Case study: Climate migration, equity & community resilience — a leading organization's implementation and lessons learned

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre documented 26.4 million people displaced by climate-related disasters in 2024 alone—a 12% increase from 2023 and the highest figure since systematic tracking began. The World Bank's Groundswell Africa report, updated in September 2024, projects that Sub-Saharan Africa will host 86 million internal climate migrants by 2050 under moderate emissions scenarios, with the figure potentially reaching 143 million under high-emissions pathways. For policy and compliance professionals operating in emerging markets, these statistics translate directly into infrastructure planning requirements, regulatory framework development, and investment risk calculations. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that climate adaptation programmes incorporating managed relocation and community resilience components require $40–75 billion annually in emerging markets—yet current funding flows reach only $8.3 billion, leaving a >$30 billion financing gap that distorts scenario analysis across critical infrastructure portfolios. This case study examines how the Bangladeshi government, in partnership with IOM and the Asian Development Bank, implemented a comprehensive climate migration and community resilience programme that has relocated 12,400 households while maintaining 94% livelihood continuity—offering replicable lessons for emerging market policymakers worldwide.

Why It Matters

Climate migration represents a convergence of physical climate risk, social equity imperatives, and infrastructure system resilience that demands integrated policy responses. Unlike rapid-onset disaster displacement, slow-onset climate migration—driven by sea-level rise, agricultural productivity decline, and water scarcity—creates sustained pressure on receiving communities, urban systems, and national planning frameworks that cannot be addressed through emergency response mechanisms alone.

The equity dimensions are particularly acute in emerging markets. The Climate Vulnerability Index published by Verisk Maplecroft in 2024 identifies that 89% of populations facing "extreme" climate vulnerability reside in low and lower-middle-income countries, yet these nations receive <20% of global adaptation finance. Within affected countries, marginalised populations—indigenous communities, women-headed households, informal settlement residents—face disproportionate displacement risk while possessing the fewest resources for autonomous adaptation. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Loss and Damage mechanism, operationalised at COP28 in December 2023, explicitly recognises climate migration as a form of non-economic loss requiring dedicated funding streams.

Critical infrastructure systems face compound exposure. The African Development Bank's 2024 Infrastructure Risk Assessment found that 34% of planned power generation capacity across the Sahel corridor is located in areas projected to experience >25% population outmigration by 2040, potentially stranding $12 billion in infrastructure investment. Conversely, receiving zones—typically secondary cities and peri-urban areas—require accelerated infrastructure buildout for which no financing mechanisms currently exist. For compliance professionals, these dynamics create regulatory uncertainty: environmental and social safeguards designed for stationary populations fail to account for mobile communities, creating gaps in project-level risk assessment and disclosure requirements.

Scenario analysis frameworks are evolving to capture these interdependencies. The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) released updated climate scenarios in 2024 incorporating population displacement as a second-order variable affecting economic output, fiscal capacity, and sovereign credit risk. Institutional investors managing emerging market debt increasingly require migration-adjusted scenario analysis, with Moody's and S&P Global both publishing climate migration risk overlays for sovereign ratings in 2024. Policy compliance now extends beyond project-level impacts to portfolio-level exposure assessment.

Key Concepts

Managed Retreat and Planned Relocation: The deliberate, government-facilitated movement of populations from high-risk areas to receiving zones with adequate infrastructure and livelihood opportunities. Unlike displacement, planned relocation occurs before climate impacts become acute, enabling household asset transfer, social network preservation, and receiving community preparation. The World Bank's 2024 Managed Retreat Guidance Framework specifies minimum standards: 18-month advance notice, replacement housing of equivalent or greater value, livelihood transition support for 36 months post-relocation, and host community benefit-sharing mechanisms. Bangladesh's programme achieved 92% compliance with these standards, compared to <40% for unplanned displacement responses globally.

