The Climate-Conflict-Urban Migration Nexus: Honduras, Jordan, and Pakistan


Publisher: US Institute of Peace

Author(s): Gabriela Nagle Aleverio, Jeannie Sowers, and Erika Weinthal

Date: 2023

Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Prevention, Disasters, Gender, Renewable Resources

Countries: Honduras, Jordan, Pakistan

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In Honduras, chronic droughts and severe natural disasters, including hurricanes and landslides, increasingly drive rural migrants to cities, where chronic gang violence and a lack of support from local or federal governments push them to seek refuge across international borders. In Jordan, one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, pressures from conflict-driven waves of regional migration have strained urban infrastructures, making the inadequacy of water resources increasingly evident. Pakistan has hosted large numbers of refugees from Afghanistan since the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, and as of 2021 it hosted the third-highest number of IDPs globally due to extreme weather events and disasters, such as flooding, heat waves, and increasingly unpredictable monsoon rainfall.42 New urban migrants confront exorbitant housing prices, leading to the rapid expansion of peri-urban areas that frequently lack adequate infrastructure, social services, and employment opportunities and are often already in climate-vulnerable place.