Christian Neubacher delivers his pitch about his experience at the International Organization for Migration during the 2022 Policy Pitch Competition.
Transcript:
1 billion.
That is the amount of people who
the International Organization
for Migration estimate
will be environmental
migrants by the year 2050,
driven by a combination
of climate change,
environmental degradation,
sea level rise and disasters.
My name is Christian Neubacher
and during the summer I
interned with the International
Organization for Migration,
the United Nations agency,
which provides support
for people to move,
for people who are on the move,
and for people to stay within
the IOM as it's called.
I interned with the
migration environment,
climate change, and risk
reduction division.
A relatively small team which
works to elevate
the importance of
environmental migration
in governmental policies
related to both migration
and climate change.
During my internship, I
was fortunate to work at
a number of different projects
related to this area,
including country-level reports,
policy briefs,
communications campaigns,
talking points, and a blog post
on how one particularly
vulnerable group,
indigenous youth, who had
moved to urban areas was
affected by this nexus
between migration
and climate change.
As aspiring changemakers
in the policy sphere,
it's paramount that we use
the limited resources that
we are likely to have at
our disposal to achieve
the maximum policy
change that we can.
And during my internship,
I learned three
important lessons which
I will apply moving
forward to maximize
my impact on which I also hope
that all of you will be
able to apply as well.
First, be consistent and
clear in your messaging.
Decision-makers have
countless decisions
to make every day,
yet they have limited hours and
limited resources to
accomplish them all.
Consistent and
clear messaging can
help overcome this shortcoming.
During my internship,
this involves adapting
my blog post
and the talking points
to explicitly include
the key messages
that my division wanted
to get across to
policymakers and
thereby ensuring that
these key messages became
omnipresent in
decision-makers minds.
Alongside clear messaging,
it is important that we use our
convening powers in
whatever organization
or entity we worked for.
Bringing together stakeholders
into a discussion.
Will have an outside impact
beyond just ourselves.
During my internship, I
was fortunate to play
a minuscule role during
an environmental
migration summit
that was held in
Kampala, Uganda,
which brought together Heads of
State and key
stakeholders to outline
common priorities
and principles for
the region related to
environmental migration.
And this was a positive example
about how bringing
people together in a
community forum can
achieve significant
impact on policy.
Finally, be relentless.
Policy change in particularly
in politically charged and
contentious questions,
does not occur overnight.
Rather, we must keep at it,
repeating these
consistent messages
and using our convening power
over and over again to ensure
that decision-makers know
what our priorities are.
And so to everyone who is
gathered here today
and who is watching,
I urge you to be consistent
in your messaging,
use your convening powers
and be relentless.
Through this, we can achieve
the policy change that we
hope to see in the world.
Thank you.