Understanding Climate Migration: Policy and Law

An overview of the legal aspects and gaps on climate migration.

Vulnerability is Not a Bad Thing

‘A number of communities said in focus group discussions they had observed significant changes in the weather patterns over time. However, 90 percent perceived these changes to be “due to grace of God” and had no clue how much human activity had contributed to the problem.’

Does this sound familiar to you? The people around you know that the climate is changing but they don’t understand that they have to take action themselves to prepare for its effects? This is more common than you think.

What Makes the Pacific Resilient?

What makes the Pacific so resilient? Often times, too much of the discourse on resilience focuses on the policy and strategy level - at the global and national levels. This is important because it raises awareness of the issues at hand. But policy and strategy don’t actually make people resilient.

There were two fantastic articles on resilience which change the nature of the discussion out recently. The first looked at how resilience is actually just about ‘small victories’ in adapting to new situations on the ground - at the local level. Which is really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

What Kind of Aid Does the Pacific (Part 5) - Health Care

Friends, the statistics are not good. In fact, they are very troubling. The state of health in the Pacific is poor. There are a myriad of reasons, but the primary two are lack of investment in health care services by government, and personal choices.

Before we talk about health care in terms of aid, let’s first address the issue of personal choice. For most countries, there is sufficient locally grown and produced healthy food to provide for adequate balanced diets. At times, cyclones and flooding and drought interrupt the food production process, and climate change is interfering with those processes, particularly in atoll countries, but for the most part, we’re still in a situation where we can grow our own food - enough to feed our families and sell the remainder at the market in order to have cash income to buy other necessities.

What Kind of Aid Does the Pacific Need (Part 4) – Infrastructure

It’s hard to get ahead in life if you can’t access information and you can’t physically get where you want to go.

Which is why infrastructure, whether it’s communications infrastructure for internet access, or transport infrastructure that is reliable and well maintained, like ports, airport and roads, is so critical. This is particularly so in a region that has so many geographic challenges to overcome. The problem is that the return on investment is not instant like we see in geographically centred countries like in Europe or parts of Asia. Infrastructure investments are super expensive in the Pacific, and require significantly more maintenance due to climatic conditions.

What Kind of Aid Does the Pacific Need (Part 3) - Jobs

Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Broken record, yes? It’s what’s needed in the Pacific as lifestyles change, as communities develop. It’s doubtful policy makers thought too far ahead in terms of what would happen as economies transitioned due to trade. What would people do?

This is of particular concern for youth in the Pacific, specifically educated youth. Here is a whole subset of the labour force that is unemployed or underemployed - unproductive if you think in terms of its productivity potential. We need jobs for youth, and they need to be productive, allow for social protection AND promote the idea of sustainability. Ideally, they would also focus on transferable skills that can move across sectors and borders.

What Kind of Aid Does the Pacific Need (Part 2) - Responsive Government

Earlier this year, the ‘My World 2015’ data results were published - providing excellent insight into the priorities of everyday people on issues from healthcare to jobs to internet access. What was really nice to see was a breakdown of results by country, region, gender, age and even education level. You can view the results here.

The desire for ‘responsive government’ landed fourth on the list in the Pacific (second for men, fifth for women). It is an extremely important issue, particularly with respect to development and building resilience. Communities can and should take the lead because they know what is best for them, but government, particularly local government, still has a critical role to play. It develops policies, delivers essential services, and creates incentives to invest in and grow local economies. One of the challenges to local governments, however, is that they often have ‘unfunded mandates’ - responsibilities without the necessary financing to ensure they can do their job adequately.