Opinion: 3 actions for the G7 on climate migration and informal settlements

When G7 leaders gather in Apulia, Italy, this week and the topic turns to migration, we can expect to hear much about the headline-grabbing movement of people from northern Africa to Europe. But what about the mass migration of people within the Horn of Africa, many settling in Sudan? Or the large number of primary wage earners fleeing rising sea levels and coastal erosion in Sundarbans, India, to nearby Kolkata? And the half a million people internally displaced by the current flooding in Brazil?

The conversation among the leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies — and public discourse in general — tends to center around refugees from low- and middle-income countries arriving in high-income countries, but most migration does not cross international borders.

If world leaders fail to focus on climate migration within the global south, which represents the vast majority of human movement, they are missing a massive piece of the puzzle and an opportunity to tackle critical issues ranging from economic development to health and education. This blind spot is preventing them from seeing an important part of the future where climate change-induced migration meets informal settlements, as found in our newly released brief, “Slum blind: The overlooked links between climate migration and informal settlements.”

Climate migration has the potential to impact over 215 million people by 2050 and affect the lowest-income and most rapidly urbanizing countries the most.

While the G7 foreign ministers have acknowledged that climate change is a strong driver of involuntary displacement, they missed two fundamentally overlooked truths: Most forcibly displaced people do not cross international borders, and climate migrants are moving from rural to urban areas within their own countries, often arriving to slums and other informal settlements.

Countries that currently have large populations living in urban informal settlements and are likely to face the largest numbers of internal climate migrants by 2050 include India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Applying a climate migration lens to policies for upgrading informal settlements is crucial in all countries, but particularly so in these areas.

If the G7 fails to address this issue, we will see greater inequity, more lives lost, and less economic growth.

We must be slum-aware, not slum-blind

By 2050, two out of every three people in the world — 68% — are expected to live in cities. Ninety percent of this growth will happen in Asia and Africa, where 90% of the world’s informal settlements are located. The number of people living in slums or other informal settlements has grown by 165 million over 20 years, bringing the total to nearly 1.1 billion in 2020.

Globally we know that climate change is a risk multiplier, especially on human mobility, but there is a clear lack of understanding that climate change migration has an urban face. Urban informal settlements are at the crossroads of climate migration, climate adaptation, and rapid urbanization. As the de facto largest provider of deeply affordable housing, they are absorbing the lion’s share of vulnerable climate migrants despite being the parts of the cities least equipped to respond.

3 actions to better manage the impacts of climate migration on informal settlements

Through Home Equals, Habitat for Humanity’s global advocacy campaign for equitable access to adequate housing in informal settlements, we urge G7 member states to view informal settlements as opportunities to support migrants and climate adaptation by directing proper attention to and investments for the people and places that need it most via three key actions:

1. Ensure alignment and strategic localization of global investments into underserved urban areas.

The global funding landscape of official development assistance requires better alignment, coherence, and accountability mechanisms. Strategic localization of investments in underserved urban areas, particularly in upgrading informal settlements, can have a transformative impact. The G7 makes significant commitments across critical areas of need — such as the G7’s $600 billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which rightfully targets climate, health, and gender equity. However, its impact would be much deeper if it further prioritized informal settlements as the critical areas to impact broad human development gains. Directing support toward upgrading informal settlements where vulnerable climate migrants will relocate can ensure that all investments are truly transformational.

2. Incorporate human settlement upgrading into responses for climate migration.

The urban nature of climate migration requires national and local governments to incorporate urban planning, slum upgrading, housing programs, and territorial development as essential components of their nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans. G7 countries can encourage this integration in their own policies and plans and support its implementation in low- and middle-income countries through concessional finance or grants for improving informal settlements where climate migrants are likely to settle.

3. Promote investments in global data and climate modeling frameworks that are slum-aware, not slum-blind.

The G7 must push the scientific community for a better understanding of how urban informal settlements are portrayed in climate modeling. Initial analysis of forecasting methods suggests that many high-risk areas may not be recognized as locations where slums and informal settlements are already established and will continue to grow despite their heightened risks. This is due to the affordable and flexible informal housing and job opportunities they offer. Therefore, it's crucial to expedite efforts to enhance global assessments of informal urbanization and measure the potential capacity of informal settlements to accommodate migrant inflows. Meaningful involvement of affected communities in these endeavors will ensure that they are more successful in developing evidence-based policies that are "slum-aware" rather than "slum-blind.”

The time to act is now

The G7 has rightfully emphasized the need to strengthen measures for disaster risk reduction, adaptation, and resilience in response to climate-induced displacement. However, this will mean nothing if they continue to have tunnel vision on international refugees while turning a blind eye to migration within and between low- and middle-income countries and its impact on informal settlements.

As the G7 summit leaders meet this week, their words must be accompanied by a commitment to prioritize adequate housing and urban informal settlement upgrades in their international development agenda to achieve the SDGs. Doing so targets the most vulnerable while protecting the wealth and well-being of all. Doing so makes moral and economic sense.

For more information, visit https://www.habitat.org/home-equals.