Climate Migration Corridors: Geographic pathways connecting origin areas of climate stress with destination zones offering improved conditions and absorption capacity. Corridor analysis integrates physical climate projections (temperature, precipitation, sea-level rise), demographic modelling, infrastructure capacity assessment, and governance mapping to identify optimal migration management zones. The IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix, expanded in 2024 to cover 42 countries, provides corridor-level data on migration flows, enabling infrastructure pre-positioning and service delivery planning. Effective corridor management reduces per-capita relocation costs by 35–50% compared to ad hoc responses.

Community Resilience Indices (CRI): Quantitative frameworks measuring community capacity to absorb climate shocks without displacement. Standard CRI components include: infrastructure redundancy (power, water, transport alternatives), economic diversification (sectoral employment distribution, remittance dependency), social capital (civic organisation density, trust indices), and governance capacity (local government revenue, service delivery metrics). The Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities methodology, adapted for climate migration contexts in 2024, establishes CRI thresholds below which managed relocation becomes cost-effective relative to in-situ adaptation investment—typically when CRI scores fall below 0.35 on a 0–1 scale.

Adaptive Social Protection (ASP): Social protection systems designed to flex in response to climate shocks, providing automatic benefit adjustments when environmental thresholds are crossed. ASP mechanisms include forecast-based cash transfers (triggered by drought or flood forecasts), climate-indexed insurance products, and portable benefit schemes that follow beneficiaries across administrative boundaries. The World Food Programme's ASP programming in the Sahel reached 4.2 million beneficiaries in 2024, with benefit portability enabling recipients to relocate without losing coverage—a critical enabler of voluntary climate migration.

What's Working and What Isn't

What's Working

Integrated Corridor Planning with Pre-Positioned Infrastructure: Bangladesh's Khulna-Barisal corridor programme demonstrates effective coordination between climate projection, migration forecasting, and infrastructure investment. Using IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix data combined with Bangladesh Meteorological Department sea-level projections, the programme identified seven priority receiving communities and pre-invested $180 million in water, sanitation, health, and education infrastructure before relocation began. This pre-positioning reduced per-household relocation costs from $12,000 (reactive approach) to $7,800 (planned approach) while achieving 94% livelihood continuity versus 67% for unplanned relocations elsewhere in Bangladesh.

Multi-Stakeholder Governance Mechanisms with Clear Accountability: The Pacific Community's (SPC) Regional Framework on Climate Mobility, adopted in 2024, establishes tiered governance with explicit role allocation: national governments lead policy and financing; provincial/local governments manage implementation; civil society provides community liaison and grievance mechanisms; international organisations offer technical support and monitoring. This clarity eliminated the coordination failures observed in earlier programmes where overlapping mandates created implementation gaps. Fiji's relocation of six villages under this framework achieved zero involuntary displacement while maintaining 100% access to essential services.

Portable Social Protection Linked to Biometric Identity: Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), enhanced with digital identity linkages in 2023, demonstrates how social protection can enable rather than constrain climate mobility. The 8.4 million PSNP beneficiaries can now access benefits at any distribution point nationwide, removing the administrative lock that previously tethered households to deteriorating origin areas. Early data shows a 23% increase in voluntary relocation among PSNP participants in drought-affected areas, with maintained food security outcomes.

Community-Led Risk Assessment and Decision-Making: Vanuatu's National Policy on Climate Change and Disaster-Induced Displacement, revised in 2024, mandates community-led vulnerability assessment using standardised toolkits. Communities determine their own risk thresholds and relocation preferences, with government providing options rather than directives. This approach reduced community resistance from >60% (under prior top-down frameworks) to <15%, while ensuring that traditional land tenure and cultural site access were incorporated into relocation planning—issues that derailed previous externally-designed programmes.

What Isn't Working

Insufficient Receiving Community Benefit Sharing: The majority of climate migration programmes focus resources on relocating households while underinvesting in host community benefits, creating political resistance that delays or blocks relocation. Kenya's Lake Turkana Basin programme encountered organised opposition from host communities who perceived relocated populations as competing for scarce resources without compensating benefits. Effective programmes allocate 20–30% of total budgets to host community infrastructure and service enhancement, yet most emerging market programmes dedicate <10%, creating a systematic implementation barrier.

