Migration into a Fragile Setting: Responding to Climate-Induced Informal Urbanization and Inequality in Basra
This research seeks to explore the impacts of climate-induced migration of rural populations on cities already experiencing widespread degradation in economic security and governance. Such exploration is based on the understanding that migrants are attempting to settle into complex new environments with potentially limited financial and social capital, which may impact their ability to access civil and administrative rights, and that local residents may also face issues in accessing these rights as well. All of this, when combined, can further weaken urban dynamics in already struggling cities. Drawing on original data from 802 local and migrant residents of Basra City, findings here point to an overlap in fragility factors in high-migration areas, where there is a high correlation between issues related to livelihoods and economic security, equality of rights (especially in housing), and protection and safety. Climate-induced migrants tend to fall within this fragile fabric, clustering in poorer, less formal, and less safe areas of the city — as does a fairly substantial proportion of the local resident population. To stanch this fragility, a two-pronged approach is needed, focused on enhancing the adaptation capacity of recipient urban areas such as Basra, while bringing attention to districts currently forcing families to migrate — mostly rural areas facing extreme environmental degradation, an absence of diversified economic opportunities, poor public infrastructure, and low state presence.
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