Environmental Migrants in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exacerbated Vulnerability and the Need for a Human Rights-Based Approach

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly reshaping patterns of human mobility, particularly in regions characterised by high socio-economic vulnerability. Sub-Saharan Africa is disproportionately affected by climate-related stressors — including droughts, desertification, floods, and erratic rainfall — that undermine livelihoods and drive both internal and cross-border displacement. This paper examines environmental migration in Sub-Saharan Africa through a human rights-based approach (HRBA), arguing that migration outcomes are not simply consequences of environmental change but are fundamentally shaped by the interaction between environmental pressures and pre-existing structural inequalities, including poverty, gender inequality, limited resource access, and weak governance. Drawing on qualitative desktop research and two in-depth comparative case studies — women farmers in Northern Nigeria and the Kihamba agroforestry system in Tanzania — the paper illuminates contrasting dynamics of vulnerability and resilience across different socio-ecological contexts. The Northern Nigeria case demonstrates how compounding inequalities in land tenure, credit access, and governance exclusion convert climate stress into forced displacement for women farmers. The Kihamba case illustrates how community-based governance, indigenous ecological knowledge, and women’s recognised agency can build resilience and preserve migration as a choice rather than a necessity. The paper advances a rights-based framework that prioritises protection, inclusion, and preventative adaptation as more just and effective responses to environmental migration in its varied forms, and derives concrete policy recommendations for governments, regional institutions, and international actors working at the intersection of climate, migration, and development in the region.