Attachments
Introduction
How do disasters affect people in situations of displacement, and in particular how might the humanitarian system better anticipate and respond to climate disasters impacting displaced people? In the last decade, the number of climate disasters and people displaced by conflict has risen globally, illustrating a pressing need to better understand how already displaced people are impacted by climate disasters.
Today, there are over 82.4 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, including at least 26.4 million refugees and 4.1 million asylum seekers (UNHCR 2022a). Although the drivers of displacement are increasingly intertwined, often including a combination of conflict, climate variability and climate change, poverty, and food insecurity (UNHCR 2021), in 2021 disaster related displacement continued to be the highest number with 23.7 million people, while conflict and violence triggered an increase of 50 per cent displacement compared to 2021 with a total of 14.4 million people (IDMC 2022). Of the global total of forcibly displaced people, nearly half of all internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 20% of the world’s refugees live in camps.
Strikingly, although camps are generally considered to be short-term solutions, displaced people end up living in camps on average for many years, with some estimates being as high as between 10 and 26 years (Ferris 2018). Despite this knowledge, camps often lack long-term strategic planning and are instead better equipped to respond to urgent needs in emergency contexts. While perhaps useful at the beginning of displacement, this approach has been criticized for limiting displaced people’s autonomy and capabilities and impeding their ability to establish independent lives through education, employment, and other opportunities (Smith 2004).
The short-term focus of humanitarian assistance in camps, including decisions made early in a response, can also lead to negative consequences later on, such as limited risk reduction and preparedness in the face of disasters. Important factors influencing the impacts of climate related disasters include where a refugee or IDP camp is located, how it is designed, including its accessibility and security during extreme weather events; the availability of resources in a given area where a camp is located, including the potential of tension or hostility with local inhabitants; their impacts on the environment around them; the durability of housing and infrastructure in camps, which are often constructed as temporary and are therefore not equipped to withstand extreme weather; and, very importantly, the different conditions of vulnerability that people affected by conflict living in a camp can experience, ranging from mental health challenges, trauma, the disruption of social networks, and separation of family members, all of which can limit displaced people’s capacity to withstand the impacts of climate-related hazards. This paper acknowledge that the short term approach on camps planning and management is often not the result of a humanitarian interventions but it is the result of political circumstances that are sometimes outside of humanitarian influence.