The new IFRC report highlights concrete ways National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — and others in impacted communities — help people prepare and adapt to climate change, so they can stay safe in their homes or move safely and with dignity on their own terms.
As floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves become more frequent and intense, the number of people in Africa uprooted from their homes by climate-related disasters has increased.
These climate pressures do not exist in isolation, they often intersect with other risks such as conflict, economic instability, and food insecurity, compounding existing vulnerabilities and making it even harder for communities to recover and rebuild.
In most cases, people have been left with little choice. As they watch the floodwaters rise, or the parched earth crack under their feet, they are left with few options: leave now and find safety elsewhere, or stay and risk losing your home, livelihood, health or, in the worst cases, your life.
A new report from the IFRC, however, suggests there are many ways to work with people so they can avoid having to make such dire, life-altering decisions. And if such a choice is necessary, there are also ways to ensure that people and communities are prepared so they can move safely and with dignity, the report concludes.
Entitled ‘Forced to Flee in a Changing Climate‘, the report also stresses the urgent need for political leaders, policy makers, donors and international and regional organizations to do more to support local actors that work directly with communities facing these challenges. (An executive summary of the report can be found here).
“This report is a call to action, to invest in local solutions, empower communities, and ensure that no one is left behind when the next flood, drought, or storm hits.”Charles Businge, IFRC regional director for Africa
Indeed, the need for action is urgent.
In 2024, 7.8 million disaster displacements were recorded in Africa, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. That’s 1.8 million more than the six million disaster displacements recorded in 2023. (Note: These figures refer to displacements not people, because some people were forced to move more than once).
“Over the past 60 years, Africa’s warming trend has exceeded the global average,” the report notes, citing measurements reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Recent years have seen heatwaves, heavy rains, floods, storms, cyclones and prolonged droughts.”
Rising temperatures and more extreme rains, flooding, heatwaves and storms are expected to continue to drive even higher levels of displacement.
A reason for hope: concrete actions in the community
However, the report also offers a wide range of practical tools and solutions, along with many reasons for hope.
The report features 30 case studies from 15 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Africa that are already working across mutiple areas–identifying and reducing risks and promoting adaptation, preparing and acting early to reduce needs, providing assistance and protection, and promoting resilient recovery–to address and reduce the risks of climate displacement.
“Locally led and collective action can help people to adapt, move to safer areas, and recover and rebuild with dignity,” the report concludes.
“Across Africa, too many people are being pushed to the edge by climate change, forced to flee their homes not because they want to, but because they have no other choice,” noted IFRC regional director for Africa Charles Businge. “This is not inevitable. With the right support, communities can prepare, adapt, and make informed decisions about their future.“
“This report is a call to action, to invest in local solutions, empower communities, and ensure that no one is left behind when the next flood, drought, or storm hits.”
Five key ways to provide better options
Here are five ways Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies empower communities and expand their choices in the face of climate change:
- Identifying risks through community-led risk assessments
The impacts of climate change and disasters affect people differently. To better understand their risks, including their risk of displacement, local actors are working with communities to map hazards and conduct community-led risk assessments. This allows them to plan and prepare ahead of potential disasters and better adapt to the impacts of a changing climate.
The South African Red Cross, for example, has played a key role in collecting local data through emergency needs assessments in anticipation of potential flooding. This allows them to evaluate the priority needs of displaced communities and inform their response.
- Strengthening adaptation and promoting resilience to climate change impacts
Climate change is impacting people’s access to existing services, threatening their livelihoods, and undermining health. Local actors help communities strengthen ecosystems and put in place nature-based solutions. Local actors can strengthen people’s access to social protection systems and help people protect their assets in ways that are climate-smart and climate-resilient. This can provide people with more options to diversify their livelihoods, find new ways to adapt, and stay in their homes, if they choose to.
In Niger, for example, the Red Cross helps distribute drought-resilient seeds and it restocks cereal banks to reduce humanitarian needs when disasters arise. The Somali Red Crescent implements micro-economic initiatives to support local markets in the face of ongoing droughts and food insecurity. Read more about the impacts of drought in Somalia.
- Acting early and preparing ahead of disasters
Early warnings, early actions, and preparedness measures–such as mapping evacuation shelters and routes–help people who have to move do so more safely. In Mozambique, the Red Cross is working in places where displaced people live to strengthen early warnings ahead of disasters, including communities with people already displaced by earlier storms or crises.
Communities like these are often the most heavily impacted by climate events but they lack sufficient systems for early warning and disaster preparedness. In Malawi, the Red Cross shares information about evacuation options in real time at the community level before the disaster strikes, so people move out of harm’s way and make informed choices before disasters strike.
- Providing people who are displaced with assistance and protection
Displacement cannot always be avoided. When it happens, local actors are often the first to respond, providing essential services to people in need – like food, water, shelter, and other relief items to address other basic needs. Local actors are also working to ensure their responses are protection sensitive. In these moments of chaos or crisis, the specific protection needs of in vulnerable groups such as women, children, older persons, and people with disabilities, are heightened.
The Chad Red Cross addresses the humanitarian needs of flood-displaced communities, working to ensure volunteers and staff are trained to strengthen inclusive, safe, protection-sensitive approaches. In The Gambia, the Red Cross assists people displaced by floods in urban settings to better manage and store excess water.
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- Supporting resilient recovery and longer-term assistance long after disasters end
When people are forced to flee their homes, they may go back to their original homes, stay in the places they sought safety, move to new locations to rebuild, or remain longer term in displacement settings because they have no other options. In all these contexts, local actors are helping people recover and integrate where they can. They are working to ensure that in the future, people’s risk of displacement is lessened, for example by helping them rebuild their homes in a way that is more resilient. Where people remain in displacement camps or settlements, local actors are working to reduce their risks of future displacement, including them in risk reduction measures, for example.
The Ethiopian Red Cross provides displaced households in camp settings, at risk of drought impacts with essential services, using mobile clinics for health services, and providing cash and voucher assistance, shelter support and livelihood opportunities.
To learn more:
Read or download the report
Read or download the executive summary of the report
More articles and reports about climate displacement in Africa:
IDMC, Global Report on Internal Displacement: Africa
Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report: Africa
El Nino expected to make Malawi’s lean season even leaner
World Hunger Day 2025: Drought driving hunger and desperation in the Horn of Africa
Read the original article on IFRC.
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