The role(s) endorsed by International Non-Governmental Organizations in processes of planned relocations as an adaptation strategy to climate change

This paper aims to analyze and interrogate the roles of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) in a peculiar type of mobility and adaptation strategy to climate change: planned relocations. Related to climate change and natural disasters, planned relocations have been defined by Erica Bower and Sanjula Weerasinghe as: "the planned, permanent movement of a group of people from identifiable origin(s) to identifiable destination(s), predominantly in association with one or more hydrometeorological, geophysical/geological, or environmental hazard(s)" (2021, p.8). Planned relocations as an adaptation strategy to climate change are very expensive processes whose number is going to increase in the years to come (Ferris and Bower 2023, p. 4 and 11). Due to the risks they pose in terms of socio-economic prosperity, cultural practices and human security, these processes are also considered as a measure of last resort (Bower and Weerasinghe 2021, p. 7). There is no consensus on how "the international community should engage with and support planned relocation" (Ferris and Bower 2023, p. 9). Still international community and, among it, INGOs, participate to processes of planned relocations. In 2021, with the support of The Platform on Disaster Displacement, of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, the International Organization for Migration and the German Development Agency, Bower and Weerasinghe published a dataset containing information about 409 cases of planned relocations principally caused by natural hazards or by the consequences of climate change. Out of these 409 cases, Bower and Weerasinghe realized a more in-depth analysis of 34 cases. INGOs were among the supporting actors in 8 of these 34 cases (Bower and Weerasinghe 2021, p. 56 and 58) and four of them were linked to climate change. Based on the scientific literature on these four relocations (Colombia, Fiji, Nepal and Panama) this paper aims to analyze and interrogate the roles played by INGOs in these processes.