Anticipatory action is an essential tool to prepare communities for increasingly severe climate change-related disasters, however, these efforts can be complicated by dynamic shifts or fragility from other sources within communities. Sandra Ruckstuhl, a Senior Researcher at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and co-lead of the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration, and colleagues recently published a working paper that highlights the particular difficulties of implementing anticipatory action in communities hosting refugees and refugee camps. They hope that their research will contribute to the development of a replicable and scalable mixed methods model known as the Integrated Host Community Vulnerability Framework that will inform future anticipatory action community efforts.
According to the UNHCR, as of 2023 more than 21.5 million people have been displaced globally by weather-related events and become either refugees or internally displaced people (IDPs). However, an area of research that needs further exploration is how these already displaced people can adapt to continuing climate threats and how to formulate anticipatory action plans with their needs in mind.
Displaced people are more likely to be secondarily displaced by disasters than people who were never displaced before. This phenomenon is a result of the hazard-prone locations where many refugee camps are located as well as individual factors such as limited assets. Although the refugee camps are commonly viewed as short-term solutions, refugees and IDPs often end up in these for years. Some estimates place the average time spent in a refugee camp as high as 10 to 26 years.
Host community fragility
The working paper finds that host communities can be complex environments for implementing anticipatory action, as they already house residents, including refugees. Host communities located close to fragile or conflict-affected areas are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events.
These communities also often face many stressors including rapid population growth, demographic pressure, higher demand on limited resources, environmental degradation, legal difficulties for displaced people and conflict between the host communities and displaced persons. As such, governments often find it challenging to balance the needs of the existing host communities while also ensuring the rights of refugees, particularly during disasters.
The Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar District
The case study of Cox’s Bazar District in Bangladesh demonstrates that implementing anticipatory action plans can help refugees and IDPs in emergency events. The Cox’s Bazar District hosts the Kutupalong Refugee Settlement, which houses almost one million Rohingya refugees from the neighboring country of Myanmar.
The Rohingya refugees were initially located near urbanized hilly communities, where predominantly poor and landless people had settled in the foothill areas. The land eventually allocated for refugee camps was hastily prepared through deforestation and hill cutting. As a result of these hasty preparations, both refugees and host communities are highly vulnerable to many disasters such as landslides, cyclones, flash floods and communicable disease outbreaks.
Bangladesh has a high level of vulnerability to climate disasters. Earlier this year, the country experienced devastating floods during monsoon season. During Cyclone Amphan in 2020, the Inter-Sectoral Coordination Group and humanitarian actors activated their preparedness measures including the Rohingya Cyclone Preparedness Programme. This plan had volunteers provide early warnings, receive emergency food supplies, move health teams to safe locations, and prepare the evacuation of COVID patients. Research shows that Rohingya refugees who accessed and interpreted these early warning messages were able to increase the survival rate of their shelters by using tie-down kits.
Assessing water and climate-vulnerabilities for refugees
As co-leader of CGIAR’s FCM initiative, IWMI’s research explores how anticipatory action can be utilized to build refugee hosting communities’ resilience to climate-related challenges. Under this initiative, IWMI is working with the Pakistani government to examine the complex challenges faced by climate migrants and host communities with a focus on gender equality and social inclusion considerations. The team is using IWMI’s technical expertise to examine impacts on food, land, and water systems and how that affects the economic, health, and environmental sectors. The IWMI researchers hope that their findings will contribute to the development of new government policies for risk reduction and ultimately develop a nuanced anticipatory action framework that can be implemented across the country.
Further research
The IWMI working paper also noted several current gaps in research and policy surrounding anticipatory action in host communities. They found that for anticipatory action to be more sustainable and efficient, there must be more established institutions around it, host communities and refugees. For host governments to make more informed decisions in emergencies, research should be conducted in different settings, such as urban vs. rural, and in various types of emergencies.
As the climate crisis intensifies, the number of refugees and IDPs will only continue to increase. To reduce its impact on already vulnerable populations, it is essential that governments and other humanitarian workers work towards developing anticipatory action plans that account for the issues that refugees and host communities face.
Find out more about anticipatory action, refugees, and possibilities for further research by reading the full working paper, “Anticipatory Action in Communities Hosting Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: An Assessment of Current Approaches” or listening to our recent podcast with Global Dispatches, “How can acting before crises reduce impacts on the most vulnerable?“