Visualizing Loss and Damage: Migration in Bangladesh

In 2023, United Nations University - EHS released a report exploring the work of CJRF partners addressing climate mobility. One key topic it explores is how migration can be a consequence of L&D.

In Bangladesh, this question is not theoretical. Declining agricultural production due to floods, salinization, and other climate-related hazards is reducing incomes and employment. Families are pushed into debt, and many are left with no option but to migrate in search of livelihoods elsewhere. Migration here is not a choice, but an unavoidable outcome of climate-induced loss and damage of their traditional livelihoods that continues to shape lives and futures.

CJRF partners are working to address these realities from different angles. Helvetas supported a youth-led migration hub within the local government, to ensure those who choose to migrate can do so as successfully as possible. Using data about migration patterns, it has produced socio-economic studies to serve as powerful evidence for advocacy, helping influence government and stakeholders to take action on behalf of those most affected.

Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), meanwhile, works with populations that have been displaced by climate impacts but do not have the means to migrate, and remain trapped in temporary settlements, alongside planned relocation of households. They engage with community teams and a youth forum that play active roles in the relocation processes. These volunteers lead social dialogues, carry out needs assessments, and even help identify relocation sites and install water systems, ensuring that adaptation strategies are community-driven and responsive to real needs.

Together, these efforts show a connected approach to climate mobility, one that brings together evidence, advocacy, and community leadership.

This illustration by artist Victor Ynami (@victor_ynami) helps us visualize the human toll of this slow-moving crisis. Stay tuned as we share more visual stories from CJRF’s partners and the UNU-EHS report—stories that challenge us to rethink what Loss and Damage can look like, and who bears its weight.

Visualizing Loss and Damage: Planned Relocation in Bangladesh

In 2023, United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) released a report exploring the work of CJRF partners addressing climate mobility. One key question it poses is: Can planned relocation address Loss and Damage (L&D)?

In Bangladesh’s coastal regions of Kutubdia and Bashkhali, climate-induced disasters have destroyed homes, land, and livelihoods, leaving families displaced and vulnerable. Many end up on embankments or roadsides without secure shelter or access to basic services like water, healthcare, or education. To respond, Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), supported by CJRF and in collaboration with the government, has developed a small-scale relocation model that moves one family at a time. This approach ensures that relocated households receive not only housing but also essential services and opportunities to integrate into host communities. For example, YPSA has facilitated land registration, secured electricity and clean water, and installed deep tubewells that benefit both relocated families and their neighbors, helping to ease tensions and foster inclusion.

Alongside relocation, partners COAST, Helvetas, and YPSA are reconnecting displaced people with government programs for health, education, and social protection. Their efforts have enabled children to return to school, homeless families to access shelter schemes, and small-scale fishermen to receive compensation on days when fishing is banned. These interventions demonstrate that addressing Loss and Damage requires sustained investment in livelihoods, social infrastructure, and the dignity of displaced communities.

This illustration by artist Victor Ynami (@victor_ynami) helps us visualize the human toll of this slow-moving crisis. Stay tuned as we share more visual stories from CJRF’s partners and the UNU-EHS report—stories that challenge us to rethink what Loss and Damage can look like, and who bears its weight.

Strengthening Marginalized Voices in the Mara–Serengeti

The Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, located in the border of Kenya and Tanzania, is home to Indigenous pastoralist communities who have stewarded land and ecosystems for generations. Yet despite their deep knowledge and long-standing presence, these communities—particularly women, youth, and people with disabilities—continue to face exclusion from decision-making spaces that shape their futures. They are among the first to feel the impacts of climate change, but among the last to be heard in the design of solutions.

Visualizing Loss and Damage: Planned Relocation in Alaska

In several Alaskan villages—including Shishmaref, Kivalina, and Newtok—residents made the decision to relocate over 20 years ago due to the threats posed by coastal erosion, flooding, and permafrost thaw. Yet decades later, relocation efforts remain incomplete. Some communities are caught in limbo—partially moved, physically split between two sites, and forced to navigate life in the shadow of a relocation that has technically begun, but is far from finished. These prolonged timelines contribute to significant losses and damages: the fragmentation of social ties, chronic stress and deteriorating housing.

Visualizing Loss and Damage: Displacement in Cogea, Fiji

Among the questions explored in the report is: How can displacement drive losses and damages? The experience of communities in Cogea, Fiji, helps illustrate this.

In 2017, Tropical Cyclone Yasa caused severe flooding that destroyed homes and infrastructure. Afterwards, government authorities declared the village site unsafe due to unstable ground conditions, forcing residents to abandon their land and begin a prolonged period of displacement.

Unlocking the Taps: Building a United Front for Water Justice in Harare

Harare, the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe, is experiencing rapid urban sprawl and population growth, with 1.6 million people spread across the 45 municipal ward boundaries of the city. As the population surges, so to do the demands on the water infrastructure of the city. Furthermore, all of this is happening in a region where persistent droughts are already threatening water supplies.