Human Rights and Gender Equality in Climate and Disaster Displacement: A Municipality-Level Integrated Response in African Cities
At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, the Mayors Migration Council (MMC) and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) launched the Global Mayors Action Agenda on Climate and Migration (the Action Agenda). This Public Sector Innovation Programme responds to two trends.
First, people who are forced to leave their homes as a consequence of disasters and climate change often move into cities, and municipal authorities therefore need to prepare for and respond to sudden and more gradual increases in the urban population.
Second, cities are themselves exposed to hazards, including rising sea levels, storm surges, flooding, drought and so forth. Growing populations of people in situations of vulnerability, including those already displaced, often live in informal or poorly planned settlements where the risk of secondary displacement can be high.
Insights from Nairobi, Kampala and Freetown
Kampala City Profile
Nairobi City Profile
Blogpost one: Kickstarting work on addressing climate related displacement at the local government level
Blogpost two: Examining Governance Systems and Structures Relevant to Disaster Displacement in Sierra Leone, Kenya and Uganda
Related news:
Supporting African cities in addressing climate-related displacement
Kampala Capital City Authority
The C40-MMC Global Mayors Task Force on Climate and Migration calls upon a wide range of actors to contribute to building resilience and promoting the inclusion of people (at risk of being) displaced in cities in the context of disasters and climate change.
Significantly, the City Principles for Inclusive Action on Climate and Migration, which forms part of the Action Agenda, expressly commits to a human rights-based approach. Mayors commit at principle number 4 to:
Endeavour to welcome people moving or displaced into our cities, including for climate-related reasons ensuring fundamental rights and equitable access to services, regardless of migration or legal status.
From October 2022 to October 2023, Lund University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI), will coordinate the implementation of the project Human Rights and Gender Equality in Climate and Disaster Displacement: A Municipality-Level Integrated Response in African Cities.
The project, which is supported by the Swedish Institute, brings together public sector professionals working in municipalities where climate-related displacement is already a reality. Participants have been selected from cities in Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone. The project is inspired by the 'Action Agenda' and builds on earlier work by project partners relating to disaster displacement.
Building on the Framework for Integrating Rights and Equality (FIRE), the project supports public sector professionals to engage with the challenges faced within their municipalities. FIRE provides the structure for the learning modules and the city profiles that participants will develop over the duration of the course. Reflecting a consolidation of key international standards and guidelines, the six dimensions and multiple elements of FIRE are represented in the following diagram:
How?
Through a series of in-person and online individual, small and larger group consultations, participants will design and implement individual learning projects that are directly relevant to the displacement challenges faced by people living in their municipality. The combined insights from these individual learning projects will be compiled in city profiles, which will help to highlight the realities of contemporary climate-related displacement, the role of local authorities in addressing the challenges, and the relevance of adopting a human rights and gender equality perspective. The city profiles will be launched at a final project event in one of the participating cities in August 2023.
A second iteration of the project is being planned for 2023-2024, and we are actively engaging with a variety of networks to ensure that the initiative has impact at local, regional and international levels.
Project lead
Matthew Scott
Matthew Scott is senior researcher and leader of the Human Rights and the Environment thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He is also associate professor and adjunct senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Lund University. His work focuses on integrating social science perspectives with international legal standards to promote context-sensitive, human rights-based law, policy and practice relating to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This work is guided by the Framework for Integrating Rights and Equality (FIRE), which he has pioneered through a series of collaborations with academic and development partners in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe. His primary area of expertise concerns human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change, on which he has published widely. Current research and programming interests concern urban climate-related human mobility, building resilience to pandemic risk, and rights-based climate adaptation using the FIRE framework.
He holds a PhD in Public International Law from Lund University and a MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS. He practiced immigration and asylum law in London before entering academia. He is a member of the advisory committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the editorial board of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law, and a founding member of the Nordic Network on Climate Related Displacement and Mobility and the Asia-Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement.
At Lund University he convenes the introduction to human rights law course and the short course on human rights law, the environment and climate change on the LLM in international human rights law programme. He also lectures on the MSc programme in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/matthew-scott
Team
Matthew Scott
Matthew Scott is senior researcher and leader of the Human Rights and the Environment thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He is also associate professor and adjunct senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Lund University. His work focuses on integrating social science perspectives with international legal standards to promote context-sensitive, human rights-based law, policy and practice relating to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This work is guided by the Framework for Integrating Rights and Equality (FIRE), which he has pioneered through a series of collaborations with academic and development partners in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe. His primary area of expertise concerns human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change, on which he has published widely. Current research and programming interests concern urban climate-related human mobility, building resilience to pandemic risk, and rights-based climate adaptation using the FIRE framework.
He holds a PhD in Public International Law from Lund University and a MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS. He practiced immigration and asylum law in London before entering academia. He is a member of the advisory committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the editorial board of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law, and a founding member of the Nordic Network on Climate Related Displacement and Mobility and the Asia-Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement.
At Lund University he convenes the introduction to human rights law course and the short course on human rights law, the environment and climate change on the LLM in international human rights law programme. He also lectures on the MSc programme in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/matthew-scott
Mo Hamza
Mo Hamza is Professor of Risk Management and Societal Safety at Lund University, Sweden. In his career spanning 36 years so far, he has worked with international development organisations including: World Bank, ADB, UNDP, UNISDR, USAID, DfID, IFRC, IUCN, Swedish Red Cross, and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB).
His primary areas of professional expertise and research work are: Disaster risk and vulnerability reduction, climate change impact and adaptation in fragile and failed states, environmental displacement and refugees’ decision-making on mobility. Previously he was Chair of Social Vulnerability Studies at the United Nations University, Bonn, Germany; a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden and an advisor to the MIT Climate CoLab. He has undertaken consultancy and research work in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, UK, South Eastern Europe and the Balkan States.
He is currently an advisor to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) where he is responsible for their capacity development processes. Among various and more recent publications, Mo Hamza is the co-editor of the upcoming ‘Rebuilding Communities after Displacement’ book published by Springer Nature; was the co-guest editor of a double special issue in Global Discourse Journal (2022) ‘Critical Exploration of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness and Potentialities’, and the author of ‘Refugees’ Integration in the Built Environment – The Sweden Case’ in Sustainability Journal 2021. He was also the lead author and editor of the World Disasters Report (2015) ‘Focus on local actors, the key to humanitarian effectiveness’.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
Rakel Larsen
Rakel Larsen joined RWI in November 2020 as the Director of the Nairobi Office. She brings more than 15 years of work experience in refugee protection, displacement and human rights mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining the RWI, she worked for the Danish Refugee Council with humanitarian response and protection of refugees and other displaced persons in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan.
Furthermore, she holds a Master’s in Law and a Master’s in African Studies (Human Rights and Development) from the University of Copenhagen.
Project Partners
Project Funder
International training programmes focusing on innovation and sustainability in the public sector