 Welcome back. Good afternoon. I hope you have all had a chance to be rested, refreshed, hopefully, and that you're now ready and raring to go for this next part of our first day here in Geneva. So it's time to introduce you to the second and last of our panels for the day. My hope is that over the next 90 minutes or so, that the moderator and her panel will be able to enlighten you on the subject of data. So it's time to introduce you to our second panel moderated by Missunda Mumba, the Secretary General for the Convention on Wetlands. Mumba is a Zambian-born environmentalist with over 25 years of experience in environmental management and sustainable development. She previously worked for the United Nations Development Programme, leading UNDP's engagement as a strategic collaborating partner in the decade. Now she also served as Director for the Rome Center for Sustainable Development with a specific focus on climate change, sustainable development and nature protection. She's a founder of the Network of African Women Environmentalists. It's time to invite Miss Mumba back onto the stage and for her to introduce her panel, I hand over the floor to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope you can hear me. Yeah. Yeah. Hello, hello. It's such an honor to be here and just so humbled to be the moderator for this amazing panel. And we have such great speakers right now. And if I'm looking a little groggy, I just arrived from Sydney, Australia. And I shouldn't say I just arrived from Sydney, Australia because this next panelist arrived from Tuvalu. And I just came from Samoa, very not far from Tuvalu. Gracie, if you can come on board please. And I'm also going to invite the next speaker, Christina from IOM, if you can join us. Karheer has also just arrived, came in yesterday from Washington, DC. And lastly, but not the least, another extreme end of the world from Alaska. Here it comes, Robin. I'm going to introduce each one of these speakers when they begin to give an intervention. Ladies and gentlemen, you have been meeting here today to discuss the very important element of migration. And at this IDM, I think you can really get a sense of how change is really in our space right now and what is happening in the world. Now, I'm a scientist by training. And they always say that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Correct? Right. So this amazing group of people are going to talk to us about data. And most times this data is coupled with technology. I want to start with Gracie. And Grace arrived today all the way from Tuvalu and literally arrived like an hour ago from Tuvalu. Grace Malie is a young activist, climate activist from this beautiful island in the Pacific. And she's been working on issues focusing on climate change for her community. And in the last few weeks, she's been traveling, sharing experiences around the world and in Europe in particular with other young people to really get a sense. What is it that we discussed at COP 27? And as we journey towards COP 28, what does this actually mean for climate change adaptation and for all of us as young people? Grace Malie is very confident that whatever we have discussed in the past and what we're going to be discussed gets implemented. She's a public speaker and as an activist, she's really mobilizing other young people from her island country in the Pacific, one region which is incredibly and extremely vulnerable. Grace, welcome. You have been working on issues of climate change adaptation and you've been talking to other young people. You went to COP 27. We're just a few weeks away from COP 28. The power of data. Why does data matter? Why does technology matter for climate change adaptation? Well, first of all, thank you for everyone. I think as a, I'm not really a technical expert in that field, but for a low-lying atonation that's greatly impacted by climate change, having this information readily available to the people, especially to our leaders and our communities, our elders, they are able to make informed and sound decisions based on the data and technology that are available. And with that, our community is ready for whatever circumstances such as sea level rise and coastal erosion and flooding. So it's very important in Tuvalu. Thank you so much. I just came back from Samoa. I don't know, maybe by show of room, how many people have been to the Pacific island states? Okay. They're not even full of my fingers. If I may contextualize this region, this is one of the most fragile and beautiful places I've ever seen. In your culture, you also have to document Indigenous knowledge. And part of that Indigenous knowledge also has to inform some of the scientific information. Is this happening in Tuvalu? Yes, it is happening. I think understanding how our ancestors adapted in such a condition and in such an environment where there's not many resources compared to these countries, to the countries here, international countries, and knowing how they have that information and knowing how they practiced it in the olden days, you know, we had food storage techniques that could last our people if we did not catch enough fish for the community, for the village. So they have these techniques that our young youths are now trying to merge it with the technologies that we have these days. And it's a great progress. They're still progressing on it. Yeah. Now, thank you so much. So we're talking food systems, we're talking knowledge, data on why this matters in an atoll system. And an atoll system for just a very quick lesson in geography. This is a very tiny piece of land where pretty much part of the island is covered in water. Now, I want to come back to the issue of science and data and why it matters. We were supposed to have a panelist from the University of Georgetown. Unfortunately, she's been unwell and wonderfully replaced by Christina from the IOM team. And Christina is an advisor. She's a data for solutions advisor within the IOM team. And you've been part of the team that Catherine has been working with. And really great that, you know, universities and learning institutions are gathering this kind of information. How do you map this data? Why does this data matter? What have you, give us, you know, draw this picture in our mind? Why this data for solutions matters, Christine? Thank you so much. And it's really a pleasure to be here. And I can apologize on behalf of Professor Catherine and Professor Donato for not being here. So I think data matters. I mean, it matters in our daily lives. You know, we need, we use our apps to know when the bus will come so that we can get to work. So imagine, of course, there is a need for data. If we want to talk about Eden Plan relocation, if we want to help people, if we want to understand how to build resilience. And so what we did together with the Georgetown University, and it's something that IOM is working closely with the programs, is to look at the data that we have. So as part of the action agenda on internal displacement, there is a really an important momentum on trying to think about the solutions for those who are affected by natural disasters, by climate change, by slow onset events, by, you know, sudden onset events, and try to understand how it impacts our lives, our daily lives, and what did that mean for our future? So we joined forces with experts from Georgetown University. We provided some data sets, not just from IOM. IOM has one of the largest primary data collection systems. We call it DTM, I'm sure people here won't, you know, not everyone knows the abbreviations, but basically we do, we have a presence in around 100 countries, and this is mainly humanitarian and operational data. But then applying this solutions lens together with the Georgetown University, it's basically to understand better how climate change impacts population movement, because that's what we want to know what's as important for future. And this element of the analysis and the findings that we have that we consulted with partners with different member states, it's going to go into one report that we're going to release by the end of next, by the end of this month. But it was a very interesting journey. We tried to debunk a little bit the myth that there is no data. There is certain data. We have to be very cognizant of how we use it, what exists, and how we can contribute to that. And what Gracie was also saying about the local knowledge, we already know so much, but maybe we don't always use it. And to collect data is costly, of course. You need to know, and phenomena like climate change are quite challenging to operationalize. I mean, I'm a technical person. I come from that side and you need to develop a tool. What questions are you going to ask? How are you going to frame them to get the answer that you need to inform the policy and to inform the programs? And you touched on something that's really important. I know that IOM is really been working very hard and consolidating and building this very unparalleled database. And as you rightly put it, and the analysis system so that you can be responding to a humanitarian crisis, both internal and external, because as we know migration doesn't just happen externally or internally. It happens in both ways. You're talking about having an app to figure out which part of Geneva you're trying to get to, which in a way is a data dynamic. This team in IOM, and you've just rightly mentioned about this data analysis. When you're merging conventional science and indigenous knowledge systems to inform that, how is that working? So it's a very interesting question. I have to say a very important one, because I believe that sometimes we tend to create a big gap between quantitative data, pure statistics. Some people just want numbers and quantitative, otherwise it doesn't matter. And on the other side, more qualitative information that we get from communities. So I think this report also, and the joint work with Jordan, we tried to address this. So on the one hand, we looked at the quantitative data, a lot of that. So I'm talking about 60,000, 70,000 household surveys and key informant assessments that we do across 15 countries. In this report, we're focusing on the 15 countries that are part of the UN Action Agenda, but it's a lot already. And then we realized it tells you something about, for example, people who, it's obvious that people who are affected by the drought, their experience of displacement, the trigger is very much different. And the support that they might need is because the drought, for example, in places of Somalia really changes, you know, it impacts the traditional livelihood opportunities. So pastoralist communities are affected, those who hold cattle. And there's a very interesting dynamic there. So they're likely not going to go back because this land is not arable anymore. They will be moving maybe into urban areas. And that is a different dynamic in urban areas, where there are going to be the changes, the burden on the, I mean, that are going to stretch perhaps the services that they have there. So to get all these nuances, that's what we actually did a series of focus group discussions. So we developed a tool that was kind of filling the gaps from the quantitative tools. And we went into communities. We discussed with almost 600 people. And we asked some of these things. We asked about the family dynamic, how these issues, you know, sometimes it's memory, the resilience experience of previous floods that informs the movement of people where to go. So we try to merge it together. It's not always easy because the granularity is at a different level. But I think it's very