This policy briefing discusses the centrality of communicating climate change impacts through a people-centred approach that considers communities’ wellbeing by linking climate change to poverty and a human rights-based, gender-responsive migration policy in SADC. It seeks to incorporate considerations of poverty reduction into migration policies. Thus, internal and external migration in search of sustainable livelihoods becomes an adaptation strategy that has an inbuilt development plan that enhances climate resilience. Local government engagement is critical in the regional forum in order to accommodate the migration–development nexus that harnesses eco-inclusive poverty reduction policies that enhance peacebuilding; natural resource management; water, energy and food security; and health and sanitation. When decision makers communicate about climate change impacts, this should be imbedded in the language of local community initiatives and indigenous knowledge systems that build community resilience and the active
participation of women in the Green Economy.