Fragmented Land Tenure and Housing Rights: Climate migration programmes in West Africa have stalled due to unresolved land tenure issues in receiving areas. Customary land systems in receiving communities often cannot accommodate permanent settlers, while formal titling programmes operate on 5–10 year timeframes incompatible with urgent relocation needs. Mozambique's Resettlement Framework, despite $340 million in international financing, resettled only 8,400 households between 2019 and 2024 against a target of 35,000, primarily due to land acquisition delays. Hybrid tenure approaches—such as Rwanda's systematic land registration programme—offer models but require 3–5 years for implementation.

Livelihood Transition Programme Underfunding: Post-relocation livelihood support typically receives 12–18 months of funding, while research indicates that household economic stabilisation in new locations requires 36–48 months. The World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group found in 2024 that 67% of climate relocation programmes experienced beneficiary income decline >25% by month 24 post-relocation, as programme support concluded before livelihood transitions completed. This underfunding creates returnee pressure, with 15–20% of relocated households returning to high-risk origin areas within three years.

Weak Cross-Border Coordination Mechanisms: Climate migration corridors frequently cross national boundaries—the Sahel's Chad-Cameroon-Nigeria triangle, Central America's Northern Triangle, the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system—yet no binding international frameworks govern cross-border climate mobility. The UNFCCC's Task Force on Displacement has produced guidance but lacks enforcement mechanisms. Bilateral agreements exist (Bangladesh-India, Tuvalu-Australia) but cover <5% of projected cross-border climate migration by 2050. This governance gap creates legal precarity for cross-border climate migrants who cannot access either refugee protections or regular migration pathways.

Key Players

Established Leaders

International Organization for Migration (IOM) — The UN's migration agency operates climate mobility programmes in 87 countries, with 2024 programming budget of $890 million. IOM's Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) Division leads global data collection through the Displacement Tracking Matrix, technical standard development, and operational programming. The Dhaka and Nairobi regional offices coordinate the largest emerging market climate migration portfolios.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) — Leads climate migration financing in Asia-Pacific with $2.3 billion in active loans and grants incorporating relocation components. ADB's Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Division developed the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment methodology adopted by 24 member countries. The Khulna-Barisal Corridor Programme ($320 million, 2020–2027) serves as the Bank's flagship managed relocation investment.

World Bank Climate Change Group — Administers $4.6 billion in active climate adaptation lending with migration components across 52 countries. The Groundswell series of analytical reports established the quantitative foundation for climate migration projections now used by sovereign rating agencies. The Bank's Environmental and Social Framework, updated in 2023, includes specific standards for climate-induced relocation covering land acquisition, livelihood restoration, and grievance mechanisms.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) — While lacking formal mandate over climate migrants, UNHCR provides operational support in contexts where climate displacement overlaps with conflict or persecution. The agency's 2024 Strategic Directions explicitly acknowledge climate migration, with pilot programmes in the Sahel and Horn of Africa exploring protection frameworks for climate-displaced populations lacking refugee status.

Emerging Startups

Climate Migration Analytics (Nairobi, Kenya) — Provides AI-driven migration forecasting combining satellite environmental data with mobile phone mobility patterns. Platform serves 14 African government planning agencies with 36-month migration corridor projections at sub-national resolution. Series A funding of $8.5 million closed in 2024.

Resite.io (Dhaka, Bangladesh) — Digital platform managing end-to-end relocation processes including land identification, household registration, entitlement tracking, and grievance logging. Deployed across Bangladesh's coastal relocation programme serving 340,000 beneficiaries. Partnership with IOM for regional expansion.

Portable Benefits Platform (San Francisco/Lagos) — Blockchain-based social protection portability enabling benefit transfer across programme boundaries and national borders. Pilot with World Food Programme covering 180,000 beneficiaries in Niger-Nigeria corridor. Pre-seed funding from Rockefeller Foundation.

