Climate Change and Disaster Related Migration

Internal migration and displacement in Mongolia are increasingly shaped by a diverse combination of environmental factors often linked to climate change. These factors can have a slow onset, like the deterioration of pastoral and grazing land, or rapid onsets, in the case of winter dzuds. Short term circular migration has been part of the Mongolian traditional nomadic lifestyle for many centuries, and herding, which makes up around 10 percent of the Mongolian GDP and 25 percent of the employment, requires constant seasonal movement. There are around 8,000 households moving in otor seasonally, looking for greener pastures for their livestock. In the last two decades, Mongolia has experienced an increased occurrence of sudden natural disasters, such as droughts, floods and dzuds. In 2020, due to the combination of dzud and the COVID-19 pandemic, some communities have been affected by harsh weather and, at the same time, COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

All of these environmental phenomena have a negative impact on the development of Mongolia, causing huge development gaps and increasing discrepancies between rural and urban Mongolia. Rural areas have a low resilience to slow on-set and sudden climate disasters, especially due to the lack of infrastructure and services. Most of the people in the countryside rely on herding as their main source of income, and disruption of soil, grazing land and other natural resources have a disproportional impact on them. The overall effect of climate change-induced disasters on the lives of herders is increasing and causing climate-induced displacement. Another way to look at it is not just the impact – as the preferred coping strategy for the people in the countryside in response to disaster is migration.

Within this mandate, IOM supports States’ efforts to implement the priorities of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction by preventing and addressing disaster-related population movements and by harnessing the value that mobility can bring to reducing risk and building resilience to multi-hazard risk.

IOM programming includes assistance to countries to develop or update national and local Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) policies and strategies that integrate human mobility considerations. In communities facing high-risk of disasters and displacement, the Organization supports hazard and vulnerability analysis, community-based disaster risk management, livelihoods' diversification strategies and community early warning and preparedness systems to prevent risk and enable more effective response. IOM also provides policy and operational support to countries needed.