2019 was the year of grassroots climate change action. Activists of all races, creeds, and generations gathered in their droves to demand stronger government initiatives in the face of increasingly alarming climate predictions. As if to drive home the message, the following months saw a spate of severe storms in Europe, widespread bushfires across Australia, and unprecedented destruction of the Amazon rainforest. In the world of humanitarianism and disaster relief, the effects could not have been more clear. Despite wide gaps in the data, reports suggested that in the first half of 2019, twice as many people were displaced through climate events than through conflict.
Climate Change and Migration: an Unrecognised Link
Scientists agree that the brunt of the effects of climate change are likely to be felt in the developing world. Not only will small inhabited islands soon be consumed by the rising tide, but the effects of even small temperature changes in subsistence communities could have, and are having, devastating consequences for food security – a well documented additional stressor in conflict-induced migration, as well as a driver of conflict itself. The causal relationship is also bidirectional, since the problems of a low-yield harvest can be easily exacerbated through conflict-driven destruction of infrastructure, or the recruitment of able-bodied workers to national service, or other armed groups. The UNHCR convention does not recognize climate migrants under the category of refugees, and much climate-induced migration occurs within borders. Isolating the effects of environmental strain as a migration driver is virtually impossible in many cases. This makes defining the correct allocation of aid and government resources, access to which is often based on migration status, a Herculean task.
Yemen as a Case Study
The ongoing conflict in Yemen provides a contemporary case-study lens through which to examine the real-world consequences of the environment/ conflict nexus in the world of humanitarian aid. For the last four years, civil war has wreaked havoc on the 28 million inhabitants of Yemen, with widespread instability infiltrating every aspect of daily civilian life. As an article by the World Bank explains, the burgeoning population has driven up demand for water. Meanwhile access to fresh water for crops and livestock has been limited. Not only have government level infrastructure programs failed to deliver in an atmosphere of instability, but environmental change is set to cause acute climate events such as flooding, thereby polluting already limited freshwater sources. In Yemen this demand for water has resulted in an enormous shortfall, straining already besieged farming communities, and in some places triggering the escalation of social tensions into violence.
For humanitarian organizations in the country, these combined factors have had a profound effect on both the delivery and planning of aid for the region. Humanitarian actors in the region have noted that clean water sources have become targets for armed groups, who use control of the water supply as a tool of war. Lack of access to clean water for civilians has contributed to a number of cholera outbreaks and other diseases. For NGOs this means a full spectrum response is necessary – limited assets must go further to provide health and WASH assistance where large scale disease crises are overwhelming a heavily conflict afflicted healthcare system.
Long-Term Solutions to the Challenges of Climate Change in Aid Provision
At the global level, humanitarian actors must find long term ways to react and adapt to the additional challenges of climate change in aid provision. In light of this, the internationally recognized Sphere standards highlight environmental factors as an important theme when responding to a crisis. Their approach highlights that poorly designed interventions can compound damage to the environment if the do no harm principle is not applied and mainstreamed from project inception. They also highlight the potential for environmental benefit through an integrated humanitarian response. If care is taken to design a sustainable response, active improvements can be made, for example through the cultivation of crops which have regenerative effects in the soil.
Aside from this, it is also crucial to dismantle ingrained practises which may inadvertently damage or disregard environmental concerns. The reduction of spending silos in favour of a more consolidated and inter-thematic approach has been hailed by some as a way to ensure that deep-seated and long term issues such as environmental destruction are addressed in aid responses. This approach has however been met with scepticism from some who worry that neutrality may be impinged, and excess bureaucracy encouraged. These concerns show the need for continued monitoring and evaluation of novel practises as the aid sector moves towards a more sustainable future.
Innovation and Data Collection are Keys
Research and data on environment, aid, and migration must also adapt in order to provide aid actors with reliable information for intervention development. Innovative data sources are looking to bridge this needs gap for example by attempting predictions about future destinations of people displaced by environmental change, and even the use of socio-economic data to predict the impacts on host communities. Such innovation provides valuable insights allowing for forward thinking and imaginative responses to an issue which looks set to stay.
Here at Trust we are committed to helping our clients with mainstreaming of relevant cross-cutting issues like climate change. Our evaluation teams have been involved in over 25 projects to date in the areas of WASH, food security, and nutrition. In our TPM and M&E activities, we ensure the use of state-of-the industry data collection and analysis tools to give NGOs the most accurate and useful feedback on issues of sustainability and wider impacts in our reports. Our capacity building team is also qualified to provide training in Sphere and Core Humanitarian Standards, to allow NGO teams to develop best practises for sustainable intervention.
About the Author: Jeki Whitmey holds an MSc from the University of Oxford in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation, and has spent the last two years as a researcher and writer on global refugee issues in the Mediterranean and Bangladesh. Since joining the Trust team in January, she has been working in the Business Development department at the Gaziantep office.
