Climate Change, Migration & Conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan

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CHAPTERS 

[00:01:40]: Climate hazards in Pakistan, including floods, droughts, and extreme heat 

[00:03:00]: Environmental pressures and livelihoods in Afghanistan 

[00:05:18]: Governance, infrastructure, and factors shaping vulnerability 

[00:06:30]: The interaction between conflict and climate-related displacement in Afghanistan 

[00:10:18]: Afghan refugees in Pakistan and exposure to climate-related risks 

[00:11:00]: Policy frameworks on climate and migration: progress and implementation challenges 

[00:16:42]: Returns to Afghanistan and implications for vulnerability and reintegration

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00.06] 

Parts of South Asia have some of the highest numbers of forcibly displaced people worldwide. Afghanistan is one of the world's largest refugee origin countries. Due to the long civil war there and the Taliban's resurgence in 2021, there are about five and a half million Afghan refugees worldwide, with the vast majority in neighboring Iran and Pakistan. Meanwhile, another 4 million people are internally displaced within Afghanistan. But these countries are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and natural disasters. Hit hard in 2022, massive floods in Pakistan submerged a third of the country and displaced about 8 million people. Those kinds of disasters fall on refugees and natives alike. In some cases, the conflict in Afghanistan has exacerbated the impact of droughts and floods in that country and across the region. When climate challenges come on top of conflict, more people are left vulnerable and are likely to flee. This is Changing Climate, Changing Migration. This is a podcast produced by the Migration Policy Institute that helps make sense of how climate change and migration intersect. My name is Julian Hattem. I'm your host and the editor of MPI's online magazine, the Migration Information Source.

[00:01:18.01] 

To walk me through some of the dynamics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I'm speaking today with the researchers Nasrat Sayed and Maryam Abbasi, who have spent a lot of time focusing on these countries and the interaction between climate change and migration there. Thank you two so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm thrilled to have you.

[00:01:35.03] 

Thank you for having us.

[00:01:36.12] 

Thanks so much, Julian.

[00:01:37.17] 

Let's, let's start out by getting a lay of the land, so to speak. What are the major environmental threats that people are facing in this part of the world? Is it drought or floods or what? And how are those disasters displacing people or causing them to migrate in Pakistan?

[00:01:52.10] 

While there are like two sorts of major categories when it comes to like internal displacement and in very few cases it's international migration too. One is slow onset events and fast onset events. And it does include of course lots of event has to do with flooding, a glacial lake, outburst floods in the northern area of Pakistan. Land sliding too. A lot of landsliding is affecting people to migrate in Gilgit, Baltistan and surrounding areas and sea level rise in areas of Karachi and around those areas and drought in areas of Sindh which is affecting quite a long time now. And another emerging from from past few years is heat wave. It is causing people to migrate and every year it's like maximum temperature is like 55 degrees Celsius in Pakistan. It has been observed in like few areas for example, Jacobabad. And temperatures are really high in Armenia too. So that forces people to migrate from one place to another place and we can dive into like later on that those are like either temporary migration. In some cases it's permanently displacing people.

[00:02:56.13] 

Is it similar in Afghanistan, Nusrat, or is it different situation?

[00:02:59.14] 

Yeah, in the context of Afghanistan. Yeah, to some extent, yeah, similar. But also there are some differences. For example, in the case of Afghanistan, the major environmental threats include water scarcity, droughts, floods, for example, in eastern or northern regions of Afghanistan. And also there are harsh winter in some provinces in Afghanistan as rising temperature. So and also earthquake. For example, in 2022 in Paktika Province there was an earthquake and some people lost their lives. Yeah. So these environmental issues, they have caused displacement in Afghanistan. People migrate from one place to another place because Afghanistan is an agriculture dependent country. So these issues affect the agriculture, they affect their income. So to survive they want to migrate and leave their places of origin from one part of the country to another part of the country. But there are also some cases of international migration or cross border migration and that includes mostly towards Iran and Pakistan, so. Yeah, but most of these kind of, you know, climate induced migrants are internal and within Afghanistan.

[00:04:11.03] 

And you mentioned the kind of high degree of reliant reliance on agriculture, which kind of leads me to my next question, which is like to what degree these countries are vulnerable to particular climate related impacts above and beyond the fact that the impacts occur. Right. I mean, it seems to be the case that many people in Afghanistan rely on agriculture, live in rural areas. There's also lots of population growth. Right.

[00:04:32.06] 

Is there also infrastructure? I mean, what are the other factors that go into this above and beyond the fact that climate change and climate impacts exist? You can start with Afghanistan and then go to Pakistan.

