Accra-Ghana, June 13, GNA – A project that seeks to use a scientific- technological framework for assessing the processes of rural-urban and cross-border migration in West Africa is urging government to consider migration governance from an individual level.
The project, MIGRAWARE is also proposing a migration governance framework that examines the reasons for rural urban migration other than those traditionally known ones.
Dr Justice Inkoom, project coordinator, MIGRAWARE at a validation workshop said there were specific environmental and climate factors that influenced migration.
“Some of those environmental and climate factors include inadequate rainfall, poor yields of crops, extreme weather conditions, floods, inadequate farms lands among others.
Research conducted by the MIGRAWARE team made up of a consortium used geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and social media tweets to generate a better understanding of key climate and non-climate related factors of migration.
Dr Inkoom said usually the environmental factors were overlooked leaving migration governance to mostly economic factors.
He announced that the project had developed an App, the MIGRAWARE App, an open-source analytical tool that supported updating and further migration analyses.
Dr Inkoom said the app which would be fully operational in July, was open to anyone with an interest in collecting data on migration and would serve as a one-stop shop information on migration.
He said the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land use (WASCAL), a large-scale research organisation focused on climate change would serve as a service provider and provide joint development platforms for universities, NGOs, development institutions and government.
