Participants at a regional consultation called for greater efforts from community, sub-national, national, regional and international levels for prevention, preparedness and responses in tackling displacement of people and migration.
They recognised that displacement and migration have taken place in South Asian and Indian Ocean communities due to natural hazards.
Since 2008, they have observed that on an average 27 million people were forced to leave homes every year globally in consequence of flood, windstorm, earthquake, drought like disasters putting them in vulnerable situation, and they need special protection and assistance to come out of their vulnerability.
The three-day Nansen Initiative regional consultation titled 'Climate Change, Disasters and Human Mobility in South Asia and the Indian Ocean' that concluded in Khulna on Sunday brought together over 90 participants representing governments of 10 countries from South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, regional and international organisations, United Nations agencies, civil society organisations and research institutions.
Among others, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Md Abul Kalam Azad, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque, Cabinet Secretary Mu-hammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Swiss/Norwegian-led Nansen Initiative Prof Walter Kaelin and Swiss Ambassador Christian Fotsch spoke in various sessions of the consultation.
The participating countries included Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Madagascar, the Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Nansen Initiative and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) jointly organised the consultation and the participants also visited cyclone Aila-affected areas in Khulna district to interact with a community to know the impact of the natural calamity.
Aila was one of the most devastating cyclones that hit Bangladesh in 2009 forcing 75,000 families to leave their home, according to a press release issued by the Nansen Initiative Secretariat Monday.
It said the participants recognised that South Asia and Indian Ocean are exposed to a wide range of natural hazards that has a potential to trigger human mobility and have indeed resulted in significant displacement.
If managed properly, migration can be a positive climate change adaptation measure, they observed.
The consultation put forward a set of recommendations in 5 areas - disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, protection of displaced persons in the context of disasters and the adverse effects of climate change, migration as adaptation, planned relocation and data collection.
It was shared that consultation feeds into the Nansen Initiative's bottom-up approach to better understand human mobility dynamics linked to climate change and disasters in South Asia and to identify how countries and communities adapt to climate change, and prepare and respond when a disaster strikes.
With the end of the consultation the Nansen Initiative will enter its next crucial phase, which consists in finalising the Protection Agenda. This document will provide good practices and innovative ideas on how to improve the protection of people forced to flee abroad following a disaster, Swiss Ambassador Christian Fotsch said in his closing remarks.
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