1. Context

Drought, floods, extreme heat, salinity and rising lake levels are changing how rural people live and whether they stay or move. In Somalia, communities are rebuilding rural livelihoods after more than three decades without a national rural development strategy, and repeated climate shocks are pushing families from the countryside into towns and displacement camps. In Kenya and Ethiopia, men in pastoral households travel further with livestock in search of pasture and water while women are left behind to manage insecurity and economic strain, fishers around Lake Victoria move towards contested waters, and shifting mobility in Baringo and the Turkana-South Omo borderlands is straining the relationships that hold peace together. In India and Bangladesh, household surveys show that when climate impacts force people to migrate without protection, they borrow to leave, pay recruitment costs, lose wages and identity documents, and end up in debt bondage, trafficking and forced labour in brick kilns, construction, sugarcane fields and informal urban work, where extreme heat adds a further layer of harm.

The pattern is the same wherever we look. The question is not whether people will move, but whether they have a real choice to stay, and whether moving is safe when it has to happen. This session brings together government, civil society and research partners to share what is working: Somalia's National Rural Development Strategy 2026–2030, built on participatory appraisal in 10 districts and 20 villages; locally led, gender responsive and conflict sensitive approaches to climate mobility in Kenya and Ethiopia; and anticipatory social protection, migrant helplines and fair recruitment measures that reduce the risk of exploitation for climate migrants in India and Bangladesh. With loss and damage, adaptation and human mobility all on the COP31 agenda, the session will set out practical measures that governments and funders can support now.

2. Objectives

• • Share evidence from Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, India and Bangladesh on what helps people stay with dignity and move safely when they need to.
• • Show how national rural development strategies, locally led gender responsive and peace positive approaches, and social protection and labour protections can work together across the migration cycle, from origin to destination.
• • Identify what governments, development partners and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage can do to finance and scale these approaches.
• • Build working links between the government, civil society and research partners in the session so that lessons travel between countries.

3. Guiding Questions

• Q1.     What makes staying a viable and dignified choice when drought, floods and heat are eroding rural livelihoods, and what has Somalia's rural development strategy process taught us about this?
• Q2.     When people have to move, what protects them from exploitation, insecurity and conflict along the way and at destination, and how can women be supported as agents of change rather than left to carry the burden?
• Q3.    What needs to be financed, by whom, and how do we make sure support reaches people before they are forced into harmful choices?

4. Speakers

5. Run of Show

6. Co-organizing Partners

IIED - ALL ACT initiative will brings evidence from India and Bangladesh on climate change, distress migration and modern slavery, and on anticipatory social protection and heat stress; focal point and moderator for the session.

NCRDS, Federal Government of Somalia — present the National Rural Development Strategy 2026–2030 and Somalia's experience of linking rural development with durable solutions to displacement.

Africa CSID — brings evidence from locally led, gender responsive climate mobility and community resilience work in Kenya and Ethiopia.

By combining local innovation with institutional support, this dialogue aims to chart a pathway for locally led, system-wide resilience, where communities are not just beneficiaries of adaptation, but key architects of resilient infrastructure that safeguards lives, livelihoods, and economies in an era of escalating climate risk. Through the discussion we will aim to achieve the following:

• • Build consensus on how locally led investments can serve as a cornerstone of national strategies for addressing loss and damage, complementing the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) and other financing mechanisms.
• • Identify practical models for linking anticipatory social protection systems with resilient infrastructure development, based on evidence from the ASPIRE diagnostics and lessons from ALL ACT partner countries.
• • Identify options for scaling locally led infrastructure finance, including through national adaptation plans, subnational investment pipelines, and blended finance arrangements that mobilise public, private, and philanthropic capital.
• • Strengthen collaboration between governments, local organisations, and global partners such as CDRI, IIED, and regional networks, to integrate the DRI Action Agenda with locally led adaptation and loss and damage frameworks.

It will conclude with an agreement to develop a joint roadmap or learning platform under the ALL ACT-CDRI partnership to document best practices, inform future proposals to the FRLD, and support replication across LDCs and SIDS