Platform on Disaster Displacement

The Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD) is a state-led, multi-stakeholder initiative launched in 2016 to follow up on the work of the Nansen Initiative, which had concluded with the endorsement of the Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change (the "Protection Agenda") by 109 governments in October 2015.

The PDD's core purpose is to implement the recommendations of that Protection Agenda. It focuses on people forced to move across international borders because of sudden- or slow-onset disasters, including those linked to climate change — a population that falls outside the strict scope of the 1951 Refugee Convention and is not directly addressed by the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

Key features of the PDD include:

• State-led structure. Chairmanship rotates among member states; past chairs have included Germany, Bangladesh, France, Fiji, and Costa Rica.
• A Steering Group of member states and a Group of Friends of additional supportive governments and international organisations.
• An Advisory Committee drawing in UN agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
• A small Coordination Unit, hosted in Geneva.

The PDD does not create binding law. Instead, it promotes policy coherence and integrates disaster displacement considerations into broader frameworks, notably the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030), the Paris Agreement (including the Warsaw International Mechanism's Task Force on Displacement), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Global Compact on Refugees and Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration adopted in 2018.

Its workstreams typically cover data and knowledge, policy and normative development, and operational responses, with attention to regional practice in the Pacific, the Horn of Africa, Central America, and South Asia.