Environmental Impact Of Refugees And Internally Displaced Persons In Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This workshop on “Climate Change, Environment and Migration” addresses a trio in the development debate that social scientists, not least students of migration, rarely pay attention to. There are three plausible scenarios in the inter-linkages of the trio: climate change affects the environment which consequently sparks out-migration or displacement; environment causes climate change, initiating migration; and migration influences environment, resulting in climate change. The scenarios could be multiplied but these suffice to drive home the point: that the three phenomena have intricate interrelations that are easily comprehensible. In this keynote address, I wish to explore the environmental impact of displaced persons in sub-Saharan Africa(SSA), a region that has seen untold numbers of internally and extra territorially displaced persons often referred to as internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees respectively. It is important to underscore the fact that the inter-linkages of these phenomena have not been researched in the region and that much of the information we are treated to is at best anecdotal. Interpretation of the environmental impact of displaced persons often results in both positive and negative nuances. Indeed, state-of the-art analysis of the environmental impact of population displacement recognizes this ambivalence, but acknowledges unanimity on the fact that “little research has been undertaken on long-term negative impact”, and that “no truly comprehensive or scientific study has ever been carried out” even studies, project documents or related institutions provide information that is either superficial, erratic, exaggerated, or limited with regard to time, sector or geographical area(Bishop and Garnett, 2000: 13). Analysts of forced migrants’ environmental impact represent three schools of thought: negative in some circumstances, positive in others and indeterminate in situations in which other intervening factors are at play. This paper sheds light on environmental impact of displaced persons –refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs)–in selected host SSA countries or communities where they reside pending their return to their habitual residence. The paper draws heavily from several sources of information in SSA, notably research, anecdotal evidence and strategic programmes involving certain key stakeholders. It consists of five sections: clarification of conceptual issues in environment as well as refugees and IDPs; methods employed in assessing forced migrants’ environmental impact; selected cases of displace persons’ environmental impact in particular SSA host countries or communities therein; strategies adopted in responding to both sustainable and unsustainable development resulting from environmental impact; and a conclusion underlining future research to inform policy that shape strategies for factoring displaced persons’ environmental impact in sustainable development.