important to make this merge together because that's how we get a better picture to deal with this challenge. Thank you so much for putting that into context because I want to take everyone now to one of Africa's mega cities because this particular case study is fascinating to really understand how some of this data information plays out in a city and at a really different granular level and governance level. Kahir Danani is managing director and also partner for the Boston Consulting Group. So you're coming from private sector. And Kahir, you've worked extensively around the world and different parts of the world where a lot of challenges are happening and you're trying to do a lot of data analytics and analysis. Tell us about Lagos. Thank you, Mosamba. And I should also say thank you to the IOM and the team here for inviting me and to this panel. It's been really enlightening so far today. So picking up on what Grace said and Christina said there is a lot of opportunity here to take a real understanding of different facets of data and tell a story about what's going to happen. So if I take a step back and think about where this journey started for the Boston Consulting Group and we're a global management consulting firm, we typically work with leaders and we've been working with government leaders and what we found is that one of the central challenges that they're facing was decision making. Not an inability to make decisions, but which decision to make, what to do. We all know something has to be done for climate change, but what should you do? When should you do it? What should you prioritize, right? And a lot of ideas are thrown at them. A lot of options are on the table. Huge menu of things to do. And the challenge is when you have data without purpose, it becomes overwhelming. So they are overwhelmed by all the stuff that everyone is saying that they need to do. And so we then started on this journey about let's unpack that. Let's look at what's happening, give you a good sense of exactly what's happening and then from there give you a framework or think through a framework collectively for decision making. So that's what we've done in Lagos, Nigeria and I can take you to that process. And as a consultant, we always have a slide. So I have a slide and if it comes up on screen, you'll see it. There it is. Fantastic. So if you look at the slide, we started off with this premise of how do we use data analytics and AI to help with decision making, right? So there are a lot of models out there. We don't want to recreate those models. What we want to do is put them together, put the pieces of the puzzle together to tell a story of what's going to happen. So we started out with the existing climate change models, which we know are there and they're covering ocean currents, ocean temperature, acidification, precipitation of volume, pattern. So all models that exist out there on climate change, we start with that. And then we layered onto that the physical risk models. So when you think about physical risk models, we're talking about sea level rise, floods, erosion, heat waves, urban heat effects, extreme events, coastal flooding, things like that. So you bring that in and you layer in models on that. And then you go to what is the direct impact of that physical risk. And here you look at the populations affected, the assets that are affected, the areas that are going to be inundated, what's going to happen and what's going to be the productivity impact, whether it's going to reduce yields because of drought or whether it's going to reduce yields because of lack of water. And then finally then layering on to that the socioeconomic aspects of the impact. And here you think about that fundamentally as what is the cost of inaction. So if you do nothing, what's going to happen, right? And you look at that from the macro level. So what's going to happen to the GDP for the whole country or for the whole state? What's going to happen by sector? And then at the micro level in terms of what happens at the household level? What happens with livelihoods, with poverty, with jobs, with malnutrition? And of course, what are the implications when it comes to migration? So you take all of that and you look at what are the different elements of A&R actions, adaptation and resilience actions that we know are out there and how do these actually then play into which solutions to take forward, right? So predictive analytics and thinking about early warning systems or safety nets or emergency plans, right? So that's that's the mechanics what's under the hood of how we've done this analytics work, right? Now in Lagos, we applied this exact work. And what we found is that at the end of the day, the impact, the cost of doing nothing in Lagos amounts to something between 24 billion and 27 billion and 34 billion dollars. The cost of inaction. The cost of inaction. So do nothing 2050 in a scenario where you have Lagos sinking at six centimeters per year, where you have by 2050 1.5 meters of increase in water in sea level. And if there's a big storm that 1.5 becomes 2.5. So the impacts in Lagos will be massive. Now Lagos is really interesting because if you look at Africa, it's a state within Nigeria, as you know, but it's the seventh largest economy in Africa by GDP. The GDP of Lagos is the seventh largest in all of Africa. It's a center for gravity. So what's going to happen if when the impacts hit, right? And that was why the governor of Lagos was so interested like let's figure out what we need to do. Let's prioritize what we need to do. So just to give you a couple of the other numbers about what's going to happen in Lagos. Wetlands, you might be interested in that. 82% of the wetlands will be affected with potential loss, right? 14 out of the 20 different sub regions of Lagos are going to be inundated. 1.5 million people across the state live in areas that are going to be inundated, which was defined through 2,000 residential settlements in the state. So that's where they live. And out of that 700,000 currently today live in parts of Lagos that will be permanently flooded. So when you think about migration or displacement, local displacement, 700,000 people are going to have to be relocated, right? There's no option around it. Where they live is going to be flooded. And if you wait until the time when you need to move them and the flooding happens, that's going to cost $6 billion, right? Out of that $27, $6 billion is related to that displacement effect and moving and resettling people. The other thing we looked at, like the economic impact around infrastructure, 700 kilometers of roads would be inundated in Lagos state. 12% of the power grid, 13% of the communications network and overall productivity lost about 44 days during the year, on average, okay? So huge potential impact and that comes up to that $27 to $34 billion figure. And then you think, okay, well, what should we do about it, right? And the solutions here are really interesting. So we think about the solutions in three big categories, right? The first is around, like, increasing infrastructure resilience, right? The second is around, like, ensuring more resilient communities and protecting the vulnerable groups. And then the third is around anticipating risks and improving the crisis response, right? And through that process, we identified between 30 and 40 interventions that need to take place, some of which are at the policy level, some of which are infrastructure. And because of having a granularity of, you know, half a kilometer, half a square kilometer of granularity of what's going to happen where, you can actually then have a discussion with the leadership of the state around what to prioritize and what to invest in. And those projects, when you price them and say, well, if we invest today, how much is it going to cost us? It's going to cost roughly $8 billion. So $8 billion of investment today to avert $34 billion of losses by 2050. So the ROI is pretty clear. The problem is that we don't define ROI by value at risk or cost of inaction. We define ROI by how much money am I going to make, not how much money am I going to avoid losing, right? So that's a fundamental paradigm shift that we need to think about in the global community about how we think about financing, adaptation, and resilience. And in this case, in this case, Kahir, your client was the governor of Lagos. Correct. Okay. I want to encourage all the panelists to be asking questions if you may, if something comes to you immediately, do not be afraid to ask. I didn't mean to cut you short, but when you talk about a city, if we look above the roof, I don't think this is of an 100 meters. If we're losing 600 meters annually, the city is sinking. Six centimeters. Six centimeters. Oh, for a minute I thought. Six centimeters. I was nervous. Because I was looking at the ceiling, I was like, it's much more than this. So it's still a lot. Six centimeters every year is a lot. Correct. It is because, I mean, you would know, right? It makes it, it can, it can mean half of the land of the atoll gone. Correct. Correct. That's a lot. So in terms of the actual, actual, because we're talking about governance here. So at the state of Lagos, the people that were at the table to listen to all of this, what was the, can you describe to us who the stakeholders were? Yeah, that's, it's a really important question, right? Because the starting point was help define a process to make better decisions, right? And so you need the cabinet at the table. So we had the governor of the state at the table. You had the commissioner of water, the commissioner of infrastructure. So basically, if you think about the whole cabinet of the government of the state, they were all at the table. But also importantly, we did a lot of, and we are continuing to do a lot of stakeholder engagement with civil society groups, with the private sector. And what's interesting is that, you know, if you look at those projects that need to happen, the $8 billion of projects, you know, some of those are bankable and the private sector can invest today, right? Some of them require pure public capital and, you know, they're not bankable, the public sector. But then there's others that are in the blend space where you can bring public and private together. So having that dialogue, getting everybody around the table and showing them the impacts and the priorities will then actually has caused them to take action to think about and private sector to take their own action into the building resilience of their infrastructure and their assets. That's really exciting. So in terms of learning, in terms of learning in your mind, this kind of information is important to not just for Lagos to do this kind of work on its own. Is this learning shared with other cities around the world? Brilliant. Good to know. And I'll come back to you on that and I shall open it up a little bit later to the, to everyone else who ever may have a question. I want us to take, I want to take us to another part of the world which I have never been to, but I'm very much curious about because I've read so much about it and I've heard about it from the low lying area of Lagos to the permafrost area of Alaska. Robin, you are the Executive Director of the Alaska Institute for Justice and you've been a research scientist in this work for so many years, working with over 200 indigenous peoples in Alaska region, a very beautiful and yet complex region dealing with climate change. Not only are you dealing with the warming, this element of permafrost, you live in Alaska. Can you tell us how data matters? Both indigenous knowledge, data and