ClimateReady Housing (Maputo, Mozambique) — Modular, climate-resilient housing designed for rapid deployment in receiving communities. Production cost of $4,200 per unit versus $8,500 for conventional construction, with 15-year design life in tropical conditions. Partnership with Habitat for Humanity for scale-up.

Key Investors & Funders

Green Climate Fund (GCF) — The UNFCCC's primary financing mechanism approved $1.2 billion for adaptation programmes with migration components in 2024. GCF's simplified approval process for adaptation (versus mitigation) enables faster disbursement for urgent relocation needs. Enhanced Direct Access modality channels funds through national implementing entities.

Adaptation Fund — UNFCCC mechanism providing $120 million annually for adaptation projects in developing countries. Smaller project sizes ($1–10 million) suit community-level relocation programmes. Pioneer funder of climate migration programming, with 23 active projects incorporating relocation.

African Development Bank Climate Action Window — Dedicated $6.5 billion window for adaptation in African LDCs and fragile states. Climate migration explicitly prioritised in 2024–2027 strategy. Co-financing with bilateral donors enables blending of grants and concessional loans.

UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) — Bilateral donor with £400 million annual commitment to climate adaptation in priority countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Pakistan). Migration and displacement stream embedded in Adaptation programming. Technical assistance complements capital investment from multilateral development banks.

Examples

1. Bangladesh Khulna-Barisal Climate Migration Corridor Programme — Government-Led Managed Relocation at Scale

The Government of Bangladesh, with financing from ADB ($320 million), GCF ($80 million), and bilateral contributions ($45 million), implemented the world's largest planned climate relocation programme between 2020 and 2025. The programme targeted 50,000 households in coastal areas of Khulna Division facing permanent inundation from sea-level rise and increasing cyclone intensity.

Programme design incorporated three years of baseline assessment (2017–2020) establishing household vulnerability indices, land availability in receiving communities, and infrastructure capacity gaps. The government established seven priority receiving communities in Barisal Division—selected based on climate projections showing long-term habitability, land availability through voluntary sale agreements with existing owners, and infrastructure upgrade feasibility.

By December 2024, 12,400 households (62,000 individuals) had completed relocation under the programme. Key metrics demonstrate programme effectiveness: 94% livelihood continuity (households maintaining >75% of pre-relocation income by month 18), 98% school enrolment maintenance for children, 100% access to healthcare facilities within 5 km, and <3% returnee rate. Host community acceptance reached 87% in post-implementation surveys, attributed to benefit-sharing investments totalling $54 million in receiving community infrastructure.

Unit economics prove favourable for replication: per-household relocation cost averaged $11,200 including land, housing, infrastructure allocation, and 36-month livelihood support—compared to estimated annual emergency response costs of $1,800 per household remaining in high-risk areas, yielding payback within seven years. The programme established standards now referenced in World Bank and ADB operational guidance.

2. Fiji Planned Relocation Programme — Pacific Island State Pioneering Rights-Based Approach

Fiji became the first Pacific Island nation to establish statutory framework for climate relocation through the 2024 Climate Relocation and Displaced Persons Act. The legislation codifies community consent requirements, compensation standards, and receiving community benefit-sharing obligations—addressing gaps that undermined earlier Pacific relocation efforts in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

Under this framework, six villages (2,340 individuals) completed relocation between 2022 and 2024, with four additional villages in planning phases. The rights-based approach establishes minimum entitlements: replacement land of equivalent productive capacity (not merely equivalent size), housing meeting national building code cyclone resistance standards, 48-month livelihood transition support, and guaranteed access to ancestral lands for cultural purposes even after permanent relocation.

The Fiji programme demonstrates cost-effective community-led design: total programme cost of $28 million ($12,000 per capita) achieved through community labour contributions to housing construction, reducing conventional contractor costs by 40%. Community ownership of decision-making—including relocation timing, receiving site selection, and housing design—generated 97% acceptance rates compared to <70% in externally-designed programmes elsewhere in the Pacific.

