By: Nyima Sillah
Stakeholders on Friday met at the conference hall of ActionAid The Gambia (AATG) to validate the findings of a joint research that AATG and ActionAid Italy conducted on the nexus between climate change and irregular migration from The Gambia.
The exercise, dubbed Climate Mobility research, was conducted by an international consultant Chris Horwood, and two local consultants Dr. Ismaila Ceesay and Dr. Demba Baldeh.
The Gambia’s carbon footprint is relatively negligible as the country’s greenhouse emissions rate is just less than 0.01%.
However, the country is on the frontline of climate-induced migration as thousands of Gambians, especially youth migrated to the EU in the last decade or so to escape the climate-change-triggered devastations in their country.
The Gambia has been bearing the brunt of climate disasters such as floods, windstorms, and long dry spells.
Climate change has also been exacerbating rural-urban drift in the country.
These variables formed the basis of this research.
The Executive Director of ActionAid the Gambia, Mrs. Ndella Faye-Colley, says in her opening remarks that The Gambia is one of the most vulnerable countries in a very vulnerable continent to high levels of irregular movement and the destruction of assets and livelihoods by quick-onset disasters and longer-term climate impacts.
“There is an absence of a deeper analysis of the links between existing trends of internal and international migration and the growing impacts of climate change and environmental degradation. cognizant of the absence of the analysis, ActionAid International the Gambia and ActionAid Italy collaborated and conducted climate mobility research which we are now about to validate with your technical review and inputs,” said AATG boss.
“ActionAid believes that migration is an old-age phenomenon that all people have a right to experience if they choose to but it should be done through acceptable rules and regulations that do not jeopardize their lives,” she stated.
“Therefore, given the negative experience of irregular migration and the effects of climate change, all stakeholders are obliged to investigate and have a deeper understanding of the various connecting factors to better inform our community and national intervention, so that they are more sustainable, scalable and impactful,” she added.
For more on the research findings, see our subsequent publication.
