Decent Rural Employment

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Addressing challenges and opportunities at the heart of the climate change, migration, and rural livelihoods nexus

Local women gathered at a pool in Mucheni, Zimbabwe.

©Brent Stirton/Getty Images for FAO

Project's full title	Addressing challenges and opportunities at the heart of the climate change, migration, and rural livelihoods nexus
Introduction	Rural areas are at higher risk of climate-induced migration, as is the case for Zimbabwe and other countries in Southern Africa. Through this project, FAO contributed to addressing the policy and programmatic gap, generating knowledge and strengthening capacities to ultimately address the root causes of climate-induced mobility while harnessing the contribution of migration as adaptation.
Country	Zimbabwe
Start date	01/01/2021
End date	31/12/2022
Status	Closed
Recipient / Target Areas	Zimbabwe
Objective / Goal	Rural areas are at higher risk of climate-induced migration, as is the case for Zimbabwe and other countries in Southern Africa. Despite increased evidence of climate-induced migration and its relevance for rural areas, policy coherence and coordination across sectors are still lacking. This limits the adoption of comprehensive approaches to climate mobility that can tackle the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of climate change, migration and rural livelihoods. Through this project, FAO contributed to addressing the policy and programmatic gap, generating knowledge and strengthening capacities to ultimately address the root causes of climate-induced mobility while harnessing the contribution of migration as adaptation.
Partners	Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development Institute, University of Zimbabwe; and Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University.
Beneficiaries	Rural households affected by climate change-induced migration globally, in Southern Africa and in Zimbabwe; representatives of government ministries responsible for agriculture, climate change and migration; and other relevant stakeholders from academia and civil society.
Activities	The project generated knowledge, raised awareness, and enhanced multi-stakeholder capacities on climate change, human mobility and rural livelihoods. Activities included: Knowledge generation on the relationship between climate change, rural livelihoods and migration through an empirical study undertaken in four provinces in Zimbabwe; Extensive policy mapping in Zimbabwe consisting of a comprehensive analysis of relevant climate, environmental, agricultural and rural development plans, policies and legal frameworks; A workshop in Zimbabwe with national and local actors in migration, agriculture and climate change sectors, initiating for the first time in the country an intersectoral policy dialogue on these topics and raising awareness on the intersecting issues; The sub-regional workshop "Climate change, migration and displacement in Southern Africa," which brought together migration, agriculture and climate stakeholders from ten countries in the region to share knowledge and good practices and discuss intraregional cooperation on climate mobility; A toolkit on Integrating human mobility into National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions from a rural livelihood perspective; The development of an e-learning course on Migration and climate change; A series of awareness raising, advocacy and outreach activities that brought greater attention to food security and rural livelihoods in global discussions on climate change and human mobility.
Impact	The project reached 1 591 stakeholders with capacity development activities and thousands more through awareness raising and advocacy. The products that were developed have contributed to addressing knowledge gaps and supporting policymaking.