This blog was written by Y4N Global Ambassador, Alan Said Hernandez Vazquez.
Climate-induced human mobility is no longer a hypothetical risk. It is a lived reality for 45.8 million—especially young people—who are being displaced or forced to migrate due to water scarcity, floods, and ecosystem collapse. In this political moment, the global community must respond with more than just rhetoric about resilience. We need structural action that recognizes water as both a trigger of displacement and a vector for peace, justice, and ecological repair. Youth must not only be seen as vulnerable agents of governance, knowledge, and transformation, but also provided the resource mobilisation needed for their efforts to meet the scale of the crisis.
We are living through a convergence of interlinked crises: weakening international cooperation, compounding security risks, and escalating climate impacts. Together, these dynamics are fracturing and destabilizing regions already under pressure, and children and adolescents suffer these fractures most deeply. Nowadays, the multiple impacts of climate change have exposed the urgent need for cross-sectoral collaboration and collective responsibility. Climate-induced risks—especially those related to water and displacement—do not follow borders. They transcend jurisdictions, demanding coordinated political action at all levels.
Youth, Water & NbS
Youth in a climate-fractured world. While among the most affected, young people remain largely excluded from formal climate governance spaces. Youth are not future leaders—they are present-day actors that can influence, adapt, demand accountability, and lead community-based transitions into more resilient pathways.
Water scarcity and displacement: a structural nexus. From dried-up fisheries along Mexico’s Gulf of California to recurrent urban floods in Uganda to slow-onset drought displacement in Somalia, the complications related to water security are triggering migration and exacerbating the inequalities that already exist. Climate-driven water stress is not simply an environmental issue; it is a social fracture line that demonstrates the interlinks with housing, food, health, and land rights. Within these social fractures, children and adolescents are among the most severely impacted, with restricted access to nutrition, schooling, and protection.
In Somalia, prolonged droughts followed by intense floods have devastated both pastoral and fishing livelihoods. In regions like Puntland and Somaliland, water scarcity has forced thousands—many of them young people—to migrate from rural areas to overcrowded urban centers, abandoning traditional activities that can no longer sustain them.
A similar pattern emerges in Mexico, where climate change has disrupted marine ecosystems along the Gulf of California. Declining fish stocks, driven by warming waters and changing currents, have undermined small-scale fisheries that support local economies. This has compelled many fishing families, including youth, to seek insecure work inland or migrate to urban areas, eroding cultural ties to coastal livelihoods and amplifying social vulnerability.
In this context, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) offer a critical option for a more cost-effective tool while also building resilience. For youth, NbS offers a pathway to restore ecological identity, protect livelihoods, and reclaim agency over degraded territories, while also presenting an opportunity for economic benefits. In the context of human mobility resulting from climate change impacts, benefits from NbS are also evident, since they can help people remain in their homes and adapt to the different challenges.
These solutions are not only ecologically restorative but often more cost-effective over time and more economic when they’re hybrid. Unlike grey infrastructure, which may decline in performance after two decades, NbS continues to strengthen, and when combined with grey infrastructure, can decrease investment, as ecosystems begin to maintain themselves, as illustrated by Altamirano et al. (2013).
Figure 1: Service level over time for traditional (grey), hybrid (green+grey), and no-action approaches. While grey infrastructure peaks early and then deteriorates, hybrid or nature-based systems continue to strengthen and sustain higher performance beyond 20 years (Altamirano et al., 2013).
Figure 2: Investment requirements over time. Traditional infrastructure demands high initial and ongoing costs, whereas hybrid approaches show decreasing investment needs as ecosystems self-regulate (Altamirano et al., 2013).
NbS in Action
There are multiple cases where youth and NbS emerge, showing us how this can be a reality on the ground.
The Inuka Project in Kenya aims to empower youth to lead NbS across diverse ecosystems—including coastal mangroves, inland wetlands, semi-arid lands, highland forests, and agroforestry systems
The ecology of water project in Honduras, where youth and women lead the project to monitor, has integrated diverse practices to better monitor water sources and quality within the Central Forest Corridor.
(photo: Maria Jose Bu)
In the Philippines, Louise Mabulo’s project trained over 200 farmers in agroforestry techniques, combating deforestation and revitalizing 150 hectares of land with over 150,000 trees. For her work, Mabulo received the 2019 Young Champions of the Earth award.
(photo: UNEP)
Nevertheless, implementing NbS, such as restoring wetlands or forests, without engaging communities is likely to fail, and enabling conditions are needed in order to enhance effectiveness and to also answer the challenge of what human mobility due to climate change is creating. For this reason, more robust frameworks together with blended finance are required in order to allow effective youth project implementation in these urgent needs.
“Climate finance is not charity, it’s an investment. Climate action is not optional; it’s imperative.”
Fortunately, we already have global frameworks that can guide and support such efforts while considering an integrated approach water-climate-human mobility:
Yet implementation lags behind commitments. None of these frameworks will fulfil their potential without financing for youth-led solutions, legal recognition of climate-induced displacement, and disaggregated data on young people in mobility contexts.
Recommendations: What must happen now
Restructure climate and water governance to include youth as co-decision-makers.
Apply a rights-based lens to all climate interventions, especially those affecting children and displaced communities.
Fund climate action for and by youth, ensuring direct access to resources for community-based water and NbS projects.
Invest in data, not just for tracking displacement, but to inform policy and amplify youth contributions.
Codify protections for those displaced by climate impacts within national and international law, which requires that countries implement in their NDCs human mobility in the context of climate change.
Human mobility under climate change is a crisis of rights, equity, and political will. The global system must act not out of charity, but out of justice. Youth are not waiting, they are mobilizing, organizing, and restoring. The question is whether institutions will meet them with the urgency and power-sharing this moment demands. Investing in water, as a contribution to nature, and youth leadership is not just smart policy, it’s our collective responsibility and a crucial piece in reducing forced human mobility under climate change.
References
Hodder, E. (n.d.). Somalia’s Converging Crises: The Imperative for Climate, Peace, and Security Action. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/somalias-converging-crises-imperative-climate-peace-security-hodder-uriuf/
Youth4Nature. (n.d.). INUKA: A Youth-Led Climate Adaptation Project. https://www.youth4nature.org/inuka
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (n.d.). How forests and young people are solving Honduras’s water crisis. Adaptation UNDP. https://www.adaptation-undp.org/how-forests-and-young-people-are-solving-hondurass-water-crisis
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (n.d.). A sweet solution for adapting to climate change. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/sweet-solution-adapting-climate-change
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (n.d.). Eight ways Asia is using nature to adapt to the climate crisis. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/eight-ways-asia-using-nature-adapt-climate-crisis
Altamirano, M. A., de Guchte, C., Benitez-Avila, C. (2013). Barriers for Implementation of Green Adaptation. Exploring the Opportunities of Private Financing. Oral presentation for the workshop Cooperation for Sustainable Benefits and Financing of Water Programmes. Stockholm World Water Week 2013, Stockholm, Sweden
Rivera, J. (2025, May 21). Crisis climática golpea pesca de langosta y comunidades en Baja California Sur. Mongabay Latam. https://es.mongabay.com/2025/05/crisis-climatica-golpea-pesca-langosta-comunidades-baja-california-sur/
UNICEF. (2024, March 18). Life-saving water in Garowe’s desert lands: How climate-resilient water systems are helping families in Somalia. UNICEF Somalia. https://www.unicef.org/somalia/stories/life-saving-water-garowe-desert-lands