[00:04:41.19] 

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's a good point. In the context of Afghanistan, for example, it's not only the climate change itself, but there are other factors. For example, the geographical location of Afghanistan because Afghanistan has the arid and semi arid climate. And also there is low annual rainfall. And also there is weak governance in Afghanistan which has also, you know, affected the overall situation and also poor water management in the country. So these are some other factors in addition to climate change impacts or the threats that I mentioned earlier.

[00:05:15.07] 

Yeah. With the context of Pakistan, I would say governance is a major challenge in Pakistan because we have 18th amendment to the constitution of Pakistan a decade ago, more than a decade ago now. And that has given the power to have more power to provinces related to environment in addition to other areas as well. And that kind of gives more responsibility to provinces instead of federal government to work on environment related issues. Still, there is like policy gaps related to climate change and migration, environmental issues, and institutional infrastructure is not so strong in every province to say so. And another big issue is of course, capacity building, human resources. You would see another issue in Pakistan because in every institution there are very less people to deal with these crises. The biggest issue after governance is the funding issue from international and partners because Pakistan is repetitively hit by flood even in 2022. And now we are facing and experiencing, and there is a danger of scarcity this summer, water scarcity in Pakistan, because we received very less rainfall this winter. So that combines and multiplies the issue when it comes to these, this crisis.

[00:06:30.14] 

And we haven't yet mentioned conflict, war, which I think sadly is recurring features, particularly in Afghanistan, which has faced, you know, a series of wars for multiple decades, including the Soviet invasions in the 1970s and 1980s, the more recent US led invasion, and then the Taliban's return to power in 2021. I guess how does, how does conflict fit into this mix of, you know, conflict and environmental issues, particularly in Afghanistan. But then also there are many refugees and forcibly displaced people from Afghanistan in Pakistan who are also affected by, for instance, those 2022 floods, I think had a major impact on Afghan refugees in Pakistan. I guess. What? Yeah, I mean, I guess. Nasrat, can you talk about the role of conflict with combining with these other things in Afghanistan? And then we can turn to Miriam about what the ramifications are that from Pakistan as well.

[00:07:16.17] 

Yes, conflict had a role, unfortunately, because of the conflict in decades of war, as you mentioned, irrigation systems were damaged or devastated in the country especially. Yeah, the physical infrastructure was destroyed at large extent. So these distractions and damages, you know, also contributed negatively forcing people, you know, to migrate and also affected rural people to stay in their place of origin. Because when there is no physical infrastructure, when there is irrigation system is affected, then people do not stay there for the agricultural purposes. So that's why they leave their place of origin and they migrate either internally or internationally. So yes, conflict unfortunately had a role in this situation.

[00:08:04.24] 

When it comes to conflict, the research so far in Pakistan is very minimal and the literature tells so far that, you know, the conflict I have read and viewed is in terms of natural resources. You know, so when people migrate from one place to another place, there is competition of resources among the migrants and the people who are already living here in destination areas. So that kind of puts Pressure on environmental sources, e.g. water and job market and of course the salaries and the labor market. That kind of changes because most of the people who migrate from one place to another place, they don't have like a lot of skill set and they end up doing like labor work in, in the destination area. So that kind of creates conflicts at small levels in Pakistan too. But there's not enough literature to claim like bigger numbers.

[00:08:55.08] 

It is true too that kind of Afghan refugees displaced for whatever reason, including by war, are some of the people particularly impacted in Pakistan because presumably they have lost money of their possessions, their capacity to respond, that they arrive in Pakistan and then other environmental impacts impact them. That is also a case. Right. Can you talk about the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, what kind of impact they have or how they are impacted rather?

[00:09:18.04] 

Yeah, probably Nasrat would have more insight on that because I haven't really honestly explored that Afghani migrants in Pakistan area. But I have observed when I was growing up, because I was quite young when this mass migration happened to Pakistan. And what I observed is that with the migration of migrants, I'm sure they face like lots of hardships, like every in general migrant or environmental migrant phase. And that is applicable to all the migrants, I believe. But what I have observed that with, with this penetration there was huge challenge to the Pakistani government and institutions related to waste management issues. And that contributed to urban flooding a lot because most of the Afghanis also settled on, on waterways which were naturally in the city plans. For example, around Islamabad. I have seen, because that's the place I surrounding it, that's the place I lived and observed. So I observed that there was this urban flooding and waste management issue which was quite, quite a challenge for Pakistani government.

