Environmental Migrants, Research and Development

The international Organisation on Migration as well as the International Panel on Climate Change argues that both gradual environmental change (climate processes) and extreme environmental events (including climate events) put at risk the inhabitants of coastal regions, low lying places and areas susceptible to drought and may force them to move to safer areas. Such risks are even higher for indigenous people and for developing countries with limited caring capacity

In Malawi, temporally as well as permanent migration and displacement have occurred as a result of numerous climate processes and events. Of late, areas that have never experienced climate change related impact such as Chitipa have recorded cases that require the attention of government, researchers and development partners.

This article aim to present some of the issues that we have ignored in handling environmentally induced migrants, the consequences at local and national level and the need for action oriented research for policy formulation and sustainable development.

Firstly, there is need to understand hot spots that include the lower districts of Chikwawa, Nsanje, lake shore districts of Nkhota-kota, Mangochi, Salima and Nkhata-bay and flood plain areas such as Domasi and areas around Lake Chirwa. In many cases, these hot spots are also main sources of livelihoods for millions of people and they have unique resources that form part of the national economy.

However, little or no research has been undertaken to analyse these hot spots in relation to climate processes. Those undertaking development programmes are doing so based on speculated data and invalidated information. As such interventions/strategies are not directly mitigating the impacts of climate events, though helping communities to adapt to its impact.

What it means is that both government and NGOs are undertaking programmes that are temporal in nature or have investment and technological failure. Only hard core research can help identify possible intervention in different areas for different communities. For example availability of moisture or wetlands is not only ideal for farming; this could also be the source for promotion of wild life or tourism.

A simplistic way of conceptualizing the links between the environment and migration is to think of "push" and "pull" forces, where environmental problems "push" people out of current homes while economic opportunities "pull" people into new area.

Understanding these factors will facilitate to develop interventions both in the home of origin as well as in the areas of destination. At country level we don’t know the forms and types of environmental migrants and the seasonal scenarios in relation to push and pull factors.

This has an implication for development agents and they don’t know what and when or how will an incidence force people to leave their homes or encourage people to identify new homes. Only research can bring these indicators, and that type of research has not been undertaken at country level. This has both policy and intervention problems for proper handling of environmental refugees.

This depiction of push and pull factors is also too simplistic as environmental, political, and economic triggers the conditions to affect an individual’s decision to migrate. Migration is seen as a strategy whereby individuals within a family implicitly compare their livelihood options in the current (usually rural) home with the livelihoods they expect in the potential destination.

Therefore, whether the focus is on the household or individual, understanding migration involves evaluating the livelihood opportunities offered home versus those perceived to be offered in a new setting. This evaluation requires scientists in collaboration with development partners.

Currently, we have seen an increase in baseline studies. However, such studies tend to ignore the theoretical concepts that generate policy-related interventions. For example, how can the entitlement theory be linked to environment and migration nexus?. Is there any link between the networking theory and development programmes? What about the role of ethnographic and migration analysis? Only a well-funded research program can unveil critical issues affecting the Malawian society. This sort of research is lacking at country level.

It is also important to note that a range of factors and not just environmental degradation may affect rural livelihoods. These issues can only be linked to development if there is a strong link between scientists and development experts. This marriage is lacking and the development partners are no longer involving research institutions. On the other hand research institutions are failing to guide development partners. How can this romance be renewed?

One thing lacking in development programmes is to understand the decision-making thresholds. For example, we don’t know who is likely to migrate, and in which circumstances. Who makes decisions to migrate and when such decisions are made? Why are government decisions ignored by those affected? What are the gender implications? Can age, poverty level, responsibilities, type of resources and political issues affect the number and type of environmental refugees?

If the answer is yes, what interventions should be promoted at what level? All these questions will require a well designed research that involves the victims, the NGOs and the government. Unfortunately, even research centers have not yet started these sorts of partnerships and collaborations at country level.

When it comes to migration, different groups of people do so at different times. For example we know that the young are quick to migrate than the old people. We also know that when natural resources are not supporting the communities even the older people can move.

However, we do not know what happens to people who have other responsibilities or are too old to move. What interventions are given to them by who and how? Is poverty a contributing factors forcing people to remain in vulnerable agro-ecological zones? Is culture playing a role to decision making? What about our political system?.

There are even fundamental issues of defining environmental migrants. Can Malawi proclaim that we have environmental migrants without looking at migration flows? How can we defend or seek funding from international partners if we don’t know the type of migration flows at country scale.

Can we disentangle normal flows from abnormal migrations to cities attributable to environmental change? This can only be achieved by research. Policy makers today need numbers of migrant and not tagging individuals as environmental migrants. To achieve this data on migration has to be related to meteorological and hydrological information. This sort of data is not covered in baseline studies.

Physical, environmental data and data from global research as well as socio-economic variables relevant to migration are important. Can we attribute issues of child labour and trafficking to environmental migrants, is there any link between HIV/AIDS, prostitution, maternal death and human rights issues within this web of issues. How will we know without research?

For example do we know migration patterns in Malawi and to what drivers? Where will climate change create new patterns of migration? What is the bigger threat today, climate change or national climate change policies? In this case, there is need for a participatory research with people in a range of settings along the rural-urban continuum to disentangle the relative strength of different drivers and the key socio-economic characteristics of categories of people who would share similar decision making thresholds.

In conclusion national policies are needed in order to study, plan for, adapt to and mitigate the processes and effects of environmental change. The movement of people and the implication for migration management are key elements, which need to be factored in. Gradual and sudden environmental changes will continue affecting Malawians. These can be on the political agenda only when an integrated research in undertaken involving different specialists from various institutions.

The existing gap between researchers and development partners is not health for the country in general and particularly for vulnerable communities. Availability of research funds to understand these environment/poverty or environment/migrant nexus will help to develop proper strategies that can not only be ideal at local scale, but at national as well as regional levels.

Today, there is no center at national scale for practitioners to get information on climate change. Key funding agencies are even having problems to identify potential experts who could provide hard core data on climate change related issues.

My suggestion is that time is not yet over for University of Malawi, Mzuzu and Government, International Research agencies to sit down and develop a national research agenda as it related to climate change. Through this approach, the government as well as the institutions involved will stand to benefit.