The event, which took place on Tuesday, June 6, was organized by the Department of International Studies at Universidad ORT Uruguay. It was held in person.
Presentations were given by Valentina Martínez Maqueira—head of partnerships and advocacy for the Global Compact on Migration at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Uruguay and coordinator of the United Nations National Network on Migration—and Andrea Vignolo Mosca—head of knowledge management and partnerships at the IOM in Uruguay.
Availability, flexibility, and resilience
According to the IOM glossary, a migrant is defined as any person who moves, or has moved, across an international border or within a country, away from their usual place of residence, regardless of their legal status, whether the movement was voluntary or involuntary, the causes of the movement, or the duration of their stay.
The IOM noted that two of the Global Compact for Migration’s objectives address the issue of migration and the environment.
One objective is to minimize the adverse and structural factors that force people to leave their country of origin (Goal 2), and another is to increase the availability and flexibility of regular migration channels (Goal 5).
The IOM representatives highlighted the importance of building resilience. In this regard, they emphasized the importance of strengthening the institutional capacity of states and communities to cope with risky situations.
Macro, meso, and micro factors
Various factors that affect mobility can be observed.
- These include macro factors. Among these are environmental, social, economic, demographic, and political factors. Climate change affects these factors both directly and indirectly and therefore influences migration patterns.
- Meso-level factors consist of enabling factors and barriers, including: the legal framework, costs, networks, and technology.
- Micro-level factors consist of personal and household characteristics (age, gender, marital status, disabilities, etc.).
They added that all these factors contribute to the development of policies and strategies aimed at mitigating the effects of unsafe mobility that puts people's lives at risk.
Different forms of human mobility
The experts highlighted various forms of human mobility:
- Disaster-related displacement refers to the displacement of people who are forced or compelled to leave their place of origin or usual residence as a result of a disaster or to avoid being affected by the effects of an immediate and foreseeable natural hazard.
- Disaster-related displacement refers to the displacement of people who are forced or compelled to leave their place of origin or usual residence as a result of a disaster or to avoid being affected by the effects of an immediate and foreseeable natural hazard.
- Migration is a more voluntary process than displacement. The affected communities or individuals have greater agency and more leeway to make decisions. Typically, these processes are driven by slowly evolving threats, such as drought.
- Planned relocation involves the relatively organized movement of a group of households or entire communities to locations that are less exposed to environmental or climate-related hazards.
Residents remain in place when they are unwilling to leave their home communities despite experiencing disasters, or when they are unable to do so.
Finally, the importance of understanding the risks faced by all people when migrating due to environmental factors and climate change was emphasized.