Wars and climate disasters have driven a threefold increase in the number of internally displaced people in Africa over the past 15 years, according to new data.
There are now 35 million people internally displaced on the continent, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), compared with 11.6 million in 2009, when African governments signed a landmark deal legally binding them to tackle the causes of displacement.
IDMC said its new report shows even more work is required, especially considering the growing threat posed by flooding and droughts.
“The displacement situation in Africa is absolutely critical, but not hopeless,” said Alexandra Bilak, director at IDMC. “There are many good examples on the continent of governments working to address its root causes. It’s important for them to keep ownership of this issue and the international community to support their efforts.
“It is not too late to help those whose lives have been upended when they were forced to flee their homes, but there is no time to lose,” said Bilak. “Helping them find solutions to their displacement is part and parcel of reaching a country’s development goals.”
Conflict accounts for 32.5 million of the people experiencing displacement, 80% of whom come from just five countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.
IDMC distinguishes between internally displaced people – the number actively forced to live away from their homes – and each incident of displacement, which accounts for the number of actual movements caused by a person having to leave their home. This can include a single person moving several times, as well as those who have returned home and are no longer internally displaced.
The report also said that last year saw a sixfold increase in climate disaster-induced displacements, rising from 1.1 million in 2009 to 6.3 million.
Flooding caused 75% of climate-related displacements in 2023, with drought responsible for 11%.
“Disasters are displacing more and more people each year, especially floods which displace people across the continent,” said Bilak. “Sometimes conflict and disaster overlap, such as in Nigeria, where people fleeing the violence of Boko Haram find themselves fleeing again from floods that come almost every year.”
A spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said flooding is increasingly causing mass displacement that requires humanitarian intervention.
“There can be no humanitarian solution to the climate crisis – but the humanitarian system is adapting and responding to help people most affected by emergencies and building resilience to climate shocks,” the spokesperson said.