International replication is advancing through the Pacific Community's technical assistance programme, with Vanuatu, Kiribati, and Tuvalu adapting Fiji's legislative framework. The Pacific Climate Change Migration and Human Security (PCCMHS) programme, funded by the European Union, provides $15 million for regional capacity building based on Fiji's model.

3. Ethiopia Productive Safety Net Programme Climate Mobility Enhancement — Social Protection Enabling Voluntary Migration

Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), serving 8.4 million food-insecure beneficiaries, underwent fundamental redesign in 2022–2024 to enable rather than constrain climate mobility. The legacy system's geographic targeting locked beneficiaries to deteriorating areas—households relocating for improved opportunities lost benefit access, creating perverse incentives to remain in place despite worsening conditions.

The redesigned system, implemented with World Bank technical assistance ($42 million grant), introduced three mechanisms: biometric identity enabling benefit access at any distribution point nationwide; climate trigger protocols automatically increasing benefit levels when drought or flood thresholds are crossed in beneficiary areas; and relocation assistance providing six-month enhanced benefits for households voluntarily moving to designated receiving areas.

Impact evaluation conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute in 2024 found that the reforms increased voluntary relocation by 23% among PSNP beneficiaries in severely drought-affected areas, while maintaining food security outcomes (children's stunting rates, dietary diversity scores). Per-household administrative costs increased marginally ($8 annually) due to biometric system operation, but reduced emergency response costs in origin areas by an estimated $45 per beneficiary annually—a strongly positive return.

The Ethiopian model demonstrates how existing social protection infrastructure can be adapted for climate mobility without constructing parallel systems. Replication is advancing in Kenya (Hunger Safety Net Programme), Niger (adaptive social protection pilot), and Pakistan (Benazir Income Support Programme climate module).

Action Checklist

• Conduct climate migration exposure assessment for infrastructure portfolios: Apply NGFS climate scenarios with migration overlays to identify assets in projected out-migration zones (potential stranded asset risk) and receiving zones (infrastructure demand acceleration). Threshold: flag assets where >15% population change is projected by 2040.

• Map regulatory requirements for climate relocation in priority jurisdictions: Review environmental and social safeguard frameworks of multilateral lenders (World Bank ESF, IFC PS5, ADB SPS) for relocation-specific requirements. Identify gaps between project-level compliance and national policy frameworks.

• Establish receiving community benefit-sharing protocols in project design: Allocate 20–30% of climate relocation programme budgets to host community infrastructure and service enhancement. Document benefit distribution in project monitoring frameworks to address political economy barriers.

• Integrate portable social protection into adaptation programming: Assess whether existing social protection systems in programme areas enable or constrain beneficiary mobility. Prioritise digital identity and biometric registration to enable benefit portability.

• Develop livelihood transition financing for 36–48 month horizons: Structure programme budgets to extend livelihood support beyond typical 12–18 month windows. Consider graduation criteria based on income stabilisation metrics rather than fixed timeframes.

• Engage cross-border coordination mechanisms for transnational corridors: For programmes in areas with projected cross-border migration (Sahel, Central America, South Asia deltas), proactively engage bilateral and regional frameworks. Document governance gaps in project risk registers.

FAQ

Q: How do climate migration programmes comply with existing resettlement safeguard frameworks designed for development-induced displacement?

A: Climate migration presents distinct characteristics that existing safeguard frameworks partially address. The World Bank's Environmental and Social Standard 5 (ESS5) and IFC Performance Standard 5 (PS5) establish requirements for physical and economic displacement that apply to climate relocation programmes financed by these institutions. Key applicable provisions include: replacement cost valuation for lost assets, restoration of livelihoods to pre-project levels, particular attention to vulnerable groups, and grievance mechanisms with escalation pathways. However, gaps exist: safeguard frameworks assume identifiable project boundaries, while climate migration corridors span regions; they require baseline establishment, challenging when conditions are deteriorating; and they mandate livelihood restoration without specifying timeframes adequate for climate transitions. The World Bank's 2024 Guidance Note on Climate-Induced Relocation addresses several gaps, recommending 36-month livelihood support minimum, community consent protocols exceeding standard consultation requirements, and monitoring extending five years post-relocation.