also conventional data matters for decision making processes. Yes, and thank you so much for the invitation to be here. So I come at this work as a human rights attorney, working with indigenous tribes who are making the awful decision about whether or not they can stay in the places they have called home for millennia. And when I think about this work, first of all, we're talking about internal displacement. A lot of the conversation this morning was about the cross-border movement of people. And unfortunately in regard to internal displacement, there aren't governments in the world who want to take on the enormous challenge of figuring out the relocation of 700,000 people in Lagos or the hundreds to thousands of people in Alaska who can no longer stay where they are. So looking at the right to self-determination, we went to the tribes that we work with and asked them about what they were most concerned about in regard to their, the environmental changes they were witnessing. They told us permafrost thought, erosion and flooding. And one of the things that is really important for those of you who have never been to Alaska and don't know much about Alaska, most of the tribes that we work with have no roads to connect them. So Alaska, the size of Alaska goes from the east coast of the United States, from New York City to almost California. And the entire western part of our state, there are no roads to go to any of these tribal communities. The only way that you can get to them is by flying in small 10-seat airplanes. So for them, understanding the environmental change, which they have been witnessing now for decades, the Arctic is warming three to four times. When I started this work with Coco Warner now in 2007, I used to say we were warming twice as fast as the lower latitudes and now we're warming four times as fast in the lower latitudes, which means that in our winter time, right, so we are part of our state is above the Arctic Circle, where now it will rain more than snow in the middle of our winter time when the sun barely rises above the horizon. So monitoring environmental change, working with indigenous communities, for them to be able to work with climate scientists to understand that predicted rate of change. So when we're talking about prevention and decision making, one of the things that's critically important in figuring out whether or not you can stay in the place that you have called home is to understand when the place you call home is no longer going to be habitable, so you can make the decision before that place is uninhabitable because of flooding, permafrost thought and or erosion. So working with the tribes, we developed community-based environmental monitoring based on those three environmental issues that I talked about and with working with the tribes, we identified because the scientists, the academically trained scientists are very siloed in their understanding of environmental change, so they would be monitoring just erosion or just flooding or just permafrost thought. When it's the reality is it's the combination of all those things that is causing what we call in Alaska in Yupik, Ustak, U-S-T-E-Q, which is catastrophic land. So we have to set up some software to do that. So these people in the tribe, they can decide what they need to relocate. They have made the awful decision that they need to relocate their entire community. And that relocation, is it a relocation at the household level or relocation at the tribal level? What level is that at? It's the entire community. So all of the households plus the public infrastructure, the schools, unfortunately most of the tribes that I work with do not have running water, did not have running water during the pandemic. So there is no running water in people's homes and they go to places called washeterias where they gather the water. They also don't have sewage systems in their homes as many of you would understand sewage systems. So all of that needs to be relocated to another place where they can continue to harvest the traditional foods that they have relied on for millennia. And that's what's critically important to them, is that they be able to continue to harvest those foods even if they have to leave the place they call home and where they have lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Well, you know, Robin, you really paint this picture of the complexity of the space. And I just spent a few days in Sydney and also just talking to the government of Australia about indigenous peoples. And one thing that really came out very clearly in these conversations and the same in Samoa, and I would imagine it's the same in Tuvalu, it's about the composition of trust around science and around data. Does this come about in Alaska? Absolutely. And thank you so much for that question. So when we're thinking about people and I include all of you in this because no place is safe right now. If you lived in Alaska, you would know that for truth, but no place is safe. And who do you want to be telling you that your place is no longer safe? Do you want an outside consultant who has never been to your home or maybe has been there for a few hours saying to you you need to move? Or do you want to be gathering that information for yourself so that you can understand those environmental changes and make decisions for yourself, your household and your community to figure out what the best long-term adaptation strategy is because trusting the information that is being gathered is fundamental to people making the really difficult decisions we are going to be asked to make and are now many people are being asked to make in communities because we see the extreme weather events, right, the repeated extreme weather events which is another form of the climate crisis other than the slow ongoing environmental change like erosion and permafrost law. But at some point when a place has been inundated repeatedly by that by an extreme weather event, will that government make the decision it's no longer safe to rebuild in that location? That is an open question and why the monitoring of what happens during those extreme weather events is so important. No place is safe. Well thank you Robin for that and really just listening to all of you from the scientific perspective in terms of the science from you Christina all the way to you Grace you've come from Tuvalu from Anatole Island and also as a youth voice I know I want to come back a little bit to you what are some of the lessons that you're drawing you were traveling recently and you've been listening to other young voices and just that whole conversation from young people who are frankly feeling very anxious what are some of the lessons that you're hearing or some of the reactions in terms of are we moving do we move what happens what what is actually happening with this climate change. Okay imagine as most of the speakers have already mentioned that you know you don't want anyone to tell you that you have to move relocation is an option but it's not a solution and it's coming to everyone it's going to affect every country and Tuvalu is going to be the first and so with the I'm part of the rising nations initiative and with this initiative we are focusing on building resilience amongst the younger generation because I feel like that's a that's an important aspect for an individual especially youths coming who are living and facing and living at the forefront of the climate change impacts having that resilience amongst the younger generation builds their confidence and trains them to become better leaders in the future and we have this conversation on a daily basis imagine having that conversation as young people who you keep talking hey you know we're seeing the impacts of climate change what do you think about it that's not a normal conversation that a youth should have we should be talking about education we should we should be talking about what we want to do in our futures but instead we are talking about what's going to happen to our children what's going to happen to our grandchildren and having that at the back of our heads every day as young people from the pacific it's scary and it's frightening and if you're living in the pacific especially in Tuvalu Kiribati in the Republic of the Marshall Islands you would notice these changes and you would want to do something about it and so the elders our older our grandparents you know we they don't like to have these conversations because nobody wants to and with the younger generation most of them do not want to move you know we pacific islanders we are connected to our lands there's a saying in Tuvalu that says and as a pacific islander land is very important to us our land is connected to our to us the people to the ocean to the skies everything our identity and our culture and having that torn away from us having that ripped away from us how will you expect us to live how will you expect to be identified to become from a country to be part of a country and so with our and I we are focusing on protecting our sovereignty our rights in our culture not just a person or a young individual from Tuvalu but as a pacific so yes yeah no I can just about imagine you know how scary this must be and also frightening but what you're talking about this ownership this connection to land to sky to earth and this wholesomeness and and how losing that is is the most sort of you know existential crisis of of people in the islands I want to come to you okay here you're you're you're working Lagos but also I am aware that you did some work in Kenya where we've seen these slow onset events of droughts and how that has also triggered this mobility can you speak a little bit to that because we spoke about the flooding element and that's just really the drought the other extreme end of the coin yeah I mean we've done basically the same analysis in Kenya but the issue in Kenya was looking at extreme heat drought and the ultimate the ultimate bottom line answer of this is that it impacts food security and so when people lose food security lose the belief that okay this year there was no rain or this year we lost our crop or this year we didn't have a crop next year we will have it when they lose that hope that next year it's going to be better then they decide to move and what we actually were looking at very specifically was using the data to differentially identify vulnerable families so you can use AI in many ways including to say we know this is going to happen which of the families at that granular level that will require extra help that will require the social safety net to come into and which ones don't because typically social safety net support is like spread out everybody gets the same but with AI and with data analytics you can now pinpoint that certain families certain archetypes of it of families of households are more vulnerable than others and therefore maybe require a differentiated response and and you know you can use the data to do that so we we did that we that was one of the use cases of the analytics that we had in Kenya around the droughts and in this process one of the key learnings was that there there are about a hundred thousand families that are likely to move in the next few years because of the loss of hope of something happening and the loss of the potential of food security in those areas and they go cross-border but they also urbanize. Now thank you so much for that I I really want to open it up maybe for some questions before we go to to the next end because I know just a few months ago here in Geneva ITU had a fantastic event called AI for good and and there's been a nervousness