Extreme Weather Events and Human Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa: Toward Social Policy Interventions

Ensuing climate change is one of the most defining problems of the 21st century. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), natural hazards such as floods, storms, droughts, and epidemics are among the major causes of human displacement. Existing studies, however, mainly explore these hazards’ economic and environmental impact while limited attention is given to the social impact. This has significant practical and policy implications as the social fabric is underacknowledged. To close this research gap, this article identifies dominant extreme weather events in SSA, examines human displacement related to these events, and proposes social policy-based interventions. Underpinned by a quantitative approach, the article is based on displacement data on Africa purposefully selected from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Simple descriptive data analysis was deployed. The article also benefits from secondary literature on climate change and social policy. The study shows that extreme events, declining rainfall, and increasing temperatures under climate change ignite human displacement and unplanned migration. This disrupts food production, promotes political instability, and worsens the spread of diseases. The article shows how transformative social policy interventions focusing on production, reproduction, social cohesion, protection, and accumulation wields much potential as an adaptive and resilient mechanism.