CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS The COVID-19 Pandemic, Migration and the Environment. (19 April 2020)

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is calling for researchers and practitioners to share their experience, knowledge and recommendations on the linkages between the COVID-19 pandemic, migration and the environment. The aim of the call is to identify migration and environment issues that are relevant to the current COVID-19 crisis, as well as related lessons learned, approaches and recommendations that can help shape policy, operations and research on this and future pandemics, their direct and indirect impacts and mobility implications.

Both the genesis and the patterns of the current COVID-19 crisis are closely linked with population movements and their environmental implications. At the same time, the pandemic, the measures governments have taken to contain it, and their impacts are and will be shaping migration and the environment in the near and distant future. Relevant contributions could cover, among other things:

• Environmental impacts of population movements as a driver of zoonosis and the COVID-19 pandemic;

• Changes in movement patterns in response to the pandemic, related response measures and their socio-economic impacts;

• Environmental implications of COVID-19-related patterns of movement; • Water as a key to shape and understand the relationship between the COVID-19 Pandemic, migration and the environment;

• Methodological recommendations for analysing COVID-19-related patterns of population movements, and their impacts;

• Operational recommendations for improved management of population movements, and assistance to directly and indirectly affected persons;

• Policy recommendations for preparing for global crises that bring together health, migration and environmental considerations. Interested contributors should send any relevant ideas to mecchq@iom.int, with a title, a 200 words abstract, and a short author bio before the 19th of April 2020.

Joint contributions from migration, environmental and health specialists are encouraged. Final contributions will be published in a thematic series on the IOM Environmental Migration Portal. If you require additional information, kindly write to Lorenzo Guadagno, IOM Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) Division, at lguadagno@iom.int.

10 April 2020

IOM UN MIGRATION