Climate change affects the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events, alters precipitation patterns, disrupts ecological systems, and causes temperatures and sea levels to rise. These changes in turn exacerbate economic, socio-cultural, and ecological inequities, and contribute to hunger, poverty, malnutrition, displacement, fragility, and increased mortality.

Strengthen local governance and inclusive approaches that empower and increase the resilience of populations most vulnerable to climate impacts, including migrants.

Climate change threatens to drive increases in maternal and child malnutrition, is an increasing threat to national security, and contributes to migration, displacement and increased pressure on scarce government resources.

Marginalized and underrepresented populations may include, but are not limited to, women and girls, ethnic and racial groups, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, displaced persons, migrants.

Under this IR, USAID will strengthen the coherence of policy and programming across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding actions to address humanitarian needs, including those of displaced populations, reduce future climate risks, and tackle the systemic causes of climate vulnerability that are rooted in inequity.

Climate Change-Related Migration. Climate-related migration, both within and across national borders, is occurring already and is projected to increase substantially over time as the impacts of the climate crisis unfold. In some cases, migration can be seen as an adaptation strategy, but in others cases it amounts to forced displacement in the face of lifethreatening risks. USAID recognizes that conceptualizing climate-related migration requires substantial nuance and consideration of how climate interacts with other migration drivers, including political, social, and economic factors. USAID helps displaced populations and migrants and supports them when possible through humanitarian and development assistance. Moving forward, USAID will increase its focus on support for those already facing climate impacts, including those who choose or are forced to migrate in response to climate change and all the complex impacts it has on individuals and societies. Further, USAID will increase its research and analytics to better understand links among climate change, mobility and other migration drivers and enable programming responses for various contexts. Assistance is not tracked against “climate” migration, as it is currently difficult to classify people as “climate migrants” given that they generally migrate for a number of reasons.