Gender-sensitive adaptation strategies for climate change effects

Due to its geographic location, Bangladesh faces a great risk of climate change and experiences regular catastrophic natural disaster. About 70 per cent women of the women, who live in the rural areas, have to bear the burden of natural disasters. Also they are the ones who play an important role to adapt with climate change.
Almost 17 per cent land of Bangladesh is at risk of inundation due to sea level rise. Saline water inundation is hampering harvest threatening to push the poor people of south and south-east region into hardcore poverty.  The women of the villages have to face many difficulties to get fresh water due to groundwater level depletion. Rural women have to go out in search of earning because most of them are poor, and contribution of female members is required to run the family.
Rural women do not often have required educational qualifications to enter the labour market and they get lower wage compared to men. In the same way, they face restrictions in taking training to combat disasters which makes them more vulnerable than men to disaster-related problems.
Most of the climate change issues, policies and programmes are not gender-neutral. Bangladesh women are even more vulnerable. They are often not allowed to participate in the public sphere and are therefore less likely to receive critical information for emergency preparedness. In some places they are also less mobile due to strict gender codes of social behaviour and have lesser chances to escape from affected areas. In view of those things, several areas deserve more attention such as gender-related pattern of vulnerability, gender-specific effects of climate change, specific resource use patterns, capacity of women to cope with climate change, decision making on climate change and gender aspects of adaptation and mitigation.
Recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict that even in developed countries, women are more likely than men to die as a result of disasters and if they survive, suffer more in the after-effects.
LIVELIHOOD ISSUES: Female members of the household traditionally own or take care of the poultry birds and livestock which are common victims in the disaster-affected areas. There are little or no shelter arrangement in the cyclone centres for the livestock.
In the rural areas the women are usually holders of microcredit and they have to pay installments every week. Now they are facing problem about repayment. After Sidr and Aila most of the credit-giving NGOs stopped collecting their installment of loan for about six months, but it took about 2-3 years to recover the losses.
LIMITED ACCESS TO MARKET AND SUPPLY SHORTAGE OF INPUTS: With damages of infrastructure and communication systems in natural disasters, women can not access the market to buy or sell food. They are forced to sell milk, eggs or other products in the village and accept lower prices by buyers.
LOSS SAVINGS, INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT: Floods and cyclones reduce employment opportunities, especially for women working in agriculture. As a result, there is a net loss in income which leads to a loss in savings. So it is harder for households, women in particular, to cope with disasters.
HEALTH AND HYGIENE: In the disaster-prone areas in the south-western region of Bangladesh, an increasing trend of sickness is observed. Climate change variability increases salinity. During the dry season when salinity is more intense, the women and adolescent girls are usually required to fetch drinking water from distant sources (5-6 kilometers).
 During flood women's privacy seems to be completely challenged. Sanitation becomes worse, adolescent girls cannot maintain hygienic reproductive healthcare. Moving on the embankments or roadside high lands sometimes put the adult and young women into danger of sexual harassment and assault.  
CHALLENGES WOMEN FACE DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE DISASTERS:
n Can't go to cyclone shelters in time
n Pregnant women can't go to hospitals due to lack of transport   
n Lack of doctors for pregnant women during disasters
n Education is hampered because of post-cyclone closing of the schools
n Women suffer most while shifting homes because of cyclones
n Women have to change their profession from agriculture to something else
n Mothers and children are in constant risk due to lack of nutritious food
n Lack of firewood for cooking
n Going hungry because of the lack of money sent by husbands working outside during floods
n Pregnant women suffer from malnutrition
n Bringing drinking water from 3-4 km. distance
n Drinking salty water during flood due to unavailability of potable water
n Using saline water for showers
n Skin diseases from using saline water for cooking and cleaning
n Using salty water in latrine causes disease in the genital organs
n Female farmers lose their occupation due to low crop yield due to salinity.  
n Deformed babies are born due to salinity of water
n Infertility increases due to climate change
n Spread of water-borne diseases due to lack of clean water
n Women become more unemployed than men due to cyclones and salinity, so women are becoming poorer and poorer
n Salinity decreases food for livestock. So women cannot increase their income from livestock
n Cooking has to be done standing in the flood water
n Spread of skin diseases among women because of moving and cooking in the flood water
n Increase of diarrhea, typhoid etc. during flood
n Prevalence of diseases even after the flood
n Lack of security for women taking shelter on dykes
n Lack of social security
n Lack of women's economic empowerment
RECOMMENDATIONS:   
n Adequate government help for pregnant women
n Arranging floating hospitals during flood
n Starting water ambulance during floods
n Building cyclone centres, especially women-friendly shelters
n Employment opportunities for poor female workers
n Providing necessary training to women for preserving rain water
n Supplying  nutritious food for pregnant women during floods
n Ensuring training for midwives
n Building adequate and easily reachable flood shelters
n Creating employment for women during floods
n Ensuring security for women during flood
n Creating alternate employment for women locally
SUGGESTIONS: The developed countries are responsible for climate change. So they have to compensate, but they are not doing so. The Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), prepared in 2008, was revised in 2009. The government has already built up a Climate Change Trust Fund (CCTF) from own revenue. The government should recognise women's contribution in agriculture and their involvement in social forestry programme. Some suggestions:
-The training programmes should be gender-sensitive and the women should have access to proper training as well and capacity building
-Women farmers should be included in training  programmes on adaptation
-Women should be included in climate-resilient cropping systems and production technologies suitable for adaption against drought, salinity submergence and heat
-Financing mechanisms must be flexible enough to reflect women's needs and priorities
-Participation of women in climate change initiatives must be ensured and women's networks should be strengthened
-Equal representation in decision making structures to allow women to contribute their ideas, experience and expertise on climate change
Finally, most climate change issues, policies and programmes should be gender-neutral.
Dr. Nilufar Banu is Executive Director,
Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad (BUP).
[email protected],
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