Policy brief climate change and human mobility in Sri Lanka

This working paper addresses climate change and human mobility in Sri Lanka, examining policies, laws and processes. Climate change influences the patterns of human mobility in Sri Lanka and exacerbates existing economic, demographic, social, and environmental migration drivers. Human mobility in Sri Lanka comes in many forms: temporary or permanent, internal or cross-border, for economic, social, or demographic reasons. It includes disaster displacement, migration between districts or provinces, labour migration abroad, student migration, inbound migration of foreign citizens, and more. One in seven Sri Lankans is an inter-provincial migrant, one in five an inter- district one. Remittances from migrants contributed ten percent of Sri Lanka's overall GDP and are a major source of income for one in eight households.

The paper indicates the following key take-aways:

• Sri Lanka is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events and slow-onset impacts affect natural resources and threaten lives and livelihood, serving as an underlying driver of migration and displacement, especially in rural areas.

• Sri Lanka has robust policy frameworks addressing labour migration, disaster management, and climate change, but could benefit from enhanced cross- sectoral integration of climate mobility.

• The country's NDCs include the establishment of a local mechanism under the WIM, which could align national efforts with the WIM's strategic workstream on human mobility.

• There is a need for further research, gender-disaggregated data collection, data collection on seasonal migration, and enhanced coordination between different institutions and processes.