This insightful article examines durable solutions programming to conflict and climate-related displacement in the Horn of Africa. Despite growing investments in durable solutions by development actors, the stated programmatic goals of restoring self-reliance, dignity and stability to displacement-affected communities remain elusive. Instead, climatic stressors, especially drought, regularly undermine the stability that solutions programming is intended to deliver.

The blog calls for a fundamental shift in how durable solutions are understood in the context of climate change. Experience in the Horn of Africa demonstrates that durable solutions must be positioned not as a fixed end-state achieved once people have returned home or resettled elsewhere and pre-displacement conditions have been restored, but as an ongoing adaptive process that enables people and communities to build the capacities needed to adapt to future environmental shocks. Otherwise, the author argues, communities that appear to be progressing toward self-reliance are likely to experience re-displacement, protracted displacement and other setbacks as subsequent climate shocks erode recovery gains.