Bridging Climate Change and Human Mobility— Collective analysis for a deeper understanding of climate mobility in the East and Horn of Africa

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Snowflake held a two-part hackathon in London in collaboration with University College London (UCL) (6-7 October 2023) and in Nairobi (23-26 October 2023). The hackthons presented a unique opportunity for IOM to enhance key technical processes related to data collation, compilation and analysis, with direct implications for future use of IOM’s mobility data for climate mobility research.

Furthermore, the exercises yielded valuable insights into into the feasibility of using advanced analytics for climate migration research and the critical challenges in harnessing environmental and climate-induced disaster data. Issues such as spatial and temporal coverage limitations, incompatibility and incomparability among climate data sources, data interoperability constraints, and the spatial heterogeneity of climate data were identified.

The findings can shape future research using IOM’s mobility data to contribute to the climate mobility knowledge base and also serve as a catalyst for improving data accessibility, ultimately enhancing the analytic potential of IOM’s mobility data. This aligns with IOM’s core institutional priorities and commitment to contributing to a better understanding of mobility driven by climate change and environmental degradation.