R2 Project Postdoctoral Fellow Zack Ahmed has published a new article in The Conversation, “Remittances can help African countries adapt to climate change,” highlighting the important but often overlooked role of migrant remittances in strengthening household food security and climate resilience.
Dr. Ahmed notes that while developing countries face a major shortfall in climate adaptation finance, migrants send substantial financial resources to families and communities in countries affected by climate change. These remittances, together with food, goods, knowledge and other forms of support, can help households cope with droughts, floods, food crises and livelihood disruptions.
However, the article stresses that remittances are not a substitute for public climate finance or social protection. Their impacts are also uneven: while they can strengthen the resilience of receiving households, the obligation to remit may place additional financial and food security pressures on migrants themselves. Ahmed therefore calls for more “remittance-aware” climate policies that reduce transfer costs, recognize migration and remittance patterns in adaptation planning, and support, not replace, public investment in resilience.
These questions are central to the Remitting for Resilience (R2) project, implemented through the MiFOOD Network. R2 examines how financial and in-kind remittances across migration corridors shape food security, climate adaptation and resilience for both migrants and their families. The project also explores the gendered dimensions of remitting and the wider social and institutional systems that influence who benefits from these transnational flows.