Bangladesh is at sixth position in terms of women resilience in disaster risk reduction (DRR) among the seven South Asian (SA) countries.
Limitations in DRR infrastructure decrease Bangladesh's overall disaster resilience capacity. Some economic and institutional features, however, bolster its performance in Women's Resilience Index (WRI).
Only Pakistan scored (27.8) less than Bangladesh (40) out of 100 in all four categories of the index - economic, infrastructure, institutional and social.
These findings are the outcome of the South Asia WRI, designed and constructed by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in collaboration with Actionaid.
ActionAid Bangladesh shared the report with media at Dhaka Reporters Unity on Monday.
ActionAid Bangladesh country director Farah Kabir said, "We have to increase investment in infrastructure development. Because of poor infrastructure Bangladesh cannot face the disasters properly, and women are their main sufferers."
According to the report, Bangladesh's score in DRR infrastructure is 22.3, which is the lowest in South Asia. Bangladesh has some components of an effective land-use system, namely, an urban development directorate and dedicated development authorities for four cities.
There is a mandatory building code, but its compliance is a pervasive issue, as exemplified by the collapse of a garment factory building in 2013 that led to 1,138 deaths.
The report also highlights that women in Bangladesh cannot play a vital role as a leader in disaster resilience. They represent the majority of microfinance borrowers, 90.1 per cent. But their access to credit at both formal and informal institutions remains limited given the requirements for collateral.
This is reflected in only 22.3 per cent of loans being given to women at financial institutions, and women owning just 34.9 per cent. While vague on the role that women play in disasters, the National Plan for Disaster Management recognizes the particular vulnerabilities of women, though these do not necessarily trickle down into disaster-specific or local plans.
Farah Kabir also said, "Disaster management operations should be decentralized. All the decisions are taken and initiated by a central government."
"Women representation and leadership are absent there, whereas they can play a vital role in effective disaster risk reduction," she added.
Shahnaz Arefin, director of ActionAid Bangladesh, said, "Our policies do not accommodate the vital role of women relating to disaster risk reduction. It is the high time that we invest more on women-led emergency response."
The report also shows, the economic damage of Bangladesh from 1995 to 2014 is more than $ 10 billion, and a total of 15,719 people lost their lives.
The report on WRI has been formulated with following issues: availability of economic resources, reliable infrastructure, the countries' capacity of public institutions, their informal capacity to respond to disaster, and woman in DRR policy and planning.
Japan, the only high-income country in the index and one that has taken many measures to increase its resilience against disasters, attains the highest overall score (80.6 out of 100).
It ranks top across all four categories of the index, and serves as an upper outlier by which to contextualize the results for the developing countries of South Asia, the main focus of this research.
Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, the Maldives and Bangladesh achieve an overall score in a relatively narrow band of 40-46.4, reflecting varying strengths and weaknesses of the countries.
ActionAid commissioned EIU to develop the South Asia WRI to measure the disaster resilience of a selection of South Asian countries in the event of a disruptive shock, with a specific focus on the experiences of women.
It assesses their capacity to withstand and recover from disasters, and the level of participation by women in their national resilience-building efforts.
The states, included in the index, have been chosen because they comprise the core states in South Asia, which is one of the least-gender-equitable regions in the world.
Meanwhile, the findings of the report are scheduled to be discussed in the Conference of the Parties (COP) 20, kicked off in Lima, Peru on December 1-12. COP is the main decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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