Guatemala

As other Mesoamerican countries, Guatemala is facing significant threats due to climate change. The country is rapidly warming and experiencing an overall decrease in precipitations, leading to increasing rainfall scarcity and droughts, all while recording more intense rain episodes, leading to more frequent flooding. Trends are affected by El Niño/La Niña impacts, amplifying and modifying these occurrences on a yearly or seasonal basis. Increased frequency and intensity of flood, droughts and storms threatens agricultural production, soil, land and water availability across the country’s diverse ecological and climate zones, which all record overexploitation of natural resources and deforestation. Rapidly urbanizing urban areas also face specific risks, due to landslides, coastal flooding and storm surges.

Complex socio-economic factors intersect with these environmental processes in generating diverse mobility dynamics, including disaster displacement, environmental migration and planned relocations – both internally and internationally. In order to address these complex phenomena, The Government of Guatemala has integrated attention to human mobility as part of its National Action Plan on Climate Change in 2018, in its National Communication on Climate Change in 2021, in its roadmap on mixed flows and on its new migration policy.

Through the project, PDD aims to support the implementation of these policies, by improving the evidence base and data collection procedures, involving communities and local authorities in planning and preparing for displacement, and enhancing the Government’s access to relevant funding opportunities.

National Implementation Plan

National multi-stakeholder consultation

Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring centre (IDMC), 2023

• Guatemala Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources
• The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Guatemala