Sumera Izhar, Recovery and Durable Solutions Advisor, IOM Pakistan

Sumera Izhar works at the hardest edge of Pakistan’s climate emergency, where the physical consequences of floods and disasters become the lived experience of millions of displaced people. As Recovery and Durable Solutions Advisor at the International Organization for Migration in Pakistan, she works on the long-term challenge of helping communities that have been uprooted by climate-induced disasters not just return, but rebuild in ways that reduce their vulnerability to the next catastrophe. Pakistan has faced one of the world’s most severe and sustained displacement crises driven by climate change. The 2022 floods displaced nearly eight million people, and over a year later more than one and a half million remained uneasy in their recovery. IOM’s approach under the framework she supports focuses on tackling structural vulnerabilities, expanding livelihoods, rehabilitating infrastructure, and fostering adaptation to the long-term effects of climate and environmental change. Her work also contributes to the policy processes that integrate human mobility and displacement into Pakistan’s National Adaptation Plan and Climate Change Action Plans, recognising that durable solutions to displacement are impossible without addressing the climate drivers that caused it.