Data on human mobility in disaster contexts: Where are we and what comes next?

Data and Knowledge Working Group (DKWG), Platform on Disaster Displacement

Assessing the state of data and research on human mobility in the context of disasters, climate change and environmental degradation: Where are we and what comes next?

Virtual marketplace event
Tuesday 24 November 2020

Register here

Data collection on human mobility in the context of disasters, climate change and environmental degradation remains a priority for the international community as the scale of disaster displacement continues to increase. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s (IDMC) 2020 Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) found that new displacements as a result of disasters in 2019 were three times the number of new displacements caused by conflict. With nearly 1,900 disasters that triggered 24.9 million new displacements across 140 countries and territories in 2019; these are the highest figures that have been recorded since 2012.

While academia, governments and international organisations continue to make positive strides towards improving data on disaster displacement, data and knowledge gaps persist. In light of this, the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and IDMC continue to prioritise addressing these gaps and challenges. This long-standing commitment is embodied in the Data and Knowledge Working Group (DKWG), established in 2017 within the Advisory Committee of the PDD and co-chaired by IOM and IDMC. To date the working group has hosted an expert meeting and met three times with the aim to strengthen coordination and the capacity of data collection and information systems at the global, regional and national levels to collect, monitor and analyse data on disaster displacement and other types of human mobility in such contexts.

The DKWG will host a virtual marketplace event on 24 November 2020 to take stock of progress and achievements, facilitate knowledge exchange, and continue promoting the work around data and knowledge on disaster displacement, to discuss continuing gaps and challenges.

The event will take the form of three different virtual sessions. Attendance and participation to the marketplace is open to everyone but registration in advance is required. The meeting will take place in a virtual environment and access instructions will be provided to participants along with their registration.

 

Programme

09:00-10:00 (CET) - Session 1 

• Daniel Salmon, DTM/IOM Vanuatu - "Pacific Response to Disaster Displacement: Supporting Data Drive Humanitarian Responses in Vanuatu Following TC Harold"
• Susanne Melde, GMDAC/IOM - "Regional Dialogue to Address Human Mobility and Climate Change Adaptation in the Eastern Carribean"
• Julia Blocher and Kira Vinke, PIK - "Home Lands: Island and Archipelagic States' Policymaking for Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change"
• John Marazita, University of Geneva - "Compounding Displacement: the Tropical Storm-King Tide Nexus"

Group Discussion moderated by Bina Desai, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)

 

14:00-15:30 (CET) - Session 2

• Caroline Zickgraf, Hugo Observatory - "The Habitable Project: Linking Climate Change, Habitability and Social Tipping Points"
• Susana Adamo, CIESIN - "Migration, the COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate in Central America's Northern Triangle"
• Ezekiel Simperingham, IFRC - "Forecast-Based Financing and Disaster Displacement: Acting Early to Minimize the Risks of Displacement"
• Damien Jusselme, DTM/IOM RO Dakar - "The IOM's Transhumance Tracking Tool"
• Sylvain Ponserre, IDMC - "Estimating the Disaster Displacement Stock"

Group Discussion moderated by Muhammad Rizki, DTM/IOM

 

16:00-17:30 (CET) - Session 3

• Andrew Harper and Eric Bonet, UNHCR - "Sahel Predictive Analytics"
• Kanta Kumari Rigaud, World Bank - "The Groundswell Model Version 2: Enhancements for Recent Work in Africa"
• Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN - "Novel and Big Data Approaches to Identifying Disaster Displacement"
• Robin Bronen, AIJ - "Decolonizing Data Collection and Research"
• Sanjula Weerasinghe, Georgetown University, and Erica Bower, Stanford University - "Improving the Evidence Base on Planned Relocation"

Group Discussion moderated by Atle Solberg, PDD Secretariat