The Exceed Conference on “Forced Migration – environmental and socioeconomic dimensions”

Migration is currently one of the main issues worldwide, however, the topic is not as new as often suggested by the public media. The reasons for migration or rather people are forced to escape from their living environment are manifold. They are not only fleeing from war, violence, suppression and persecution, but many thousands are leaving their homes because of hunger and poverty induced by a lack of economic opportunity, an ever-increasing degradation of their natural environment and the growing number of natural disasters.

As focal point of the Centers for Natural Resources and Development, the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), TH Köln together with four other universities organize the first exceed Conference on “Forced Migration – environmental and socioeconomic dimensions” from the 19th – 20th October 2016 in Berlin.

In 2009, five German higher education institutions – Technical University Braunschweig, University of Hohenheim, University of Kassel, TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences) and Ludwig-Maximilians-University München – were selected to be part of the Excellence for Development Cooperation (Exceed) Program by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Since then, these centers in collaboration with their 37 partners in developing countries, have been establishing think tanks to contribute to the post-2015 development agenda.

These five Exceed centers have now combined their forces to take a closer look at the environmental and socioeconomic dimensions of forced migration together with scientists, politician and the public from all around the world by organizing this first Exceed conference. During the course of the conference, current research results were presented, challenges were discussed and new strategies to prevent forced migration were identified in an interactive conference set-up.

After two days of intensive work, proposals and ideas for cooperation projects on the topics of development-induced displacement, water security, decent work, food & nutrition security and many more were developed. Particularly noteworthy are the many south-south cooperations that were formed. The focus of their work is on aspects of rural areas (agriculture, health), but also on the analysis of the effects of forced migration on the economies of different countries. More specifically, there will be workshops in 2017, research groups have been formed and networks were created. It is currently being considered to incorporate these diverse topics into the framework of a follow-up conference in 2017, thus providing the different working groups a platform to present their results of the project in 2017.

For further information please refer to the exceed website

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