The Journalists International Forum For Migration (JIFORM), has called for affirmative actions to tackle effects of climate change, advocating more support for migrants across board.
The call was made in Toronto, Canada, where the 4th JIFORM Global Migration Summit with the theme: Climate Change: Human Mobility and Sustainable Investment held
Hosted by Aberdorc Productions Inc with Mr. Yinka Farinde as Chief Executive Officer, the hybrid summit which also held virtually, drew participants from Ghana, Gambia, Nigeria, Europe, Canada, America, Asia and other countries.
President of JIFORM, Dr. Ajibola Abayomi, said journalists and the entire media must be sensitive towards the amplification of the World Bank report that alarmed climate change could drive 216 million people to migrate within their own countries by 2030. while more than 200 million would also face similar faith by 2050.
Abayomi said thereport highlighted that “in 2050, 86 million people are to be affected in Sub-Saharan Africa,19 million from North Africa, 49 million from South Asia, 17 million in Latin America and 49 million within East Asia and Pacific.”
Ajibola disclosed that 10% of nations in the Global North were responsible for 49% of the total lifestyle consumption emissions while the poorest 50% nations in the Global South accounted for just 10%, and wanted actions taken to forestall damages to the countries in the Global South.
In a keynote address, former Secretary of State and ex-Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees Canada, Gerry Weiner said nations’ policies on migration should be tailored towards management of diversity of migrants with better planning and implementation to promote integration and assimilation as being done in Canada to the benefits of all.
Weiner called for tolerance from the governments of all nations by having more migrant oriented plans that would encourage safe, orderly and regular migration across all borders.
Urging the media to use strategic tools to change the migration narrative in a presentation on Media Roles In Changing The Narrative On Migration: Best Practices, Social Inclusion, And Concerns, Nermin A. Ahmad, the Convener Subcommittee On Xenophobia And Social Inclusion of the NGO on migration representing Civil Society at the United Nations, demanded for better action plans for climate migrants.
“If we do not prepare for this new and very different type of migrant while absorbing others, we will indeed face a bleak future. There’s time to act. That time is now.
“This is a new form of climate injustice, climate change. Migrants are an interesting group because there’s no status. They don’t appear in any definitions.
“Migrants represent close to 4% of our world population. If this were to be put into a single country, it would be the fourth most populous country after the United States, India, and China, and come just before Indonesia,” Nermin said.
According to her “women represent 42% or 70 million of the legal migrants. The number you see here is for officially recorded remittance. That’s US dollars, 719 billion dollars and represents important investments in the home country’s or origin country’s national education, health and infrastructure. Collectively, this is larger than the foreign direct investment and official development assistance received by low- and middle-income countries in any year.”
Mr. Gerhard Bayer, Managing Director of CSRSPACE, LLC, US while speaking on Impact Investment: A Mitigation Strategy in The Face of Climate Change, called for positive impacts on both investment and development plans in Africa and other parts of the world.
He said Africa should device a means to make the continent more resilient by ensuring that huge parts of her resources are kept within her nations for economic growth to tackle climate change and other economic problems.
Philomena Gnanapragasam, Director of The Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), Malaysia, represented by Mr. Nabeel Tiimazi, a senior AIBD official, was concerned about the consequences of inadequate narrative from the media on migration matters.
He called for more training for the media practitioners and deliberate attention to report migrant related issues accurately with passion.
JIFORM which was registered in 2019, is a non-profit body comprising over 300 journalists and other volunteers across the continents covering migration matters with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria.
The body has facilitated among other things the maiden African Migration Summit in partnership with the Nekotech Center of Excellence in Accra, Ghana in 2021; the West African Media Migration Summit in Togo in 2021; an Intercontinental Migration Summit in partnership with the Medgar Evers College, City University, Brooklyn, in New York between November 2 – 4, 2022; as well as the annual Global Migration Summit.