[00:10:15.04] 

Yeah, that's true. As Maryam mentioned. So yeah, Afghan refugees in Pakistan, they were also affected by climate change impacts such as floodings. Because Afghan refugees who are living in refugee camps in Pakistan, Pakistan during the recent floods, you know, they were affected, their camps were affected and also they lost some of the assets that they had. So they were in a very vulnerable situation. And also when it comes to access to resources, that was also like limited for many of them. Depending on their status, you know, whether they were documented or undocumented in Pakistan.

[00:10:55.02] 

When we return to that question in a second about legal status, I think that's an important one. But I guess we mentioned earlier the some of the government initiatives or government policy, especially in Pakistan. But I'm also curious in Afghanistan, I guess to what extent is there an interest by government or policymakers or people in charge to kind of to address some of these environmental issues and to mitigate or adapt to these changes. And there's just not the resources to do so versus or are there are the resources to do so when people are making progress or is there just not an interest? I guess what are the. Let's start with Pakistan, then we can go to Afghanistan. But what is the policy response?

[00:11:27.22] 

Well, with the passage of time now there is an aptitude in the government to accept policies and inputs around environmental and climate change issues because repetitively we have seen that Pakistan is facing climate crisis one after another. So far the policies are good on documents, but as I said, there are lots of governance issues. But as far as the policies are concerned, we have really good policies at federal level. The Climate Change act then this, this has also to do with Clean Air Act too because people do migrate to cleaner areas because of bad air quality in Pakistan too. And at provincial level I would say there is mention of climate use displacement, internal displacement, those kind of terminologies in provincial level governments when they formulated their environmental policies. But as far as my analysis goes, Punjab government has really good insights related to climate induced migration and internal displacement. They have like plans where they were talking about managing climate use migrants in their policy documents that has not yet been implemented because of various reasons. For example capacity building, human resource issue and funding issues. And there are lots of other issues in that area too.

[00:12:38.01] 

There is mention of these terminologies and acceptance in policies documents of Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces too. But there is not much which is done practically so far because at the end of the day our governments are stuck with finances, you know, because they lack resources to really manage those migrants, you know. And the population is increasing day by day in Pakistan too and managing those population and providing livelihood opportunities to people in rural areas. It's not there. And there is this increasing trend of, you know, where people are switching from traditional businesses to, you know, job market or other businesses in urban areas. For example, there are lots of farmers and their kids are not interested in farming anymore because they are rapidly be affected by climate change, these floods and droughts and water scarcity. So they prefer doing jobs now or small businesses instead of growing crops on their field. There there is a lot which needs to be done. But I would say that there is slow progress on, on the side of implementing, implementing the policies which are existing in Pakistan. But there is, there is huge gap too which needs to be implemented and which needs to be incorporated.

[00:13:50.22] 

For example, the voices of climate migrants and their hardships and how their migration be made better because they come across with health crisis too during migration process. So how they can best accommodate those, how can they provide them opportunities in destination areas when they migrate from one place to another place, how Social Security network can be improved for those migrants? So these are few areas where our government needs to work more.

[00:14:16.13] 

So, yeah, in the context of Afghanistan, there is also very limited interest by the current Taliban administration. There were some policies by the former Afghan government, but unfortunately, since the takeover of Taliban in August 2021, the development aid has been almost completely halted. And Also Afghanistan since 2021 does not have access to climate funding. So that's a big challenge for the country. And also technical expertise. There's another issue. Since the takeover of the Taliban, many senior people or senior staff of, min of, you know, disasters, NEPA, National Environmental Protection Agency in Afghanistan and other, in many other public institutes, they left Afghanistan. So there is lack of funding. So there is lack of technical expertise in Afghanistan at the moment because the current Taliban administration is not recognized internationally. So. So that's a big issue. So that's why there is very limited interest in capacity when it comes to climate adaptation schemes or programs or projects or climate resilience projects in Afghanistan.

[00:15:27.17] 

Has the Taliban ever expressed any interest in climate resilience projects? Which I guess is to say even if the funding and the international development support were there, would the Taliban kind of assist in partnership with that? I don't know if they have kind of made any comments or discussed climate issues as part of the kind of their governance structure.

[00:15:45.17] 

What I have heard from the media, they say, yeah, environment or climate change is a big issue and we need funding. So that's why they say here we should be recognized by the international community so that we should have access, access, you know, to funding. And there are civil society organizations, relevant civil society organizations in Afghanistan. They are also like advocating for Afghanistan to have access to funding because the funding has stopped. And this is not, you know, punishing the Taliban government, but this is unfortunately punishing all Afghans in the country. So, so that's why there are some civil society organizations. They are advocating, you know, for the international community to help Afghanistan, guarding the climate finance or fund issues because climate change is now a major issue in Afghanistan and it's a growing problem in the country and it's affecting almost all Afghans directly or indirectly.