around technologies but also technology has helped I mean we are here today because technology has worked in really supporting some of the data decisions but also for decision making which is absolutely very important but before we just proceed with some more conversation here maybe I should open it up to to the countries or to people that may have some questions to the panelists because I don't want this to be one way I see Nigeria good afternoon thank you so much for giving Nigeria the floor and thank you for the insightful panel discussion it's been very rich and also thank you to Mr Denani for your presentation about Nigeria thank you for also echoing the fact that the government is very committed to addressing the issues of climate change and its impact you highlighted the the issues already around climate change impact of climate change in in legal states Nigeria we also have even the opposing issues but in the natured region as well in the state we have also growing concerns I just wanted to find out this effective work that you're doing in Lagos is there any peer-to-peer mechanism for other states other member states that also have the same issues in their countries in the cities to have some kind of effective solutions to addressing this this going concern thank you thank you very much can we take another question I hear that was for you but just uh there's a question I can I can I can okay I see one question if you can just introduce yourself because the lightest threat smacking my eyes please hello there and thank you for this panel my name is Sunil I work at the international refugee assistance project or IRAP we are committed to working with states on identifying and creating legal pathways for people who have been forcibly displaced and I was curious listening to this really amazing panel and all your experiences you know what we're talking about here is often what was being referred to as maybe data from people before people are displaced often is with some of the themes um when we're looking at legal solutions it's often for people who've already been displaced who've often migrated and there does seem to be an absence of reliable data on how climate impacted that migration decision you know for us we created a questionnaire to systematically collect climate related data during our legal aid intake process and we're piloting that with partners and hoping to create some sort of data hub to aggregate that migrant level data for policymakers and for our own work but I was curious on you know whether IOM or other uh states organizations are kind of embarking on a similar project and how you know what collaboration might look like thank you thank you so perhaps let me just take those two because there's a quite fully loaded questions as well perhaps we can start with you Christine now that's a very important question in terms of you know sudden data is you know you're trying to collect data after people have moved what about the data before if I understand the question correctly uh the other way around the other way around exactly Christina thanks so much for the question yeah I think it's a it's a very interesting one um so what we try to do on the global data institute um IOM's institute it's it's actually um using our data to provide insight to provide foresight and to to inform uh action and basically we we do collect the data on on the whole let's say uh migration journey from from starting from from the decision making from you know the the how do you call it transit and then the the destination there are different different efforts across uh across different countries where where we operate and of course this is then shaped based on the situation uh in in different countries we have um now we were talking a little bit about about the eastern Horn of Africa we have a quite a good network of we call them flow monitoring points it's basically doing a daily data collection in certain points in Kenya and Somalia and Ethiopia um in the whole of Horn and then even up it go in Yemen and to try to understand the the migration routes the dynamic and how it links with the different patterns we we currently one of our bigger projects is is to to really analyze this data from the from the climate lens and especially to look at the different corridors uh corridors analysis this is one of the the areas but we're also looking at the at the Americas and then really try to understand what is the the linkages between different climate related changes that we see in the countries in destination countries it impacts also transit routes which is something that is important also for us especially in terms of people being vulnerable um and and the routes that they take there is there's it's a very complex situation on documentation uh on on access to different services on accessing the the destination country and claiming your uh you know rights uh for for for protection or or or for certain needs but the same thing is the dynamic within the country uh how it impacts where you know I mean the IDPs are um I mean they're citizens of their own country and their struggle is then how to reclaim that citizenship now when they're so vulnerable and because they cannot go back there are no different communities the dynamic between communities is very different um there are different points that can be a bit of contentious especially if we talk about about pastoralist communities and the nomadic communities um we um calling from Nigeria I mentioned the the lake Chad and that is also one of the areas of our concern especially now with the situation in Sudan because you know Chad and these areas is one of the biggest trans woman's corridors correct now with the violence there with obviously lack of water um in the area it changes it changes mobility patterns that were there for decades and we know you know we don't know everything but we have some proxy information and then that's the point of where we want to really advocate for data for action we can provide insight and foresight but ultimately it is for action and for what what Osoka he was mentioning and and Grace and also Robin there is we have some data but then this this aspect of funding to prevent when we already anticipated something is sometimes missing you know sometimes it can fall in some areas only on humanitarian but the issue of climate change you know and getting solution to it should be tackled while it's still within the development sphere like what he was now dealing with Lagos would cost us what eight million eight billion if we leave it as it is without any action it's going to go into 35 billion so this is one of the challenges I think that we're also facing that for this data to have end user and for us the goal you know is for the communities to benefit from from any kind of action no thank you for that because I think you touch on something that Robin also touched on because sometimes the gathering of this data is is very fragmented by the nature of the people that are collecting this data and in relation to the question from Sunil do you have a reaction to that yeah thank you so much for asking so that's one of the reasons why community-based environmental monitoring is so important because if you're trying to adapt to the environmental changes that are happening that do not require movement meaning a person leaving their home the way to understand those environmental changes is by gathering having people on the ground in that community gathering that information the other reason why that is super important is the climate crisis is going to go on far into the future right I mean beyond this century and beyond the next century and if we don't have a locally gathered information to understand how ecosystems in very local ways are changing we're not going to be able to assist people in those places to adapt in the way that protects their human rights no thank you for that the question from Nigeria for you here yeah no of course so I think the question was around you know what is the replicability of this work we've done in Lagos and I say it's completely replicable and we've been doing it in other parts of the world from 10,000 miles away in the Philippines to 400 kilometers away in Champania so it is it is completely replicable and you know what was interesting is that it has had the ability to get people to make decisions and to enable that in a more effective way so yes no thank you for that I saw a question from that end before I come to Canada I saw Canada there was a question I think I saw one from that end please if you can introduce from Gambia and then I'll come to Canada thank you very much I have a question and also a comment I was to thank the the panelists for their interventions migration is an integral part of human history and has it has contributed significantly to development of societies it is essential to shift the narratives and recognize the positive contributions of migrants to both exporting and host communities while there is commitment to ensure the collection and analysis and dissemination of timely and relevant data significant gap exists in the manner data is generated and processed most of the data collected for purposes on administrative data and in many cases it is neither world is aggregated non-completed in this in some instances some of the data collected are also meant for reporting purposes while such gaps exist the desire and technical capacity to collect and data beyond administrative data is evident the Gambia in 2019 in collaboration with IMO IOM in partnership with the Gambia Bureau of Statistics conducted a mobility assessment on internal migration to examine internal mobility dynamics in the Gambia and this provide socioeconomic profile of migrants from rural to urban settings for the more in supporting national efforts to enhance the government's capacity in migration data collection and management the Gambia Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with IOM launched the displacement tracking metrics in December 2020 which gathers and analyze migration data to disseminate critical and multi-layer information on mobility vulnerability and needs of displaced and mobile population our call to action is for states and stakeholders to promote data collection at border points with a view to protect the migrants states and stakeholders who take the responsibility to keep proper account of missing migrants to help families of migrants in finding or to bring closer to their lost migrant relatives IOM and donors with strong transparent data to increase technical assistance to states to strengthen and promote the inclusion and integration of migrants at national levels our question is how can states cooperate with other actors to ensure that migration data availability and sharing is enhanced thank you so is yes please go ahead forgive my rude interruption moderator member I just wanted to clarify we have now entered the sort of final part of our discussion and if it's okay with you I take your lead perhaps we can combine both your question and answer with the interventions that are my responsibility to take on board so shall we as as Gambia has stated a question answer that and then perhaps I can go through the list and then we can interact in that way is that something you're willing to do fantastic good great no thank you very much was that question directed to IOM or to anyone in particular please anyone Christina would you well it's always nice to hear when people promote you know the work good work we do so thank you colleague I think it's it's really important important point there are different modalities of the data that we are we are