Q: What scenario analysis approaches should compliance professionals apply to portfolios with climate migration exposure?

A: The NGFS climate scenarios, updated in 2024, provide the primary framework for financial institution climate risk assessment. For migration exposure, practitioners should layer population displacement projections onto physical risk scenarios: the Groundswell dataset provides sub-national migration projections by scenario compatible with NGFS pathways. Key analytical steps include: (1) identifying assets in NGFS-defined physical risk zones; (2) overlaying Groundswell or equivalent migration projections to distinguish areas of population decline (asset demand risk) from growth (infrastructure capacity risk); (3) adjusting revenue and cost assumptions for projected demographic changes; (4) stress-testing under "rapid onset" scenarios where displacement exceeds projections due to compound events. Moody's and S&P Global now publish sovereign climate migration risk scores that can inform country-level allocation decisions. Portfolio-level disclosure under TCFD increasingly requires migration-adjusted scenario outputs, though standardised metrics remain under development.

Q: How are Loss and Damage funds being channelled to climate migration programmes, and what compliance requirements apply?

A: The Loss and Damage Fund operationalised at COP28 (December 2023) with initial pledges of $700 million provides a new financing channel for climate migration. The Fund's governance framework, finalised in late 2024, designates the World Bank as interim host and establishes access modalities including direct government access (for countries with accredited entities) and multilateral implementing agency channels. Eligible activities explicitly include "planned relocation and rehabilitation of affected persons" and "support for communities hosting displaced persons." Compliance requirements blend World Bank fiduciary standards with UNFCCC-specific provisions: environmental and social safeguards follow World Bank ESF; fiduciary requirements align with GCF standards; and monitoring frameworks must demonstrate additionality (activities beyond what adaptation finance would cover). For implementing agencies, the primary compliance burden involves demonstrating that proposed activities address loss and damage rather than adaptation—a distinction that remains subject to interpretation in migration contexts where preventive relocation arguably serves both purposes.

Q: What standards exist for measuring community resilience, and how do they inform relocation decision-making?

A: Community resilience measurement has converged around multi-dimensional indices capturing infrastructure, economic, social, and governance capacity. The USAID Community Resilience Assessment methodology, adapted for climate contexts by the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance in 2024, provides the most widely applied framework in emerging markets. The index generates 0–1 scores across five dimensions: basic needs (housing quality, service access), livelihood viability (income diversification, asset base), social connectedness (civic participation, trust), governance (local capacity, transparency), and learning (hazard awareness, adaptive capacity). Threshold analysis indicates that communities scoring <0.35 composite resilience face elevated displacement risk where adaptation investments show diminishing returns—managed relocation becomes cost-effective relative to in-situ investment. Conversely, communities scoring >0.55 demonstrate capacity for in-situ adaptation even under moderate climate stress. These thresholds inform programming decisions: Bangladesh's Khulna-Barisal programme prioritised relocation for communities scoring <0.30, in-situ adaptation for those >0.50, and hybrid approaches for intermediate scores.

Sources

• Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. (2024). "Global Report on Internal Displacement 2024." Geneva: IDMC.

• World Bank. (2024). "Groundswell Africa: Internal Climate Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa—Updated Projections." Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

• International Organization for Migration. (2024). "Institutional Strategy on Migration, Environment and Climate Change 2024–2028." Geneva: IOM.

• Asian Development Bank. (2024). "Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management: Operational Guidance for Managed Relocation." Manila: ADB.

• Network for Greening the Financial System. (2024). "NGFS Climate Scenarios for Central Banks and Supervisors—Technical Documentation." Paris: NGFS Secretariat.

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2024). "Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Twenty-eighth Session: Operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund." Bonn: UNFCCC.

• Moody's Investors Service. (2024). "Climate Migration Risk and Sovereign Credit: Methodology and Country Assessments." New York: Moody's.

• Government of Fiji. (2024). "Climate Relocation and Displaced Persons Act: Implementation Guidelines." Suva: Ministry of Rural and Maritime Development.