Health facilities in SSA and many low-income countries suffer from understaffing, geographical misallocation, and inappropriate skill mix. In addition, a precautionary shift to ‘climate-resilient and migrant-inclusive health systems’ is urged to accommodate affected communities. This could lead to a more comprehensive understanding of these patterns of migration. As a result, there are calls for an integrated research approach including bioscience, (social) health sciences, and economics to connect data, methods, and expertise. Still, many mechanisms remain underexplored or misunderstood, examples of which are migration to sites where climate change imposes particular health risks, immobile populations living in sites of climate risk with associated health consequences, and migration as a response to climate impacts while safeguarding health and well-being. The implications of COVID-19 may add an extra layer of vulnerability on SSA’s communities once mobility restrictions are lifted.Ĭontinuous efforts are made to understand the climate change, migration, and health nexus in and beyond SSA. Eventually, this could become a driver for migration, often as a strategy of last resort, or as an adaptive health-seeking response. Their economies rely heavily on environmentally-sensitive activities such as agriculture, while their unfavourable socio-political and demographic context also spurs movement.Īs such, climate change could further impact sources of income, further deteriorate living conditions, increase conflict over scarce resources, and limit access to health services in SSA. Nevertheless, low-income regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), will likely experience the highest mobility response. However, despite many projections and forecasts, there is still no consensus on the magnitude of such population movements and how these movements impact migrants’ health.

As a build-up to International Migrants Day on 18 December 2020, the series examines these connections at local and global levels, highlights impacts on migrants, and provides evidence-based insights for United Nations member states, governments, and policymakers.Ĭlimate-related migration and its implications for health is a hot topic in the current discussion on the impacts of climate change. This is the first article in a United Nations University Migration Network series that explores the interrelations and acute challenges of migration, climate change, and COVID-19.

System shock 2 nexus