collecting for for different purposes I mean I can only give a comment basically that this is something that we're really looking forward to with the governments to talk about I can reflect on the just based on this most recent experience that we did for the report with the Georgetown University Gambia unfortunately was not on one of the countries but I just wanted to a little bit challenge this issue of the administrative data actually existing what we found out is that is that is missing in many of the countries that some of the countries don't really have you know systems in place to collect climate related indicators in their national statistical surveys okay population census is one thing but it tells a lot about the mobility about the vulnerability of different populations and when we did some of the analysis my previous mission was was in south Sudan last year and you know we we know we knew for example that there is a there is a kind of this cycle of seven years you know seven years of floods seven years of less rain and then floods but the problem was that in south Sudan the dredging of the Nile canals wasn't done since 1970s in Zhonglei you may know and what how it resulted the first two years of rain that basically 60 percent of the country is flooded and the water is not going anywhere one of the areas in the north and part bent you you might know there is a camp of 100 000 plus people who obviously might not go back with additional 30 35 40 000 people coming and we know that you know they cannot go back but the problem with the analysis that we did because we tried to to to understand the water flow and what would be the solution you don't really have the data you don't have the the monitoring system from you know the missing data yeah from from Lake Victoria upwards to to have stations so that you know how Nile behaves how it impacts so I think the administrative data obviously does exist it really depends on on on certain you know on the topics but from our most recent experience and dealing with this analysis we really found that this is one of the gaps where we can you know jointly work to make this better and strengthen the the evidence based on this data landscape landscape that we need to find the solutions to you know that's really really helpful that's really really helpful to contextualize and anchor that Nile Falvo to you so next we have an intervention from Canada if you could just wave your sign so we know where we're looking there you are please thank you so much as it is the first time Canada takes the floor today let me thank the IOM for bringing us together for this very timely dialogue and for their leading role on climate induced migration and displacement we also fully support the GCM champion statement delivered by the Under Secretary from the Philippines earlier this morning my thanks to the panelists for your powerful words that have really driven home the urgency of this topic Canada recognizes the importance of prevention building resilience and adaptation to climate change impacts which can help make migration a choice rather than a necessity at home Canada is currently conducting a strategic immigration review and one of the topics we've heard through our engagement with different stakeholders is the need for Canada to be ready to respond quickly and equitably to future crises to this extent Canada recognizes the critical importance of strengthening data and evidence related to climate mobility and this proactive approach is instrumental in anticipating the needs associated with emerging crises enabling more informed decision making that takes mobility patterns into consideration we're keen to better understand climate mobility and its potential implications including by funding projects that aim to improve related data and evidence this includes for example supporting IOMs displacement tracking matrix which can help better anticipate and address displacements exacerbated by climate change and we believe that initiatives like this one can help support better informed decision making local solutions and international collaboration a comprehensive understanding of why and how people move or don't move in response to climate related factors can also provide valuable insights for developing localized solutions and targeted adaptation strategies this helps communities better prepare and respond to the challenges posed by climate change and good data is also key to understanding how climate change can exacerbate vulnerabilities including for women and girls facing precarious circumstances it was really fascinating to hear just now from Mr. Dahani how AI and data analytics are allowing better identification of families requiring supports in the face of urgent circumstances and drought I'll stop there with my intervention but maybe time permitting we'll put a question back to the panelists and perhaps to miss Bronnan or any of the panelists who'd be interested in giving their thoughts you mentioned how important building trust in local communities is in order to collect the data needed to co-design adaptation strategies that can be effective so just curious about any best practices you can share either from community-based environmental monitoring or or other activities you've been involved in on how to begin building that trust thank you thank you very much maybe we could actually go to Tuvalu and also come to you Robin on the issue of trust building of trust you know is that something that you have seen within your your communities as why that's important even just within the Pacific yes sorry I'm is it alright if we pass it first to Robin absolutely recovering from yes thanks so much for that question so the way that we started working with the tribes that we work with in Alaska so the US federal government has done a number of reports about environmentally threatened tribal communities in Alaska their first one was done actually 20 years ago and then they did a second one in 2009 where they identified 31 environmentally threatened communities Alaska native tribal communities that were possibly thinking to relocate and so the way that we started the conversation is we sent letters to all the local governing entities within those communities guided by an Alaska native elder who mentored me and has been mentoring me now for quite a long time in regard to the appropriate way as a non-indigenous person to work with the tribes in Alaska and the asking of them of what they wanted to environmentally monitor because they know that the environment is changing based on their reliance and connection to the land as Gracie mentioned and so asking them what they wanted to monitor and then providing them with the tools that they could do the monitoring this themselves and them understanding that it wasn't for us to gather the data for some other reason it was for them to better understand what was happening in their communities to understand those predicted rates of change so they could get access to the resources they needed to adapt brilliant if I may please go ahead thank you it's now time to call upon the United Kingdom where are you there you are crack on it's the first time we take the floor so as others have said a huge thank you to DG Amy Pope of IOM to her team and to all of the panelists that we've heard today it's been incredibly interesting if I may I just very quickly comment on on the earlier part of discussion then come back to data with it with a question firstly to recognize that climate extremes are indeed amplifying the the principal drivers of migration and so this IDM has been a really useful forum governments in countries and areas of origin and destination should as far as possible prioritize protecting people's dignity of choice how we do this is incredibly important and we need to ensure that communities who may be more affected by climate change youth children women people with disabilities and lgbti individuals are part of the formation of a policy and solutions but we also need to talk about what we do and there's been a helpful focus on actions today and I think DG set the tone for that the value of this dialogue we think is in understanding one another's views on the action and the steps that we need to take and where there might be tensions with our other obligations and whether critically what we're proposing is enough to deliver the global compact and and I wanted to highlight three key aspects here the first is ensuring people's right to stay through building resilient livelihoods in climate vulnerable countries second is making safe and regular migration pathways available particularly labour migration and the third is creating voluntary and planned relocation options that are grounded in human rights and participatory approaches turning to data very very quickly this is key is how we know we're delivering successfully and Robin you made the point very clearly I thought about the importance of data to affected communities themselves I think that's really important it's not just about how it can help you know policymakers and governments looking at this it's much much bigger than that and I wanted to ask about remittances and we heard earlier their huge significance and that incredible stat that remittances outweigh development assistance and private sector investment combined so lowering costs of remittance transactions can can have a really huge effect on on climate vulnerable populations but we can also use remittance data to target the motor honourable during climate shock so I'd be interested in views from from the panel whoever would like to take it on whether there are other creative data sources that we can use to support local communities I'd also be interested in your views on how we can use data to understand other potential compounding vulnerabilities such as gender and disability thank you no thank you very much for that question maybe shall we take another just so that we can encourage you no thank you colleagues I need you to understand that coming all the way from Tougaloo is very far and I totally feel you because I'm already feeling exhausted and I arrived yesterday she just arrived this lunchtime and I totally feel you and Grace I totally understand everyone yes the question of remittances which is a very critical question and something that really has been at play in many instances who wants to take that question here do you want to give it a shot yeah sure and I don't know why you chose me but Mikal who raised that was a former colleague when I was at the World Bank so maybe I'm World Banking over here World Banking no so I think that the remittance question is really interesting right what I find is that remittance transfer we see in the remittance data that I know of is that it transfers after crises is when you see the biggest transfers happening that are related to to climate events right so in response to a disaster in response to catastrophe you see spikes in in remittance data I think one of the challenges is whether there are flows that go towards adaptation and resilience and by and large at the household level which is where remittances make a big difference I don't believe there is enough data to say that households are taking a view on long-term climate adaptation and resilience investment they're not doing that they're the most concerned with tomorrow what I would look at your the other part of your question was around like what other data sources to look at I would look at insurance I would look at where is insurance where is investment in insurance happening and I would work with the insurance companies to look at at the granular level local and global insurance