Environmental Migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exacerbated Vulnerability and the Need for a Human Rights-Based Approach

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly reshaping patterns of human mobility, particularly in regions characterised by high socio-economic vulnerability. Sub-Saharan Africa is disproportionately affected by climate-related stressors — including droughts, desertification, floods, and erratic rainfall — that undermine livelihoods and drive both internal and cross-border displacement. This paper examines environmental migration in Sub-Saharan Africa through a human rights-based approach (HRBA), arguing that migration outcomes are not simply consequences of environmental change but are fundamentally shaped by the interaction between environmental pressures and pre-existing structural inequalities, including poverty, gender inequality, limited resource access, and weak governance. Drawing on qualitative desktop research and two in-depth comparative case studies — women farmers in Northern Nigeria and the Kihamba agroforestry system in Tanzania — the paper illuminates contrasting dynamics of vulnerability and resilience across different socio-ecological contexts. The Northern Nigeria case demonstrates how compounding inequalities in land tenure, credit access, and governance exclusion convert climate stress into forced displacement for women farmers. The Kihamba case illustrates how community-based governance, indigenous ecological knowledge, and women’s recognised agency can build resilience and preserve migration as a choice rather than a necessity. The paper advances a rights-based framework that prioritises protection, inclusion, and preventative adaptation as more just and effective responses to environmental migration in its varied forms, and derives concrete policy recommendations for governments, regional institutions, and international actors working at the intersection of climate, migration, and development in the region.

Keywords

• Environmental Migration
• Climate Change
• Human Rights-Based Approach
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Gender and Vulnerability

References

1. African Union. (2009). African union convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in Africa: (Kampala Convention) (Vol. 4).
2. Arora-Jonsson, S. (2011). Virtue and vulnerability: Discourses on women, gender and climate change. Global Environmental Change, 21(2), 744–751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.005
3. Ayers, J., & Forsyth, T. (2009). Community-based adaptation to climate change. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 51(4), 22–31. https://doi.org/10.3200/ENVT.51.4.22-31
4. Bates, D. C. (2002). Environmental refugees? Classifying human migrations caused by environmental change. Population and Environment, 23(5), 465–477. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015170027220
5. Bettini, G., Nash, S. L., & Gioli, G. (2017). One step forward, two steps back? The fading contours of (in)justice in competing discourses on climate migration. The Geographical Journal, 183(4), 348–358. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12192
6. Biermann, F., & Boas, I. (2010). Preparing for a warmer world: Towards a global governance system to protect climate refugees. Global Environmental Politics, 10(1), 60–88. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep.2010.10.1.60
7. Black, R., Adger, W. N., Arnell, N. W., Dercon, S., Geddes, A., & Thomas, D. (2011). The effect of environmental change on human migration. Global Environmental Change, 21(Supplement 1), S3–S11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.10.001
8. Boas, I., Farbotko, C., Adams, H., Sterly, H., Bush, S., van der Geest, K., Wiegel, H., Ashraf, H., Baldwin, A., Bettini, G., Blondin, S., de Bruijn, M., Durand-Delacre, D., Galliot, C., Gemenne, F., Falzon, D., Nijenhuis, G., Zickgraf, C., Singer, B., & Methmann, C. (2019). Climate migration myths. Nature Climate Change, 9(12), 901–903. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0633-3

