Forced migration due to climate crisis is worrying, says UN agency director

When António Vitorino was elected to head the UN migration agency, the IOM, in 2018, a break in US hegemony in the organization began. Under a wave of repudiation of the policies adopted by then President Donald Trump, the Portuguese won and saw the American candidate passed over.

Now, the former Minister of Defense in the Portuguese government is trying to get re-elected and recently made a tour of Latin America, which included Brazil. The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) tends to side with him in the dispute against Amy Pope, the candidate of the government of Joe Biden for office.

Praising Brazil’s return to the Global Migration Pact, a forum despised by Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Vitorino, 66, says that Brazil can use the Acolhida Operation, aimed at Venezuelans in the North, as a model for welcoming, for example, Afghans who flee the Taliban.

He also draws attention to the emergence of migrations motivated by climate change. In 2021 alone, according to IOM data, Brazil had 411,000 people displaced due to floods, most in the state of Bahia and in the month of December.

The director of the International Organization for Migration spoke with the Sheet by video call when he was in Brazil, in January. Afterwards, she responded to yet another set of questions via email. Vitorino, however, did not respond to questions about how he sees the possibility of an American representative returning to head the IOM, nor about the relevance of a Portuguese-speaking person occupying the position.

His election in 2018 and, now, the attempt at re-election, denote the successful endeavor of Portugal and, in a way, of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries) in diplomacy —UN Secretary General António Guterres, it’s also portuguese.

On the recent migration policies adopted by Biden, he says that the expulsion of migrants to Mexico puts pressure on border communities and creates a kind of “blocked people”.

Lula takes on many challenges in the area of ​​migration and refuge. What Brazil must do to replace a temporary government policy with a consistent policy? The first response has already been given by President Lula with the decision to return to the UN Global Migration Pact. It is a very important political signal. No single country is capable of facing the challenges that current migration poses to all States. In our assessment, Brazilian law is an excellent basis for a migration policy.

Even though we have a law praised internationally, the challenges are many, especially in terms of reception, as was evident with the scenes of hundreds of Afghans at Guarulhos Airport. Brazil had a very generous humanitarian visa policy. In the sense of integration, the country has an experience that can be a source of inspiration to apply in other cases, such as that of Afghans: the Acolhida Operation with Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

We are in Roraima for the first humanitarian assistance to people arriving at the border in extremely difficult conditions, then we proceed with the registration and medical evaluation, and then there is the essential phase of interiorization — the voluntary decision of refugees and migrants to go to other Brazilian states , with access to the labor market for adults and schooling for children.

Migratory movements in Latin America are linked to countries that have bankrupted their democracies, such as Venezuela, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua. Do you see a direct relationship between migration, refuge and autocracies? There is no single cause for migration, usually the causes interact with each other: poverty, inequality, corruption, lack of security and, increasingly, disease and climate change. Extreme events such as storms, droughts and floods alter ecosystems where people live and thus their living conditions, especially in rural areas.

In 2021, in Brazil, 500 thousand people were forced to move by storms, a huge number. These people often need immediate support and it is also necessary to ensure that, when moving to another destination, they find prospects for a future life there.

In the last decade, there have been an annual average of 21 million people in the world forced to leave the places where they lived by extreme climatic situations and, today, there are already more people in forced movement because of the climate crisis than because of conflicts.

What kind of policy should we start putting in place to help climate migrants and stop such a huge wave of migration? You have to put your finger on the wound. Migration has to be the last solution. It is necessary to act preventively. We know perfectly well which are the most vulnerable areas. In Brazil, the entire Northeast is an area at risk.

We have to work for communities themselves to adapt and build resilience to withstand the impacts of climate change. Intensify agricultural production adapted to new conditions, for example. In addition to water collection systems for agricultural production and human survival. In cases where people can no longer remain there, it is necessary to create the conditions for them to rebuild their lives in the places to which they move.

You comment on agricultural exploitation that destroys families’ livelihoods and accelerates migration. In Brazil, we have challenges with agribusiness on a large scale. scale. Combating deforestation is central. It is in the interests of Brazil and humanity. We see that climate change is producing an accelerated urbanization movement, and cities are not prepared to receive all these people leaving rural areas.

What do you think of the policies that Joe Biden has adopted in the area of ​​migration? Each country is free to decide its migration policy. In the case of the US, the latest measures have different dimensions: on the one hand, there is a quota for entry of 30,000 people per month and, on the other, a return policy for those who had not applied for entry through the indicated route.

In this second strand, people who are sent back to Mexico from the US often stay in the border zones on the Mexican side, putting pressure on local communities and public services. The IOM is working to first give shelter to those people who are, let’s say, blocked. In these situations there is always a risk of exploitation, human trafficking and gender violence.

What successes would you highlight from your current mandate? What measures would you like to have developed but could not be completed? When I was elected, in 2018, I was aware that the organization was at a turning point, with member states growing recognition of the importance of the issue of migration —which needed strong leadership allied with a coordinated and well-managed response.

We have been leading a series of institutional reforms and innovation processes to strengthen our responsiveness. We allocated $34 million to strengthen our internal governance capacity. We also embarked on a budget reform process that was completed in 2022, allowing for growth in the IOM core budget thanks to support from Member States.

The organization has also grown in staff numbers, operational footprint and operational capacity since 2018. IOM is the only UN agency to have significantly expanded in all these areas during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are particularly proud to have been coordinating, at the request of the UN Secretary-General, the Migration Network, which resulted in a Declaration of Progress that offers States and all partners a common path to advance in migration governance.

IOM has never had a woman on the General Board. One of my highest priorities has been ensuring gender parity and empowering employees at all levels, providing them with tools to unlock their potential and empowering them to advance and develop their skills.

According to UN Women’s assessment, IOM has achieved gender parity at all levels, specifically in senior management. I am determined to continue to develop and expand these improvements and to invest in our people, who make up the fundamental pillar of IOM.

X-ray | Antonio Vitorino, 66

Dean of Portuguese politics, he was elected to Parliament in 1980. He served, among other things, as deputy secretary to the governor of Macau, judge of the Constitutional Court, and minister when António Guterres, now secretary general of the UN, was prime minister.