companies to look at that because that is where there might be clearer data from the financial system on where vulnerabilities might be viewed and where who's taking out insurance that they'll be an interesting area of inquiry but I'm sorry well the other thing that I would say is I think we need to redefine what a disaster is because the it's not just extreme weather events it and it's not just drought right it's accelerated rates of erosion which is happening all over the world and if there was that local environmental monitoring that could capture the rates of erosion that were threatening people's lives and livelihoods right there would be the possibility of implementing the response that we use when extreme weather events happen to get a whole of government approach so that people are protected before that erosion compromises their ability to stay where they are yeah just on remittances I like from this is from from our side from the from the GDI and in detail specifically we're actually exploring with with UK a concept note of engaging diaspora in UK from some of the countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh that are prone to disasters of various types and then see how we can develop tools that would provide diaspora with necessary information so that you can use remittance funding as you know either preventive source of prevention activity for prevention activities or like when when the onset starts because remittance is definitely I mean I'm not an expert on that I have to say but it's something that we do work in IOM a lot and again going back to my previous mission experience it's not always directed you know there is a lot of potential but we really need to find the venues and how to channel it a bit more effectively especially when when there is a large movement or a crisis happening okay back to you we moved to Peru is Peru in the room or they stepped out oh there you are please you're two minutes and then if you have a question we'd love to hear it in the name of Peru Republic congratulations to IOM for centering the debate to global change in terms of mobility and congratulations to the panel for all the answers and comments that reminds us how close we have all those effects Peru as other countries in South America is one of the most vulnerable nations mainly due to its geography diversity of climate and biodiversity it is more evident now after some studies by IOM where we see a million of people in our country are exposed to those consequences we acknowledge that avoiding this topic as a cause of human mobility is very important for us and that's why we evaluate this debate in order to have a safe orderly and regular migration for our generations and future generations Peru as pro-temporary president of the Conference American for Migration has been promoting the treatment of climate change as a cause for mobility exchanging good practices among South American countries and fostering common knowledge it's important to say that linkage between climate change and migration is not something new for the Conference it's something we've been working on for 10 years and we are pioneers in the region Peru recognizes the importance of acting today to cope with the future with a prospective analysis of the influence of climate change slow progression events due to climate change are not being monitorized and it's very important that countries inform about those dynamics at the local level maybe some of the members of the panelists could give some guidance about how to do these kind of activities we wish you all the best for this dialogue and we continue working together with concrete action for a safe orderly regular migration giving attention to vulnerable to climate vulnerabilities thank you very much thank you very much for that intervention I don't know if anybody wants to react to Peru regarding the slow onset so what we've done with the tribes that we work with again it's community-based erosion monitoring and it's really simple it does not take giant technology it's basically measuring where shorelines are honestly with a string and wooden stakes because there's very low broadband in rural Alaska and then working with we work with the state division of geological and geophysical surveys so that they are able to take that locally gathered information uploaded into a website to develop those predicted rates of change no thank you for that anyone we come back to you because we have a list we are the list is being made as we speak it's a dynamic list uh so I think we'll move on to Pefi Kingi are they here they are here yes yes you are partly to wake myself up and partly a cultural call out if you will it is time for action and I do indeed endorse and echo wind to all that has been said before me I had a splendid speech of about four minutes it is now to be summarized as follows in terms of the co-design the following gaps are indeed quite glaring for Pacific as we speak not only the idea of relocation but the idea of resettlement two different concepts repatriation must be included likewise reintegration so when we revisit this and have that dialogue these gaps must be addressed please I have a personal note from the Māori of Aotearoa New Zealand and it concerns data management and it is as follows when indeed we negotiate those terms for rebuilding and or granting you our indigenous knowledge can you guarantee that we have intellectual property rights to it whether people in the room know it or not the fauna flora most of it of Aotearoa actually is patented by the British another story for another time ladies and gentlemen but google it if you will so that is a direct question to those who are managing this data and that is from the Māori of Aotearoa in terms of going forward then so that we all are committed to this for our grandchildren and their grandchildren after them what do the terms of re-engagement really look like between us all what does multi-stakeholder re-engagement look like going forward what do the terms look like and who is going to be defining those terms I'm just telling her that she did good despite her heavy travel but to us all it must remain people-centered this is the way forward so let's recommit to that because it is indeed a time for a reset and thank you that was my one tiny little question moderator thank you very much in fact we do that in Kosa-Dinbemba which are both my cultures I thank you for that this has to be people-centered I want to start from you Grace from that and we come through because I know we're running out of time in terms of why this has to be people-centered how do we re-engage in these multi-stakeholder spaces one minute of your thoughts as we come through until we come to Christina yeah it has to be people-centered I mean in the Pacific we really value community people help one another in the community and having this is why I didn't want to really question the trust's question because you know in the Pacific we've had so many experts that come in and do their research conduct their research and then at the end of the day they get the verification you know they get the validation for the work that they did but most of them do not acknowledge the communities the indigenous people that helped them create the survey create this research paper and this is why now we're really focusing on getting approval from elders community elders and also having the voices of youths and women included in these conversations and so having this sort of perspectives to be people-centered and shores and also gives that trust to them you know that this isn't just for some particular for particular group of people or no it has to be community-centered and community-driven if I may add so that's what I just wanted to add thank you Grace Fafedai and to you yeah I'm thinking back based on Grace's comment to two weeks ago when we were at the UN General Assembly in New York and the two days before the SDG summit was the action weekend and one of the big messages of the action weekend was that it's about people but also that it's possible and if you walked around the UN and the General Assembly that that weekend you saw it's possible written basically everywhere and so that's that's the thing that I think is really really powerful at this moment in the climate challenge in the migration challenge and the climate opportunity and the migration opportunity and for the SDGs that that's the message that it's possible and it's possible indeed thank you so much Kahir to you Robin yes well thanks for that question you know I've spoken in spaces like this for a long time and honestly my heart is like completely broken because I cannot believe that we are still increasing our greenhouse gas emissions and we do not have a plan for how we're going to manage the human mobility that is already happening and going to we all know accelerate because I'm thinking of coastlines that are permanently going to disappear and as a human rights attorney it has to be people centered and that right to self-determination so people are making the decision about how they can adapt in a world that is going to be this right here is not going to be next year right we are in accelerating non-linear change that is going to affect all of us honestly forever right I think if we think of the time scales we're talking about thousands of years and we are not preparing ourselves to manage the intensity of the crisis we have brought upon us thank you Robin it's absolutely very urgent and to you Christina thanks a lot I think this was a really really a key probably thing that we may have forgot to mention before just to be people centered but what I want to to add to that is like especially from our side you know when we collect the data we are people centered we try to get that all those voices but there is a very big importance also on the accountability of what we can do for people that we are people centered from our side you know we do collect the data we try to provide evidence for certain program and we really try to keep ourselves accountable to those communities to whom we go and whose knowledge we ask to collect and also I want to want to go back on the on the issue of the data protection let's say and the intellectual property of the knowledge it's also something that is very relevant in this in this field we we have from our side different guidelines and IOM is one of the the agencies that have got first like data protection policy that we really try to reinforce I have to say it's not always easy when you collect the data from communities how you maintain it you can try to anonymize but we are aware of all the different levels that come and the complexity but we we are trying so we're really really strongly taken on that thank you so much Christina I want to hand over it to Lelefa but maybe before I do just once quick 30 seconds to just really mention that I think what we've heard here is that this is non-linear even as we collect this data the issues that we're seeing are so complex and they're happening very quickly and it has to be people centered and it has to be happening and decisions happening now as we're working together collectively because it's the power of everyone together in my language we say this one finger cannot remove the lice in your head but the collective of the fingers how do we get together and work together thank you so much everyone on this panel it's been absolutely and incredibly insightful over to you and Lelefa I feel like I'm in a really well rehearsed newsroom with with with a enigmatic anchor that keeps throwing to me out in the field thank you so much a round of applause for our panelists