Madagascar - IOM and the Ministry of Environment of Madagascar have hosted a two-and-a-half day capacity building workshop on the interdependent relationship between migration, environment and climate change (MECC).

During the workshop, 25 participants from the Ministry of Environment, key ministries and public institutions with sectoral responsibilities for migration and the environment, research institutions and civil society representatives, learnt about the interdependent relationship between migration and environmental change, including climate change. They also discussed and shared expertise on the realities and challenges of MECC, including how the evidence gap on the subject could be solved, in the case of Madagascar.

Four main areas where additional evidence is needed in Madagascar were identified as: mobility of individuals and impacts in the sending regions; mobility of individuals induced by drought; mining and environmental concerns related to sudden migration; and forced displacement due to rapid onset climatic events. Research will be initiated in coming weeks to collect qualitative and quantitative information that will assist stakeholders in their governance of targeted MECC issues.

Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean region have been adversely affected by climate change in recent years. Many people were forced to move when their crops and livelihoods were destroyed by recurrent droughts in the southern part of Madagascar in 2016. In the coastal town of Rivière des Galets in Mauritius, people face the prospect of relocation due to the rise in sea levels and beach erosion, despite the building of a dike.

Recent floods in Mozambique caused the displacement of hundreds of people, while in Namibia the impact of the recent drought has made communities more vulnerable to food insecurity, putting the livelihoods of many families at risk and heightening the possibility of a relocation toward urban areas.

Similar capacity building workshops and research initiatives will be held in Mozambique and Namibia in March. These workshops are part of the wider IOM Development Fund (IDF) supported project: Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Evidence for Policy in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, which aims to increase knowledge and awareness about the relationship between migration and environmental change in order to inform related policy and operational planning at both the regional and national level.

For further information, please contact Daniel Silva y Poveda at IOM Madagascar, Tel: +261.32 56 54 954, Email: dsilva@iom.int