Governments agree on measures to help migrants fleeing degrading lands

20 August 2018
Story

The plight of people migrating in the context of environmental degradation, climate change impacts and natural disasters as well as potential governance responses to such challenges have received a lot of attention in recent years. The finalization of the text of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in July 2018 represents an important milestone for policymakers and practitioners working on environmental migration matters. In the latest installment of the UNCCD science to policy weblog, Mariam Traore Chazalnoël, a specialist in environmental and climate migration at the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Office to the United Nations in New York, discusses how the agreement addresses the issues of forced migration linked to desertification, land degradation and drought, as well as the importance of GCM for the UNCCD efforts to promote land restoration and sustainable land management as ways to contribute to the global migration governance.