you may take your leave if you wish I think you can leave if you wish thank you so much so as as our panelists and our moderator makes it off the floor we are frankly hurtling towards the end of this the first day thank you all very much it's time now time now for the sort of final segment of of the day and this will be four people speaking from the pre-IDM regional dialogues including I believe it's actually five video clips this time I know I know I'm usual but here we are at this moment I'd like to first call to stand perhaps to make that to make the video announcement the IOM regional director for the Middle East and North Africa if they are here Uthman Bulbasi yes there you are sorry the lights really are very bright and it's very hard to see please your remarks and then your video thank you very much so I would like to start by saying the Middle East and North Africa is among the world most climate vulnerable and water stressed regions in the world and as a result of that we also witnessed a number of incidents in the last two years in the form of natural disasters varying from droughts floods earthquakes that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and displacement of hundreds of thousands across the region in this region by 2050 it is estimated that as many as 19.3 million people may be displaced because of the climate if no serious action is taken in our regional dialogue on migration we brought together representatives from government civil society un from different age groups and the main key recommendations just for the sake of time one was a need for advanced early warning systems the second one was the importance of regional and cross-regional partnership and cooperation and the very obvious one the one that has been discussed many times today is the data and here we are not talking only about quality data we are talking about a data that can be comparable a data that can be analyzed and shared among countries to predict the disasters and the impact of those disasters so we can build policies based on I would say evidence-based data those are the key recommendations for the sake of time I can stop here but maybe I would like just to finish by saying we are witnessing a number of initiatives in our region to address the climate change those are very innovative a very advanced but I believe much more need to be done in a very turbulent region like Middle East and North Africa thank you let's have the video ahead of COP 28 taking place in the united arab Emirates towards the end of this year and the international dialogue on migration scheduled for 5 and 6 october in Geneva we today we convene our regional dialogue on migration a dialogue that brings together government officials academia civil society organizations and researchers to discuss the impact of climate change and provide concrete recommendations that will feed into the IOM international multistakeholder dialogue taking place in Geneva the Middle East and North Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions when it comes to the impact of climate change and we have witnessed the devastating natural disasters that occurred in our region in the last few months those disasters resulted in loss of lives and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people across the region now more than ever everybody understands that climate change is real we feel it in our region many of us have lost relatives friends neighbors and colleagues a collective action and effort is needed states need to invest more in preparedness and response we also need to allocate sufficient funding to address the consequences and the impact of climate change so much for that if if I may just ask you one question it's a very powerful video and I feel that you make you make it very real within the region that you that you're speaking of I wonder do you feel that a watershed moment has come and passed in a time you've been doing this work does now feel different I think now the topic is discussed more we are seeing the impact firsthand and states are acting based on reality yes in my way happening things are happening now we see more action but we still need to convince a large part of the governments I would say that more investment need to be made in climate action rather than military investments for example thank you very good very well put thank you so much regional director we move now on to the second presentation from the iron regional director for the european economic area the eu and nato ola henrickson to provide some highlights on their pre-idm regional dialogue from their region please thank you very much good afternoon everyone so i'm going to present on behalf of the regional office in in brussels and the regional office in vienna we co-organized a virtual pre-idm dialogue on the 28th of september this year we had 29 speakers from 19 countries representing member states u n entities international organizations civil society academia think tanks private sector migrants diaspora and of course the youth there are several points that stood out I think when we hear about climate change we think we tend to think about effects in faraway places however people in europe and central asia are also vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change we are already confronted in these regions the recent flooding in Greece Serbia and Slovenia wildfires in turkey mud flows in tajikistan and the looming graphs in spain and portugal are just examples of this climate change impacts are amplifying the existing vulnerabilities this in turn is shaping different types of migration including disaster displacement planned evacuation labor migration pastoralist and plan relocation it is critical to highlight the experiences and promote the good practices from europe and central asia we heard from our member states that the pre-idm dialogue for example integrating migration considerations into national adoption plans in Turkmenistan leveraging remittances for climate change adaptation through innovative financial products in moldova italy highlighted that we need to recognize that climate change impacts are amplifying the vulnerabilities of migrants across the metronian region as well as the important role of municipalities in addressing climate mobility the uk reported that their upcoming international development white paper recognizes migration as an adaptation strategy evidence is important for policymaking and programming it is important to invest in innovative coordinated and long-term initiatives the example of longitudinal studies from ecuador and central asia will help us to better understand the impact of climate hazards on the decision to migrate as well as ability of households to adapt it is important to recognize that migrations are just not victims of climate change impacts they are also contributing to climate solutions for example we heard of from the diaspora representatives from several countries they are the bridge between destination heritage countries they are also proactively contributing to the development of solutions fostering partnerships advocating for rights and supporting vulnerable communities private sector engagement is a priority for iom in developing solutions for people to move people on the move and people who stay the examples shared by our u and colleagues from north macedonia and turkey illustrated how the u and systems in these countries are increasingly engaging with the private sector to leverage funding and experience to find solutions to complex issues including climate mobility so we've heard from several several youth activists from these these regions they advocate for a larger role in the planning implementation and monitoring of climate action they also demand more accountability from institutions and stakeholders thank you thank you so much let's see the video when we hear about climate change we tend to think about the effects of melting polar ice caps rising sea levels for the certification however people in mountainous areas such as in the high ranges of central asia are also vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change i witnessed this for myself during my recent visit to kyrgyzstan and usbekistan where i discussed the matter with many of our counterparts the increasing water scarcity in the region makes the impact of climate change on the living conditions of people obvious for everyone we are proud that we could start now the first regional project in central asia which will collect data directly from remote mountain communities twice a year to obtain a detailed picture of the effects of the changing climate on human mobility we are confident this new initiative will help us better understand the impacts of climate hazards on the decision to migrate or to stay as well as the ability of households to adapt this in turn will help us design relevant interventions it will also help our member states to face their policies and evidence it will hopefully also help the people reserve to better cope with the challenges there are plenty of other examples in this region where iam's ambition of having the best data on the movement of people has paid dividends over and over for instance we have become the reference point for idp data in ukraine the entire un humanitarian response is based on our idp data our proficiency in data collection and analysis has also helped us enormously in turkey and the western Balkans and given us a more detailed understanding of irregular movements throughout the region and the socio-economic profile of migrants climate change and mobility as well as migration data will remain at the center of our work in this region and globally europe has not been spared from increasing environmental hazards and climate impact floods and wildfires have shocked the EU draught is looming in spain and portugal in northern europe rapid seasonal changes are making ranger hearing more difficult for indigenous peoples putting their livelihoods at risk yet we speak little about climate mobility in europe migrant workers in sectors like clean energy green construction and sustainable food systems will be vital to achieving our climate goals at cop 27 we also stress the importance of respecting migrants rights and climate action this will help people to adapt and give them choices about when and how they move the european green deal aims at reaching climate neutrality across the continent by 2050 it recognizes that climate change adaptation can reduce the risk of disaster displacement we continue to urge the EU and its member states to recognize that safe and orderly migration is essential to this let's remember that climate action isn't just about the environment it's about upholding rights and leveraging the promise of migration and recognizing that migrants will play a crucial role in creating a sustainable future before i start quizzing you is there another video from you mr henrickson or is that no that's all for now thank you may well you can choose to stand or not it's up to you but but i wonder culture comes to mind the breadth the sheer the sheer amount of the planet that you cover is really interesting you go from some of the richest most enriched countries in the world in europe through to countries that are developing or certainly have insurmountable challenges ahead of them i wonder as part of your sort of reinforcement or your commitment to migration and climate change how do you deal with a problem like the different cultures involved so so i i'm afraid my colleague manfred profatio who you saw on the on the video here is not here today so he's covering central asia and parts of europe i'm covering