In the context of climate mobility, how can we better measure the social integration of climate-displaced communities — beyond economic indicators — to capture resilience, belonging, and access to basic services?
At Associação Fikra in southern Brazil, we work with migrants and refugees, including those displaced by the 2024 Rio Grande do Sul floods. I'd love to hear how others here approach this — especially from colleagues working in Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific.
As Green Steps to Bright Future, we believe that successful integration of climate-displaced communities goes beyond economic recovery. It also means restoring dignity, strengthening social connections, and ensuring access to essential services such as education, healthcare, food, and safe housing.
We can measure this through community belonging, participation in local decision-making, social support networks, psychological well-being, and equal access to basic services. It is also important to involve displaced people themselves in defining what resilience and inclusion mean to them.
From our perspective, building resilient communities requires an approach that connects environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and community empowerment. A truly resilient community is one where everyone feels safe, valued, included, and able to thrive.
I would love to learn from experiences across Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific on how we can better measure these dimensions of integration.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and powerful comment, Rodrigue! You are absolutely right — economic recovery is just the baseline. Restoring dignity, strengthening social ties, and involving displaced communities in defining their own resilience are the real measures of successful integration.
At Associação Fikra in southern Brazil, we see similar patterns. After the 2024 floods, we realized that the communities that recovered fastest were the ones with strong social networks and a sense of belonging, not just financial aid.
I'm particularly curious about your point on "participation in local decision-making." How does Green Steps to Bright Future practically measure that? Do you use community scorecards, participatory workshops, or something else? I'd love to learn from your approach in Rwanda.
Let's definitely keep this exchange going!
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