Scaling climate change adaptation knowledge and technologies for empowering women, and to enhance social equity and disaster resilience in BANGLADESH
Programs and partnerships
Lead institution(s)
Summary
Bangladesh is recognized as one of the world’s four most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change and natural disaster.Read more
Bangladesh is recognized as one of the world’s four most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change and natural disaster. This is due to its unique geographic location, dominance of floodplains, low elevation, high population density, poverty, and overwhelming dependence on nature, its resources, and services. The country has a history of extreme climatic events claiming millions of lives and destroying past development gains.
Despite past efforts to develop and test adaptation knowledge, strategies, and technologies, some key gaps remain. These include inadequate research on community participation and gender and social implications of climate adaptation measures; slow uptake and scaling of adaptation knowledge and technology; lack of inter-sectoral coordination and integration; and absence of systematic promotion of adaptation innovations to ensure sustainability.
The project aims to improve understanding of the complex set of factors and dynamics that worsen differentiated climate change impacts; reduce social and gender inequity through innovative climate change adaptation knowledge and technologies in the water and agricultural sectors; build and coordinate institutional integration by enhancing awareness and capacity building; and strengthen the implementation of recommended technologies and policies by facilitating research uptake, policy dialogues, and coordination among relevant government sectors and other stakeholders.
Four action research interventions in water and agriculture will be tested for potential scaling. More than 12,000 direct beneficiaries will learn about and adopt locally appropriate climate change adaptation technologies that support social and gender equity and enhance community resilience to disasters. The project is also expected to reach an additional 1.6 million indirect beneficiaries. Throughout the project there will be a consistent focus on empowering women, youth/students, and disadvantaged families by enhancing their knowledge, technical know-how, and income-generation options and skills.
The project will be implemented through the leadership of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies in partnership with the University of Manitoba and the Bangladesh government's Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs.
Research outputs
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The general purposes of the action research project were to scale-up appropriate, socially transformative technologies for adaptation to climate change, to enhance development planning capacity and policy sensitivity at multiple institutional levels, and to support the empowerment of women and the disadvantaged segments of the population in the climate hotspots of Bangladesh.
Despite widespread recognition that social learning can potentially contribute toward enhancing community resilience to climate-induced disaster shocks, studies on this process remain few and far between. This study investigates the role of local institutions (formal, informal, and quasi-formal) in creating learning arenas and translating social learning into collective action in flash flood-prone Sunamganj communities in Bangladesh. We follow a Case Study approach using qualitative research methods. Primary data were collected through 24 key informant interviews, 10 semi-structured interviews, six focus-group discussions, and two participant observations events. Our results reveal that the diversity and flexibility of local-level institutions creates multiple learning platforms in which social interaction, problem formulation, nurturing diverse perspectives, and generating innovative knowledge for collective action can take place. Within these formal and informal learning arenas, communities’ desire and willingness to be self-reliant and to reduce their dependency on external funding and assistance is clearly evident. Social learning thus paves the way for institutional collaboration, partnership, and multi-stakeholder engagement, which facilitates social learning-based collective action. Nurturing institutional diversity and flexibility at the local level is therefore recommended for transforming social learning into active problem-solving measures and to enhance community resilience to disaster shocks.