basically the EU countries and a few others i think what what is significant for for the region which i cover is i think the increasing recognition that climate change is also affecting life across that region it's been seen as something happening far away now it's it's it's actually happening to us living in this region and its effects are coming quite rapidly and i think this is also maybe affecting culture but i think that that's really the the significant thing that is happening now and you can also see the weather as we speak this is we're actually into october and it's it's it's like a good summer day in my home country i would say it's nice but it's also a bit scary to be honest indeed thank you so much um we move on now because i'm i'm very aware of the time to another of the region's director for east and the horn of africa rana rana the video i just wanted to say how inspired i was today by a lot of the things that were said when it comes to the solutions whether now or later and grace has made me very worried about how the youth are considering and thinking about their future my granddaughter is five months old i do want her to have a future i'm only i'm i'm getting old but she is still very very young and so on that note um we can no longer talk about climate change without talking about human mobility and adaptation over the past year and 84 million internal displacements have occurred due to climate change linked disasters in the east and horn of africa as we speak today last night there was el nino in sumalia so those that were displaced from the drought only recently now have floods so it as we speak it's occurring every single day 80 percent of the population in the region has depended on natural resources for their livelihoods as these resources are becoming scarce the number of people forced to move is increasing iam is leading a leading actor in climate change and human mobility in the region over the last two years i am has made significant advancements on policy development and implementation in the region with a global influence the kd mech africa the first and only comprehensive coherent policy framework on the nexus between human mobility and climate change in the world emanates from the east and horn of africa i'm pleased to mention that iam supported the governments of uganda and kenya to develop the kd mech and its continental addendum which was adapted during the africa climate summit in nirobi last month iam's also supported e-gad in piloting its protocol on free movement of persons and protocol on transhumance the way in which governments and communities in the region address the human mobility and climate chain nexus is dynamic they recognize that climate induced mobility can be levered as an opportunity for development i strongly encourage you to listen to the guest speakers during this idm we're very pleased that climate change is a key priority of our new dg miss amy pope under her leadership we look forward to advancing the climate change human mobility agenda in our region and continue our support to governments communities and regional organizations i conclude by inviting you to watch a short video that highlights our work in the region thank you over the last year more than three million people have been displaced by climate-induced disasters in the east and all of africa also 80 percent of the population in our region are dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods and these resources are becoming scarcer some places for some people to move at iam we've been working with governments and communities in the region to help prepare people to move safely and regularly with choice and towards opportunities we work to find solutions that allow people to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change at the community level iam works with partners on disaster risk management on climate change adaptation and on climate smart development we support capacity enhancement and carry out research to ensure our interventions are evidence-based and people centered in the last year i am the regional office has achieved two major milestones in july last year iam supported the government of ukanda to develop the landmark campanam bestial declaration on migration in virulence and climate change which was signed by 15 african states this was the first regional policy framework on climate change fast forward one year and recently at the african planet summit iam supported the governments of kenya and ukanda to expand the campanam and stereo declaration to the whole continent these new policy frameworks are a clear demonstration of how governments in this region and across the continent are being proactive and the way in which this topic is being prioritized this is why iam says we can no longer talk about climate change without talking about human mobility i wish all our distinguished speakers a productive and interesting idea so mrs jobbert if i may if i may come to you very quickly just if you don't want to just say no okay no right just um i guess my point to you is is a simple one do you think we need or is it is there a time now to have new categories new ways of distinguishing and being able to count what a migrant is in the face of the climate crisis as we have it today is it necessary to include them all is it actually quite a counterproductive exercise somebody who's moving because of drought might also be moving because that's the last straw after the recent spat of sort of civil war or other issues that might have cropped up so are these labels that we have useful do they need to change or shall we keep them i don't like labels i think we're all people people on the move for a reasons i particularly was born in syria leon west africa i'm a lebanese i'm working in east africa i've been in iraq i've faced crises and wars i was shot by a sniper i'm a grandmother today i've been with i am 30 years what am i i'm simply a lebanese and i'm simply an employee of iom and i think every person in this world shouldn't be labeled you move for a reason i could be moving for crises which i have or i could move from drought which i have and probably from other issues on the personal and professional level so whether we label them or not i don't think that's the solution i think we just need to figure out what we're going to do when they do move or how they should move because of what they face that would be my answer to that much for your contribution we now move on to the final of the iom regional directors this one is from southern africa ashraf el nur please stand up make your comments and then introduce your video if you will thank you very much and climate change is aggressively impacting many countries in southern africa and the takeaway from our work there is threefold first is to say that climate recognize no borders and climate shocks in particular displaced large number of people within their countries and across borders into neighboring countries and i saw that ferris hand this year in malawi after cyclone freddy where 600 000 people were displaced just overnight let alone the massive destruction that was caused to the country similarly the same happened in mad gaskar where the number of climate induced displacement is turned at more than three million people moved away from their homes by the combined effects of drought in the south and tropical storms elsewhere hence the action for us to work with the countries and communities to integrate human mobility into climate action the second point is to recognize that while climate calamities are real and sadly affecting larger number of people and communities climate action is not yet quite there and a lot more work is needed to make it happen and make it more effective and in the absence of that the cost of repair remains unaffordable and the brunt is borne by local communities who lose their livelihoods or the broader depletion and loss of development gains again the call to action here is to establish the damage and loss framework to resource it and to actually make it work the third point is what we do with communities and governments but also the regional economic community for all of them to anticipate and forecast better and to be more prepared and more resilient last and not least the call to action here is to make migration not part of the survival options but an integral strategy of climate change adaptation that needs to be followed adopting a whole of government and all of society approach thank you indeed let's see the video from from you climate change is worsening globally and is becoming a threat to a large number of people around the world and southern africa is negatively impacted by the combined impact of loss of livelihoods and development games local communities are suffering immensely from the recurrent and destructive climate shocks and migration has become a significant life-saving and climate adaptation strategy the regional conference of use which took place last month in september asserted that climate change is not a distant issue and that it is heavily impacting local communities young people should therefore join hands and collaborate to address the growing climate challenges the regional conference of use identified a set of priorities that when it comes to climate change and it called for these to inform the position paper which we ultimately presented to the global use as part of the global use statement to be presented to the united nation secretary general at the cop 28 in UAE there is a need to leverage on already existing structures and to advance young people work in climate space young people in the southern africa are committed to complimenting member states and supporting them in raising awareness on safe migration and for facilitating the active participation of youth in the climate agenda thank you so much for that and if i may come to you just very very briefly uh on on one point only the engagement of youth seems to be important are you seeing it in your region are they rising to that challenge in part use certainly are amongst the fairest respondents to climate calamities they are in the front line and they engaged pretty much well in the life-saving phase but i think when it comes to rebuilding beta and doing the reconstruction and restoring development gains we need to see more empowerment of the use thank you so much okay so with absolutely no desire to keep you away from the cocktails and the chat just behind this wall uh it just leaves me to say just a few remarks before i break the session to start again tomorrow morning so first of all thank you very very much uh for all the contributions you have made my apologies to you if we just couldn't get through or get round to you i will do my best tomorrow to incorporate as many of the voices we haven't heard today so my personal apologies for that but we have to stick to time and that is my job so so forgive me for that now it's time hopefully to have cocktails and a few nibbles outside uh an association created in 2017 later turned into a brilliant social enterprise with a team of passionate refugee uh chef refugees cuisine lab has provided the food for today's uh that sort of after-party this is a group who are created from social and economic integrations of refugees that includes a training program and employment in restaurants catering and events and so much more we will also have comments from the director general Amy Pope and be graced once again by the presence of Julia Sa so all that remains for me to say is thank you i'm gonna go home and lie down for a bit and start this whole thing again tomorrow at 10 o'clock sharp see you then thank you so much