In Africa, by 2050 between 70 and 88 million people are forecast to be on the move within their home countries due to climate impacts. Reports estimate that climate change could result thousands of African migrants. What is certain is that climate change will create “climate refugees” in Africa. But it is not the main reason for migration in the continent. In Africa, by 2050 between 70 and 88 million people are forecast to be on the move within their home countries due to climate impacts. The vast, vast majority of the displaced will either remain in their own countries as IDPs, or move to neighboring countries, while very few move towards Europe. Interview with Alexander Kjaerum, expert on migration and asylum in Africa:

In Africa, by 2050 between 70 and 88 million people are forecast to be on the move within their home countries due to climate impacts

Reports estimate that climate change could result in more than 700 million Africans. Do you dispute these figures?

The figure is based on a misunderstanding or mis-referencing. The origin of the 700 million is a 2007 Christian Aid report. The scenario is 2050 and not 2030. Its global and not related to Africa. And the 700 million is based among other on 645 million being displaced due to “development projects” – unrelated to climate change.

The misunderstanding is probably because the UNCCD published a factsheet in 2012 where they wrote: “With the existing climate change scenario, almost half the world’s population will be living in areas of high water stress by 2030, including between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa.

In addition, water scarcity in some arid and semi-arid places will displace between 24 million and 700 million people”. In later iterations, these two sentences have been combined into one, which seems to have created the confusion that water scarcity would displaced 700 million in Africa by 2030.

Even if the origin and intention of the number was never to forecast the impact of climate change on displacement in Africa, it could of course still end up being correct. But given that climate change displaced around 20-24 million people annually on a global basis, it is difficult to see this forecast materializing in reality.

The other question is what do you mean by 700 million people displaced by 2030? Will 700 million be displaced that particular year? If not and this is an accumulated number then we need to know the start date; is it 700 million in the history of mankind? Last 10 years? From now? This number has been used since 2012 by many UN agencies without anyone actually clarifying what they mean with this number.

Do you think that inter-African migration (of all types) will increase in the coming years? For what main reasons?

In my work I focus on forced displacement i.e. asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced persons.

We have developed a machine learning model that can accurately predict the number of displaced people for the coming years. And here we are forecasting significant increases in the number of people displaced in West- and East Africa.

The vast, vast majority of the displaced will either remain in their own countries as IDPs, or move to neighboring countries, while very few move towards Europe. We forecast that the number of displaced in West Africa will increase by 1 million people from end-2022 to end-2024 and in East Africa it will increase by 2 million people.

On top of this we will likely continue to see significant displacement and migration due to climate change, but much of this is expected to be within countries from rural to urban areas.

At the same time its important to recognize that in many instances, climate change can also lead to involuntary immobility as people’s resources needed to migrate is being eroded due to loss of livelihoods.

The African Union’s Migration Observatory has suggested that more than 90% of migration movements are inter-African. Would you agree?

In Africa, by 2050 between 70 and 88 million people are forecast to be on the move within their home countries due to climate impacts

I think all evidence point in that direction and maybe even to a larger extent than 90%.

The recently published Africa Shifts report suggests that by 2050 between 70 and 88 million people are forecast to be on the move within their home countries due to climate impacts, while only 1.2 million are expected to migrate across borders.

So this really underscores the fact that climate change is not likely to drive major cross-border migration in Africa.

Alexander Kjaerum

Alexander Kjaerum is a Global Advisor, Senior Analyst with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC). In this capacity he is responsible for supporting the organization and country operations with making better and smarter use of data and analysis for strategic planning, programming and advocacy. This includes exploring the potential of using predictive analytics and big data to improve humanitarian protection outcomes and leading the flagship Foresight project.