9. Dankelman, I. (Ed.). (2010). Gender and climate change: An introduction. Earthscan.
10. Dodman, D., & Mitlin, D. (2013). Challenges for community-based adaptation: Discovering the potential for transformation. Journal of International Development, 25(5), 640–659. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.1772
11. El-Hinnawi, E. (1985). Environmental refugees. United Nations Environment Programme.
12. Elmhirst, R. (2011). Migrant pathways and the politics of place: Feminist political ecologies of natural resource management in Indonesia. Geoforum, 42(2), 173–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.12.003
13. Fernandes, E. C. M., Oktingati, A., & Maghembe, J. (1984). The Chagga homegardens: A multistoried agroforestry cropping system on Mount Kilimanjaro, northern Tanzania. Agroforestry Systems, 2, 73–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00131267
14. Food and Agriculture Organization. (2011). The state of food and agriculture 2010–11: Women in agriculture — Closing the gender gap for development.
15. Foresight. (2011). Migration and global environmental change: Final project report. Government Office for Science.
16. Gemenne, F., & Blocher, J. (2017). How can migration serve adaptation to climate change? Challenges to fleshing out a policy ideal. The Geographical Journal, 183(4), 336–347. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12189
17. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. (2018). United Nations.
18. Global Compact on Refugees. (2018). United Nations.
19. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2022). Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844
20. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. (2024). Global report on internal displacement 2024. https://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2024
21. International Organization for Migration. (2024). West and Central Africa — Lake Chad Basin crisis monthly dashboard 65 (June 2024). Displacement Tracking Matrix. https://dtm.iom.int/reports/west-and-central-africa-lake-chad-basin-crisis-monthly-dashboard-65-june-2024
22. Kimaro, O. D., Desie, E., Kimaro, D. N., Vancampenhout, K., & Feger, K.-H. (2024). Salient features and ecosystem services of tree species in mountainous indigenous agroforestry systems of North-Eastern Tanzania. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 6, Article 1082864. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1082864
23. McAdam, J. (2012). Climate change, forced migration, and international law. Oxford University Press.
24. Mortimore, M. (2010). Adapting to drought in the Sahel: Lessons for climate change. WIREs Climate Change, 1(1), 134–143. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.2
25. Muhwezi, I., & Turyasingura, J. B. (2025). An intersectional analysis of gender equality and climate change vulnerabilities, capacities and policy gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa. Discover Environment, 3, Article 269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44274-025-00387-4
26. Obayelu, O. A., Adepoju, A. O., & Idowu, T. (2014). Factors influencing farmers’ choices of adaptation to climate change in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Journal of Agriculture and Environment for International Development, 108(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.12895/jaeid.20141.140
27. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2022). Advancing a rights-based approach to climate change resilience and migration in the Sahel. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/reports/advancing-rights-based-approach-climate-change-resilience-and-migration-sahel
28. Rocheleau, D., Thomas-Slayter, B., & Wangari, E. (Eds.). (1996). Feminist political ecology: Global issues and local experiences. Routledge.
29. Sakdapolrak, P., Borderon, M., & Sterly, H. (2024). The limits of migration as adaptation. A conceptual approach towards the role of immobility, disconnectedness and simultaneous exposure in translocal livelihoods systems. Climate and Development, 16(2), 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2023.2180318
30. Sheridan, M. J. (2002). An irrigation intake is like a uterus: Culture and agriculture in precolonial North Pare, Tanzania. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 79–92. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.1.79
31. Simpson, N. P., Mach, K. J., Tebboth, M. G. L., Gilmore, E. A., Siders, A. R., Holden, P., Andersen, B., Singh, C., Sabour, S., Stringer, L. C., Sterly, H., Adade Williams, P., Meyer, A. L. S., Cundill, G., Rosengaertner, S., Nunow, A., Amakrane, K., & Trisos, C. H. (2024). Research priorities for climate mobility. One Earth, 7(4), 589-607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.02.002
32. Szaboova, L., Adger, W. N., Safra de Campos, R., Maharjan, A., Sakdapolrak, P., Sterly, H., Conway, D., Codjoe, S. N. A., & Abu, M. (2023). Evaluating migration as successful adaptation to climate change: Trade-offs in well-being, equity, and sustainability. One Earth, 6(6), 620–631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.05.009
33. Tanyag, M. (2018). Resilience, female altruism, and bodily autonomy: Disaster-induced displacement in post-Haiyan Philippines. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(3), 563–585. https://doi.org/10.1086/695318
34. Thornton, F., Serraglio, D. A., & Thornton, A. (2023). Trapped or staying put: Governing immobility in the context of climate change. Frontiers in Climate, 5, Article 1092264. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2023.1092264
35. World Bank. (2020). Climate variability and change in Nigeria: Recommendations for adaptation and mitigation strategies. World Bank Group.
36. World Bank. (2021). Groundswell: Acting on internal climate migration. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1867-1