The Government of Costa Rica hosted a regional capacity building workshop on "Disaster Displacement, Migration and Climate Change" for Member Countries of the Regional Conference on Migration for North and Central America (RCM), co-organized by the Platform on Disaster Displacement, theTechnical Secretariat of the RCM, and the International Organization for Migration.

The workshop brought together 40 participants from 11 countries in the region, representing key national governmental entities responsible for migration management, disaster and emergency response, foreign affairs and consular services.

Over the course of two days, participants exchanged experiences on key human mobility and environmental trends in the region, and shared their practices and experience in responding to disasters and environmental change and in managing migration and displacement associated with these environmental factors. IOM’s Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Training Manual guided the overall approach and provided key content of this workshop.

The workshop sought in particular to encourage a discussion around practical ways to implement the “RCM Guide to Effective Practices for RCM Member Countries: Protection for Persons Moving Across Borders in the Context of Disasters”. The Guide, developed following the work of the Nansen Initiative in the region, is a key tool to assist regional decision-makers and practitioners in designing and strengthening policies and measures to respond to cross-border disaster-displacement. Using examples of practices outlined in the Guide, the workshop participants looked into a variety of cross-border disaster-displacement scenarios and formulated recommendations for measures to be implemented at national and regional level to address the needs of people seeking temporary protection abroad following a disaster, those unable to return to their country of origin hit by a disaster, and those caught in a disaster abroad. The MICIC Initiative Guidelines to Protect Migrants in Countries Experiencing Conflict or Natural Disaster were also presented as a key tool to guide governments in designing solutions to address the latter scenario.

The workshop was part of broader efforts of IOM’s capacity building programme on migration, environment and climate change and the implementation of the PDD 2016-2019 Workplan to build national and regional capacities to respond to displacement and migration challenges in the context of climate change and disasters.