It’s Time for Solutions! Addressing Displacement and Other Human Mobility Challenges in the Context of Climate Change Loss and Damage

This brief advocates for a ‘durable solutions’ approach within the UNFCCC to averting, minimising and addressing displacement in the context of climate change. With the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) now operationalised and the UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage landscape taking shape, this piece discusses how ‘durable solutions’ can serve to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with displacement.
Published on November 1, 2024
Loss and Damage and the Challenges of Human Mobility and Displacement Working Group and the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility | idrp, IDPs, Disaster, Climate, United Nations

Displacement has been described by Walter Kälin as “the human face of loss and damage”, profoundly affecting human rights, well-being and development, particularly in climate vulnerable countries with limited resources to address its impacts. With the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) now operationalised and the UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage landscape taking shape, ‘durable solutions’ approaches can provide a vital means for identifying entry points for addressing loss and damage. Relatedly, addressing the losses and damages associated with displacement and other mobility challenges is vital to the achievement of ‘durable solutions’.  This brief highlights the specific actions that the Fund for Addressing Loss and Damage and other UNFCCC stakeholder bodies, expert groups and organisations should take to support, prioritise and mainstream ‘durable solutions approaches’ into policy and practice. The brief also spotlights the critical COP 29 actions and decisions required for ‘solutions’.

This advocacy brief is co-published by the Loss and Damage Collaboration and Researching Internal Displacement. It can also be found also on the Loss and Damage Collaboration webpage.

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This advocacy brief was developed by the Loss and Damage and the Challenges of Human Mobility and Displacement Working Group and the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility. Both groups are coalitions of practitioners, researchers, lawyers and activists working on human mobility at local, national and global levels.

 

Image Credits

Cover image: Cholistan, Punjab, Pakistan-September, 8, 2018. A man with his solar panel charges his mobile phone in a remote area of Cholistan Desert. Image credit: Farhan Riaz / Shutterstock.

Loss and Damage Collaboration logo: Sundarbans web, by the European Space Agency, Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016), processed by ESA, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

 

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE

Researching Internal Displacement publishes engaging and insightful short pieces of writing, artistic and research outputs, policy briefings and think pieces on internal displacement.

We welcome contributions from academics, practitioners, researchers, officials, artists, poets, writers, musicians, dancers, postgraduate students and people affected by internal displacement.

By Corrie Sissons | Mar 5, 2026
This article explores how Market-Based Approaches can support internally displaced people by providing essential goods and food security, as well as strengthening social networks, relationships, and trust in their places of displacement. Focused on Sudan, which currently has the world's largest internal displacement crisis, this article provides evidence that Market-Based Programming (MBP) is suitable in adverse contexts. Markets often recover and resume operations before humanitarian agencies can reach affected communities. This resilience enables interventions such as supporting key businesses, using financial service providers for cash assistance, and supporting community-based mutual aid and agricultural markets. When well-managed and intentional, MBP dispels the stereotype that displaced populations are a burden on local economies. MBP not only meets the immediate needs of IDPs with speed and dignity but also supports local economies, fosters social integration, and lays the groundwork for long-term resilience and recovery amid profound uncertainty.
By Charlotte DuBois and Christopher Belden | Feb 18, 2026
This short article spotlights the dire healthcare access challenges faced by internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia, home to the world's second-largest population of IDPs. Widespread violence among armed groups has forced people in many parts of the country to flee their homes, either preemptively or in the midst of ongoing conflicts. The injustices faced by IDPs, however, don't end there. Due to continuing violence, controls on communities instigated by armed groups, and discrimination against IDPs in urban and other locations of resettlement, IDPs face severe challenges accessing healthcare. While humanitarian organizations can provide limited health services in some regions of the country, many IDPs in Colombia remain without access to healthcare. The article argues that the government must do much more to intervene in the conflicts to provide access to health and other services and end widespread discrimination against IDPs.
By Walter Kälin | Feb 12, 2026
This timely article by one of the world's leading experts on internal displacement highlights the growing crisis of climate-related internal displacement, which is unfolding against the backdrop of drastic funding cuts and humanity's apparent failure to adequately mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Arguing that the world is ill-prepared to address the crisis, including the severe challenges faced by populations living in protracted displacement, the author outlines a bold strategy for change. The blog calls on all stakeholders to acknowledge the severity of loss and damage related to displacement and prioritise durable solutions programming. It also highlights the systemic and financial changes required, including the need to make the still-elusive 'humanitarian-development nexus' a reality. Ultimately, the author makes separate but related recommendations to the United Nations, country donors and affected countries on how, through collaborative multi-year programming, the process of loss associated with displacement can be reversed and deliver sustainable improvements for affected populations.