Lake Tanganyika Basin

According to IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) in the DRC, more than 20,000 individuals have been displaced because of the rising water of Lake Tanganyika in May 2024 only. Already living under the pressure of environmental degradation, climate change further increases the vulnerability of about 120 million people across the Congo Basin, who depend on rain-fed agriculture and basin resources for their livelihoods. Furthermore, climate change exacerbates power dynamics and structures that serve to reinforce social and gendered inequalities. Specifically, women, children, the elderly, and disabled, are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change due to unequal access to livelihood services, productive assets, restrictive cultural norms and limited involvement in communal decision-making processes.

Since the turn of the 21st century, countries in the region like the DRC have been frequently portrayed in the international media as “the worst place in the world to be a woman”. Yet the moral and political economy of gender relations across the region has nevertheless been shaped by a long, multitudinous history of women’s experiences of agency and disempowerment, competition and solidarity, whose complexity cannot be captured through victimizing narratives. Despite limited room for maneuvering, women across the region never restricted themselves to the roles imposed on them, with several national and regional examples of emancipation and paths of mobilization. Throughout its implementation, RE2CLID will look at traditional culture and ways to support gender-transformative access to, and distribution of, natural resources and livelihoods and address the power relationships between women and others in the communities where it will intervene.

Seeking alternative means to sustain themselves, hundreds of thousands of people across the region have already migrated to urban areas or joined groups associated with armed conflict or illegal mining. DTM figures show a similarly alarming trend in Burundi, with nearly 90% of the country’s internal displacement due to climate-related disasters, including floods, torrential rains, landslides, storms and hail.

Lake bordering regions of the United Republic of Tanzania have hosted Burundian and DRC refugees and economic migrants for years. Kigoma region, in particular, has been hosting young migrants, agro-pastoralist and nomadic groups for decades. It is also increasingly welcoming people who migrate as a result of a combination of economic, climatic, and demographic factors from other regions in the country as well as from the Kigoma region itself. At the same time, the communities themselves experience internal displacement as soil loss, flooding, erosion, and droughts adversely affect agricultural production, livelihoods, and well-being. While these mobility patterns are centuries old and can play an important adaptation role for populations responding to environmental degradation and climate change, tensions between pastoralists and farmers are increasing as grazing lands are becoming degraded and water is becoming scarcer with progressive climate change. Meanwhile, land-use change and urbanization further restrict the amount of space available for traditional livelihoods.

In general, the negative impacts of climate change in the region are compounded by existing inequalities, high dependency on agriculture and ecosystems services, unsustainable land-use management and spatial planning, as well as local conflicts. Based on a DTM assessment, approximately 96% of IDPs in Eastern DRC, including South Kivu, Tanganyika, North Kivu, and Ituri provinces are displaced due to armed groups and intercommunal conflict. These are frequently related to disputes over natural resource ownership and management, including land, forest, minerals, and water. These vital resources, in turn, are intensely exploited due to the increased needs of local communities and the influx of displaced populations from conflict areas to host communities. In this regard, climate change acts as a risk driver, exacerbating fragilities in existing socio-economic and political dynamics.