Blog by Bushra Ali Khan, Research & Communications Officer, South Asian Institute of Crime & Justice Studies
South Asia is one of the most climate-exposed regions in the world. From devastating floods in Pakistan to recurring cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, climate hazards are intensifying and reshaping the lives of millions. Nowhere is this more evident than in fragile border regions like the Sundarbans delta, Assam’s floodplains, and the Himalayan river basins. These are not just sites of ecological vulnerability but also of political tension and human displacement.
The crisis unfolding here is not only about rising seas and extreme weather. It is also about the information that fails to flow across borders. Disasters do not respect territorial boundaries, yet data on climate risks, early warnings, and migration patterns are often siloed within national systems. This information-sharing gap worsens humanitarian crises, complicates cross-border migration, and undermines efforts to anticipate climate refugee flows.
This article examines the paradox of climate and migration data in South Asia, explores why governments withhold critical information, and highlights how better institutional frameworks and incentives could transform cooperation.
The Information-Sharing Paradox
At the heart of the problem is a paradox: the very information that could save lives is treated as a strategic asset. Early warnings about floods, river levels, or cyclone trajectories are often delayed or withheld because states view such data through the lens of national security and sovereignty. Migration figures, particularly involving cross-border flows, are guarded even more tightly – used as bargaining chips in negotiations around borders, trade, or refugee policy.
This approach is costly. When information is not shared, disaster responses are delayed, regional coordination collapses, and the most vulnerable, migrants, women, children, and marginalized communities, bear the brunt. What should be a tool for resilience instead becomes a weapon of politics.
Why Regional Institutions Fall Short
South Asia is not without frameworks for cooperation. Organizations like SAARC and BIMSTEC were envisioned as platforms for regional problem-solving. Yet, in practice, they have struggled to institutionalize transparent data-sharing on climate and migration. Political rivalries, especially between India and Pakistan, have paralysed collective action.
Even where initiatives exist, they remain fragmented. For example, India and Bangladesh have developed some joint monitoring of the Sundarbans, but these efforts are ad hoc and rarely scaled up. Without independent verification mechanisms or binding obligations, cooperation remains dependent on political goodwill – a fragile commodity in a region marked by mistrust.
The consequence is clear: South Asia lacks durable institutions with the mandate, credibility and technical capacity to make data-sharing reliable and routine.
From Sovereignty to Shared Security: The Way Forward
The key is to reframe climate and migration data not as a matter of sovereignty, but as a regional public good. This requires two shifts: institutionalised transparency and incentive structures.
First, South Asia needs platforms that make data-sharing automatic, verifiable, and insulated from day-to-day politics. Independent regional monitoring bodies, cross-border early-warning systems, and standardised reporting protocols could provide the backbone of cooperation.
Second, incentives must align with national interests. International donors and climate finance institutions could make cooperation on data-sharing a condition for accessing funds. States could also gain reputational benefits for transparent reporting, making cooperation a matter of political prestige as well as necessity.
Such measures would not erase political tensions, but they would create pathways where sharing data is seen not as a concession but as a rational choice.
Conclusion
Climate change is rewriting the map of South Asia, not only through rising seas and stronger storms, but through the movement of people fleeing uninhabitable lands. Anticipating and managing this displacement requires information flows as fluid as the rivers that cross borders.
The missing link is not trust, which can vanish with the next political crisis, but institutions and incentives that make transparency durable. In a region where borders define nations but disasters know none, secrecy costs lives. Sharing saves them.
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