28 September 2026

The 10th anniversary of the Nansen Initiative Protection Agenda is more than a moment to look back. It is a test of whether the principles endorsed in 2015 are changing what governments do before, during and after people are compelled to move.

As Professor Walter Kälin, Envoy of the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement, reflected during the 2025 high-level commemoration: ‘The Protection Agenda remains as relevant today as it was in 2015. What we do in the next decade will determine whether millions of people can find safety, dignity and solutions.’

The urgency is clear. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre recorded 45.8 million disaster-related internal displacement movements across 163 countries and territories in 2024, the highest annual figure since monitoring began. These movements, while approximate as displacement tracking continues to be improved, show the scale of why preparation cannot begin only after homes become unsafe.

The Pacific Guidance on Internal Planned Relocation, hereafter the Regional Guidance, offers a Pacific response. Developed through literature, expert review, regional partners, governments, researchers and communities with lived experience of planned relocation, it connects international protection principles with regional priorities, national governance and community-led decision-making. It is a Pacific-owned instrument grounded in a regional mandate, Pacific knowledge and communities’ experiences of difficult choices about place, safety and belonging.

Why a Pacific approach matters

The relationship between the Protection Agenda and the Regional Guidance should be stated carefully.

The Protection Agenda was principally developed to address the needs of people displaced across international borders in the context of disasters and climate change. At the same time, one of its three priority areas focused on managing disaster displacement risk within countries of origin. It called for human mobility to be integrated into disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation and development; for stronger operational guidance, institutional capacity and financing; and for planned relocation to be improved as a preventive or responsive measure.

The Regional Guidance takes this ambition into the Pacific context of internal planned relocation, advancing protection principles through a region-led framework shaped by customary governance, Indigenous rights, histories of mobility and relationships to place.

A Pacific bridge built on its own foundations

The Regional Guidance arises from the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility, endorsed by Pacific Islands Forum Leaders in 2023, and its Implementation Plan 2025–2030. It supports countries to develop context-specific national guidelines, laws and standard operating procedures.

Its starting point is crucial: planned relocation must remain a measure of last resort, considered only after locally preferred options for reducing risk and adapting in place have been genuinely explored and exhausted. This is consistent with the Regional Framework’s first core area for action, which prioritizes enabling people and communities to remain safely in place wherever possible.

Relocation is not only about the movement of people or dwellings. It can affect land rights, identity, spirituality, kinship, authority, livelihoods, food systems, language, memory and obligations across generations. As the Regional Guidance explains, relocation in the Pacific must be understood through the Vanua, the Waitui and the Lomalagi – that is, the land, the sea and the sky, which hold people’s stories, identities and spirits.

The Regional Guidance asks whose knowledge and voices shape relocation. Affected communities are rights-holders, knowledge-holders and decision-makers, not passive beneficiaries.

Self-determination is central: communities have the right to decide if, when and how relocation occurs. Meaningful participation must begin before major decisions are made.

Its four overarching principles – leadership and collaboration; human rights, human security and protection; culture, heritage, identity and dignity; and continued statehood, nationality and associated rights – extend protection beyond physical safety. Relocation cannot be considered successful if safety from hazards comes at the cost of land, livelihoods, culture, wellbeing or agency.

The Regional Guidance also recognizes that the whole community is affected by relocation: not just those who move, but also host communities, people living nearby and those who choose to stay in place. A process that focuses only on those moving can transfer costs and tensions to others whose rights and needs were never properly considered.

Integration means governing the whole journey

Planned relocation is still too often approached as a stand-alone infrastructure project: identify land, construct houses and move people. The Regional Guidance challenges this narrow model through seven interconnected key considerations:

1. Multi-hazard and multidimensional risk and vulnerability data and assessments;
2. Policy and institutional frameworks;
3. Strengthening capacity, communication and participation;
4. Centering community agency and voice across planned relocation;
5. Land tenure, justice and identity;
6. Fit-for-purpose and inclusive financial support; and
7. Monitoring, evaluation, reporting and learning.

These considerations show policy integration in practice. Planned relocation intersects with disaster risk management, climate adaptation, land, housing, infrastructure, health, education, social protection, livelihoods, human rights, cultural heritage and loss and damage. Coordination must span the full journey, from initial risk assessment to long-term monitoring, because wellbeing, livelihoods, cultural continuity and ancestral connections may require support for years or generations.

From written guidance to Pacific practice

The seven key considerations also provide a practical framework for peer-to-peer exchanges under Priority Action 3 of the Implementation Plan 2025–2030, helping countries structure learning around risk, rights, culture, inclusion and community priorities.

The first exchange brought together governments, practitioners and communities with lived experience from Fiji and Palau from 19 to 23 January 2026, while a second brought together stakeholders from Vanuatu and Fiji in May 2026. These exchanges show the Regional Guidance in practice: a shared foundation for countries and communities to compare experience and adapt lessons to their legal, cultural and institutional settings.

Professor Rebecca Monson of the Australian National University has observed that the Regional Guidance ‘departs from the techno-fixes that dominate the space’. Dr Anna Naupa, Director General of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, described it as ‘reminding us of ourselves and the wisdom of many generations – a call for action’. Its significance also extends beyond the region. As United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed affirmed: ‘When we see the Pacific Guidance on Internal Planned Relocation, there is hope. It’s not just a success for the Pacific, it can be shared’.

Changing national approaches

The Regional Guidance will only protect people if it is reflected in national-level policies and practices. Pacific governments should examine whether planned relocation is coherently addressed across policy areas – not only climate policy and disaster risk management, but also land administration, social protection and public investment.

Policy integration must be matched by financing which supports the full journey, rather than fragmenting funding into separate projects. Development partners should align support with country-led and regionally agreed frameworks and allow time for careful community and government decision-making. Pacific ownership also applies to climate finance. As Jale Samuwai has argued, it must be ‘Pacific-led and Pacific-accountable’. Finance should strengthen Pacific institutions, national systems and community agency, recognizing Pacific countries and communities as decision-makers, not merely recipients.

Priorities for the next decade

Five actions can carry this ambition forward while remaining true to the Regional Guidance.

• Domesticate the Regional Guidance by translating its principles and considerations into national laws, policies, standard operating procedures, sector plans, institutional mandates and funded implementation.
• Finance the whole relocation journey by providing flexible funding across all stages for social, cultural, spiritual, psychosocial, institutional and economic needs, not just infrastructure.
• Strengthen Pacific peer-to-peer learning by sharing achievements, challenges and lessons among governments, communities, customary leaders, civil society and practitioners.
• Measure what matters to communities by monitoring safety, wellbeing, livelihoods, belonging, cultural continuity, participation, fairness and remedy, with communities helping to define indicators and control their knowledge and stories.
• Keep the Regional Guidance genuinely alive by ensuring that future revisions are shaped by at-risk, relocated and host communities – that is, the people who remain and frontline practitioners.

From agenda to accountability

The Protection Agenda established the need for preparation, protection and coordinated action on disaster displacement. The Regional Guidance carries this forward through a Pacific-led approach to internal planned relocation. Over the next decade, success should be judged not only by policies or settlements, but by whether people become safer while retaining security, connection and agency.

Merewalesi Yee is a Consultant at the IOM Fiji Coordination Office of the South Pacific. Nacanieli Bolo Speigth is the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Desk Officer for the Santiago Network Secretariat.