CliMigHealth Workshop at UNU-CRIS

Due to the corona pandemic and its strict measures, this workshop is postponed until further notice.

The theme of CliMigHealth concerns the nexus between climate change, migration and health(care). The international community increasingly acknowledges that apart from conflict and human rights violations, climate change forms an important driver of migration. Not only does it affect agricultural production and income, leading to food insecurity; it also adversely affects health and puts pressure on health care systems in the South, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To escape these adverse effects, migration is often a strategy of last resort. However, it can also form an adaptive health-seeking response. Migration may in turn have implications on health and access to health services of migrants, as well as of their home communities and of those where they migrate to. Yet, SSA’s weak health systems (which are constrained, understaffed, concentrated mainly in urban areas, and unbalanced in terms of appropriate skill-mix), further undermine the needed capacity to respond to climate change risks. An adequate and sustainable response or solution to the adverse human health effects of climate change in SSA requires thus a better understanding of how climate change (or environmental stress in general) impacts human health and health care and how both interact with migration. The consequences of COVID-19 add a new layer of vulnerability on already fragile populations, which might severely impact migration patterns once mobility restrictions are lifted.

Specific programme and its contributors will soon be available.