Climate and Mobility: USAID Efforts to Move Toward Resilience

Climate impacts on food and water security, sea level rise, and intensifying extreme weather events affect livelihoods and reduce liveability, leading to mobility. Climate shocks and stresses exert additional pressure on communities already facing challenges such as limited economic opportunities, social or political marginalization, poor governance, and degraded natural resources. Climate-related migration occurs in widely diverse contexts but is projected to mainly occur within national borders and towards urban destinations. This mobility can range from a proactive risk management strategy to forced displacement in the face of life-threatening risks.

Climate-related mobility requires urgent, focused attention. USAID is committed to improving the well-being of people who migrate or are displaced by climate impacts, as well as the people and communities that receive them. USAID’s work on climate and migration is guided by the White House Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration and USAID’s 2022-2030 Climate Strategy among other efforts such as the U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America. USAID's Climate Strategy has numerous intermediate results (IRs) with links to migration, including IR1.2, which highlights the need to address "climate-related migration by working with communities and migrants to limit displacement and support safer and more productive migration, including in sending and receiving communities." Other USAID Climate Strategy IRs note the need and opportunity to:

• leverage remittances and diaspora investing to promote resilience and low-emissions, climate-resilient investment;
• invest in capacity and assets that travel with people, such as transferable job skills and access to mobile assets and safety nets; and, 
• strengthen tenure and resource rights to build climate resilience among marginalized and underrepresented groups, including migrants.

USAID is addressing climate-related mobility through humanitarian and development assistance and collaborative work with other countries and entities. USAID programs support communities and countries to prepare for and manage climate impacts and associated mobility. These programs have the potential to avert or minimize pressures to forcibly migrate and serve as instruments to support migration with dignity. For example:

• USAID strengthens the resilience of people and communities to address climate impacts across multiple sectors, including issues linked to migration and displacement.
• USAID’s Asia Resilient Cities project works with local governments to promote climate-resilient urban growth with a focus on migrants and informal settlement dwellers.   
• Through the Scaling Durable Solutions and Urban Resilience activity in Somalia, USAID supports access to land, housing, and livelihood opportunities for people internally displaced by climate and conflict and in need of long-term solutions.
• USAID supported the Planning for Productive Migration pilot activity in Niger that facilitated job search support and safe migration as a livelihood strategy for people facing climate and other stresses.
• USAID provides life-saving humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable communities on the move, including movement linked to climate change impacts. This assistance comes prior to, during, and after humanitarian crises. USAID responds to an average of 75 crises in nearly 70 countries each year.

While migration poses a range of challenges, migration can also serve as a powerful engine for resilience and development outcomes. This includes improved access to livelihood and education opportunities and increased incomes for migrants. For more information on USAID approaches to the challenges and opportunities of climate-related migration, check out:

• People on the Move: Strengthening Adaptation Responses to Support Human Movement in a Changing Climate 
• Migration as a Source of Resilience
• Migration as a Climate Adaptation Strategy: Challenges and Opportunities for USAID Programming
• Climate-Related Migration: Challenges and Opportunities in Urban Destinations