Building climate-sensitive displacement statistics in Honduras

Building climate-sensitive displacement statistics in Honduras

Honduras is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in Latin America. Recurrent droughts, hurricanes, and floods increasingly intersect with economic insecurity and violence, shaping how and why people move within the country. These overlapping pressures do not only affect households forced to leave their homes. They also strain host communities and national institutions tasked with responding to displacement.

Understanding these dynamics depends on reliable, nationally representative data. Yet until recently, Honduras’ official statistical instruments did not fully capture how climate change contributes to displacement, nor how displaced populations experience vulnerability once they move. This gap limited the ability of policymakers and humanitarian actors to anticipate risks, target support, and design responses grounded in evidence.

Strengthening national data systems to capture climate and displacement

In 2024, Honduras’ National Institute of Statistics (INE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with CGIAR Climate Security at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT. The agreement marked the start of a collaboration to integrate climate and displacement dimensions into Honduras’ national data systems, with a particular focus on the Permanent Household Survey (EPHPM: Encuesta Permanente de Hogares de Propósito Múltiple).

This work is embedded within the CGIAR project Expanding the Climate Security Observatory as a Decision-Support Tool for Policymakers in Honduras, funded by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. The objective is not to create parallel datasets, but to strengthen core national statistical instruments so that climate-related drivers of displacement, vulnerabilities of displaced populations, and associated security risks are systematically documented.

Evidence from the 2024 displacement module

A first step was the joint analysis of the 2024 EPHPM displacement module. Conducted by INE and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with analytical support from CGIAR in 2025, the analysis generated new evidence on the scale, causes, and consequences of internal displacement in Honduras.

The findings documented how climate-related hazards, such as floods, storms, and droughts, interact with economic pressures and insecurity to influence household mobility decisions. Rather than acting in isolation, climate shocks often compound existing vulnerabilities, accelerating displacement or shaping where families relocate.

This evidence provided government institutions, humanitarian agencies, and development partners with a clearer picture of displacement realities across the country. It also underscored the importance of capturing climate drivers more systematically, rather than treating displacement as a purely social or economic phenomenon.

Redesigning the 2025 displacement module

Building on these insights, CGIAR supported INE in redesigning the displacement module for the 2025 EPHPM, which was carried out throughout the year. The revised module introduces new questions to better identify climate-related triggers of displacement, alongside indicators that shed light on the conditions displaced people face after moving.

These indicators include access to basic services, livelihood opportunities, and exposure to new risks in host communities. Importantly, the updated module also introduces a lens on how climate impacts and displacement may contribute to social tensions and the risk of conflict escalation. This enables policymakers to better understand the broader human security implications of climate-related mobility, rather than focusing narrowly on movement alone.

A new climate change module for 2026

The collaboration goes beyond displacement statistics. Within the framework of the MoU, CGIAR and INE are also advancing the design of a dedicated climate change module for the 2026 EPHPM, the first of its kind in Honduras.

This module will enable the systematic collection of nationally representative data on climate vulnerabilities, household-level impacts, and adaptive strategies. It will also help trace how climate stresses influence displacement pathways over time. By embedding climate indicators into a core national survey, Honduras will generate disaggregated evidence that can inform resilience policies, humanitarian programming, and long-term development planning.

Modernizing statistics for policy and action

Taken together, these innovations mark an important step in modernizing Honduras’ national statistics system. By integrating climate and displacement dimensions into routine data collection, INE is addressing a critical evidence gap that affects decision-making across sectors.

Stronger statistics enhance the government’s ability to anticipate displacement, target support to the most vulnerable, and coordinate responses across institutions. They also provide international partners with a more reliable evidence base for aligning humanitarian and development efforts.

As Gabriel Auxume, Head of Planning at Honduras’ National Institute of Statistics, noted:

“The collaboration with CGIAR is helping us strengthen statistical results by integrating climate and displacement. We are building stronger evidence to guide national policies and ensure displaced families are visible in data and decision-making.”

Looking ahead

As climate change continues to shape mobility and vulnerability patterns in Honduras, the ability to capture these dynamics in national statistics will become increasingly important. The collaboration between INE and CGIAR demonstrates how targeted investments in data, methods, and institutional capacity can translate into more informed policy choices.

By ensuring that climate-related displacement is no longer invisible in official statistics, Honduras is laying the groundwork for responses that are better aligned with the realities faced by displaced families and the communities that host them.

This work is carried out with support from the CGIAR Climate Action Science Program (CASP) and the CGIAR Food Frontiers and Security (FFS) Science Program. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/