and regional processes dealing with climate migration, among others the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), the African Climate Migration Initiative (ACMI), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Global Compact on Migration (GCM). This allowed participants to gain insight into both the conceptual definition of climate migration and the policy processes currently in place to deal with the phenomenon.

Following these sessions, participants engaged in several small group discussions focusing on patterns of migration and displacement as a result of climate change, trends of human rights violations in the context of climate change, specific vulnerable groups more susceptible to such rights violations, potential programming priorities in responding to the impacts of climate change on migration and existing legal and policy frameworks in different parts of the continent.

A policy brief is being drawn now with findings and recommendations from the Africa consultation. This will be taken to Bonn and Geneva for further debates with policy-makers.