Climate-Induced Migration in the WIO Countries and Its Regional Implication

Abstract

Africa, the second-largest continent, features various climates, from extremely dry to humid. Africa's vulnerability to climate change is widely recognised. Climate change is one key risk factor in human migration's complex and multifaceted drivers. Extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and recurring floods and droughts are all significant factors that affect internal and international migration patterns. Africa's resilience to climate change relies heavily on its present and potential for future adaptation. However, it is challenging to objectively assess climate change's effects on the continent because these characteristics are not consistent throughout Africa. Therefore, it is pivotal to evaluate the impact of climate change at the national and sub-regional levels using the available data. Even though climate migration issues are frequently studied in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, they are primarily data-centric. The underlying causes and specific arrangements to resolve them are relatively understudied. One region often ignored in the climate migration discussion is the Western Indian Ocean region, particularly the five small island states in the southwest of Africa. Indeed, this shared threat of climate change-induced migration should motivate the governments of these countries to pledge their support for regional arrangements on climate change and migration. It is in this context the current paper attempts to understand the vulnerability of the region vis-à-vis climate migration, the current national and domestic arrangements to prevent climate migration and some possible configurations that can be charted out from the existing setup.