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. 

Driven by Communities: Participatory Systems Mapping for Climate Justice grantmaking

Our past and current partners in Kenya alongside our board members and staff recommended individuals and groups in Kenya and Tanzania to be a part of this pilot’s journey. We held an introductory meeting about the proposed approach with prospective Tanzanian collaborators in Arusha on the margins of the Community Based Adaptation Conference in May 2024. It was crucial for us to create grantmaking processes that fostered genuine collaboration and centred our partners’ expertise and experience to map systems, identify and prioritise points of leverage, and bring in other collaborators.