No. 45: Internal Migration, Climate Adaptation, and Food System Resilience in Namibia

As one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most arid countries, Namibia serves as a crucial example for studying the interactions between climate vulnerability, migration, and food systems. This study investigates how internal migration flows to Windhoek and northern towns (Oshakati, Ongwediva, Ondangwa) transform urban food networks while creating new patterns of risk and adaptation. Through household surveys, policy analysis, and stakeholder interviews, we uncover a paradox: despite escaping rural climate stressors, migrants often encounter new vulnerabilities such as precarious employment, inadequate housing, and unstable food access. However, they develop sophisticated adaptive strategies that span urban-rural divides: maintaining rural agricultural production through family networks, adapting urban farming to water scarcity, and creating informal food distribution systems connecting rural and urban markets. These resilience mechanisms face mounting pressure from intensifying droughts and institutional constraints. While remittance economies and informal networks help buffer shocks, climate impacts compound vulnerabilities across migrant and host populations. The study demonstrates how formal and informal systems mediate these challenges. We recommend policies that recognise internal migration as a climate adaptation strategy, strengthen urban-rural food linkages, and improve urban food governance. The Namibian case offers valuable lessons for other arid, urbanizing African regions facing similar climate-migration-food system dynamics.