We hope that shining a spotlight on this story will help advance desperately needed solutions for this community and long-lasting policy change on climate-related planned relocation in Senegal and in Multilateral Development Banks globally. Please share widely!

This report, led by the intrepid Charlotte Finegold, is the product of deep collaboration including with @https://lsdsenegal.org/ colleagues and with community leaders from Khar Yalla.

Senegal has taken steps to protect climate-displaced people, but more action is needed. Both Senegal and the World Bank should develop rights-respecting policies that provide solutions for climate displaced communities, including through planned relocation as a last resort.

Nearly a decade later, there is still no durable solution in sight for the families in Khar Yalla. Moreover, authorities left these families out of a World Bank-funded planned relocation of 15,000 other people from their same fishing communities, who were also affected by coastal floods.

Authorities subsequently moved them to a site called Khar Yalla (“waiting for God” in Wolof), five kilometers from the sea. The living conditions in Khar Yalla are terrible, and the site is cut off from schools, health centers, and the fishing sector, which most families still rely on for income.

But, as a new HRW report launched today details, some families displaced by floods for the longest have fallen through the cracks. The report tells the story of families who, in 2015 and 2016, lost their homes when coastal floods hit their historic fishing communities in Saint-Louis.

Since the late 2000s, Senegalese authorities have been using planned relocation in the northern city of Saint-Louis, as one strategy to try and protect people from increasingly severe coastal floods.

In 2024 alone, 45.5 million people were internally displaced by floods, storms, and other weather-related disasters (IDMC). As such disasters become stronger and more commonplace in a changing climate, solutions for disaster-displaced communities are all the more urgent.

Full report: www.hrw.org/report/2025/...

Press release: www.hrw.org/news/2025/03...

Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF6O...

Their words are powerful reminders that relocation is not just about moving people—it's about safeguarding rights, dignity, and futures. As more communities face these sobering processes, we need to rethink our frameworks for governance and support to better reflect these visions.

This report is the product of deep collaboration. Gratitude to colleagues at HRW and Dignity Pasifik. Working alongside community leaders, advocates, and experts, we sought to pass the megaphone and amplify the voices of those experiencing the realities of climate-related planned relocation.

The IPCC predicts that “as climate risk intensifies, the need for planned relocations will increase.” Every country with a coastline needs to anticipate this challenge, learning from past community-led relocations, like Walande’s, and policies, like the Solomon Islands’ guidelines.

Without urgent action and increased international support, communities like Walande may need to relocate yet again. But this report is not only a story about Walande.

The Solomon Islands’ government has taken important steps to support communities facing the most acute impacts of the climate crisis, including by adopting rights-aligned Planned Relocation Guidelines, but they are not yet implemented or adequately funded.

The report documents why Walande community members made the difficult decision to relocate after decades of adapting to climate change in place, how they moved largely without adequate government and international assistance, and how their right to food and land rights are still threatened.

Sea level rise and other climate impacts—compounded by insecure land tenure, limited land access & inadequate support—are undermining the rights of the people of Walande in Solomon Islands. Despite taking the last resort measure of leaving their island home, the community is still facing threats.