[00:16:42.01] 

I want to ask one kind of final question, returning to this issue that you mentioned earlier, Nusrat, about legal status and documentation the last year or so since 2023, the government of Pakistan has also launched something of a crackdown of Afghans and others who are in the country without authorizations or without refugee status. There's been some criticism of this from rights groups and US UN agencies, but something about something like 800,000 Afghans who were living in Pakistan have reportedly either been deported or returned on their own volition to Afghanistan. And Iran, which is the world's other major host of Afghan refugees, has announced something kind of a similar policy without commenting on that policy directly, although you can if you like, I guess. When individuals, when refugees and other migrants return to Afghanistan, what situation do they find themselves in? Are they end up more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of the this kind of back and forth movement or I guess what are the repercussions of those kinds of returns?

[00:17:34.00] 

Yes, as you mentioned, Julian, yeah, deportation or return by some Afghans by their own willing happens at the moment. But there are more cases of deportations as we have seen and we hear from media. So when they come to Afghanistan, they face a lot of challenges. You know, like housing is one of the big issue because many of these returnees, you know, they don't have access to housing, housing and another issue is like access to basic services as well, health, for example, education and so on. So they also face the issue of employment, for example, because many of these people, they spend most of their life, or some of them the entire life in either in Iran or in Pakistan. So when they return to Afghanistan, so that's very difficult for them to reintegrate themselves and also to have access to employment opportunities because the employment situation is already affected in Afghanistan badly, they face these kind of issues. And also on the top of these issues they face climate change impacts, for example. Most of them, they end up living in informal settlements or in places which are exposed to high risks of climate change impact, for example floods, landslides and so on.

[00:18:52.03] 

So they are facing a lot of issues, employment, access to basic services, climate change impacts and so on. But there are no necessary measurements for them or support available to them. Because of the reasons that I mentioned earlier, the government or the administration is not recognized in Afghanistan. There is funding issues as well to support these returnees.

[00:19:14.22] 

Maryam, I want to turn to you very, very little last word about people displaced in Pakistan by the climate and environmental impacts. What situation do they find themselves in? Do many people return to their origin community after a long time or do they tend to migrate for good? What are the impacts on these displaced people and what kind of future do they have for them in Pakistan?

[00:19:33.14] 

There is a huge challenge of settlement, of course, if they don't have social safety networks in the destination areas, they feel stranded because they need to find housing and they end up living in informal settlements and they have issues of finding jobs at new places because they don't have right skill sets and they don't have guidance either. So they get exploited by the market, of course. And when they migrate, most, most of these people are economic vulnerable too. So they migrate with their livestock. Most of migrants migrate with their livestock so they have to sell those livestock on the way because they can't feed them or give them water. So they have to sell like on cheaper rate. Most of the people, they go back when the situation gets kind of I I, I shouldn't use word normal, but for them it's, it's the new normal to keep facing these crisis. When situation turns normal, they go back to their original area and there have been cases. When I conducted my research in 2019, Muzaffargarh and Tharparkar, there were some cases of permanent migration. Two people migrated to cities and they never went back to their area of origin.

[00:20:40.06] 

We're just about out of time, so I think we'll have to leave the conversation there. But thank you two so much for coming on. This was a really valuable discussion and I really appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thank you for your time.

[00:20:49.13] 

Thank you.

[00:20:50.02] 

Thanks so much, Julian.

[00:20:51.07] 

Nasrat Sayed is an independent researcher who spent time in academia and with the UN system, and also formerly worked with Afghanistan's Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. Maryam Abbasi is a PhD scholar at the University of Vermont and an advisory member to the State of Vermont's Environmental Justice Council. She previously spent several years with the Pakistani think tank the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. Thank you for listening to Changing Climate, Changing Migration. We've got more episodes on the way, so make sure you subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice so you can listen as soon as they come out. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review that makes it easier for other people to watch. Find us in our archives you can find episodes focusing on climate migration in all parts of the world, including South America, East Africa, Northern Europe and more. Find them online at migrationpolicy.org/podcasts. And subscribe to the free Migration Information Source newsletter to catch all of the latest migration insights from my colleagues at MPI and other experts. This episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration was produced by Elizabeth Navarro. Michelle Mittelstadt provided editorial insight and Lisa Dixon provided additional assistance.

[00:22:11.22] 

Our theme music is Touch by Patrick Patrikios. My name is Julian Hattem. I'll see you next time.