Over 80 pc households face climate-induced income losses in Khulna, Satkhira

Over 80 per cent households in southwestern coastal districts of Khulna and Satkhira face income losses due to climate shocks like crop failure, shrimp-farming losses, and lack of alternative jobs.

While youth employment opportunities remain scarce, migration to urban areas is rising as a coping strategy, a study of Plan International, Bangladesh disclosed the findings during a dissemination workshop held in the city on Wednesday.

The study titled "Understanding SRHR, WASH and Livelihoods Situations and Pathways Forward in Climate-Vulnerable Locations of Southwest Bangladesh" also found over 60 per cent adolescent girls reported difficulties in accessing menstrual health products during climate emergencies of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH).

Additional Secretary of Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Mohammad Navid Safiullah, Director General of Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) Dr Ashrafi Ahmad, Director, Bangladesh Meteorological Department Mohammad Momenul Islam and First Secretary and Deputy Head of Development Cooperation, Embassy of Sweden in Bangladesh Ms Nayoka Martinez-Bäckström were present as special Guests. Representatives from the government, development partners, UN agencies, civil society, academia, and media shared views stressing integrated, gender-responsive, and climate-resilient interventions in Bangladesh's coastal regions.

As Bangladesh continues to face the compounded impacts of climate change, this study and its dissemination mark a pivotal step toward collaborative, systems-driven solution, they opined.

Plan International Bangladesh hopes the findings will inform government policy, donor priorities, and the design of future programmes focusing on SRHR, WASH, and sustainable livelihoods in climate hotspots. Communities of south-western coastal districts that sit on the frontline of climate change in Bangladesh live under constant threat from cyclones, tidal surges, flooding, and salinity intrusion that erode land, contaminate water, and destabilise livelihoods.

The keynote paper presented highlighted these hazards deepening existing inequalities by disproportionately affecting women, adolescent girls, youth, and marginalised groups.

The interplay between climate stressors and social vulnerabilities creates triple burdens -- Health and rights: Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services which are disrupted during disasters, leaving women and girls without essential care.

Only 2.5 per cent households reported to have consistent access to comprehensive SRHR services during disasters. Early marriage and GBV risks increase significantly during crises, with 78 per cent female respondents reporting heightened exposure. In term Findings:

To address critical service gaps, the workshop recommended programmatic and policy actions including Livelihoods programmes, emergency-ready SRHR service packages in cyclone shelters, referral pathways to local service providers, expand rainwater, harvesting system at school and community hubs, support women entrepreneurs to operate community-level desalinisation tanks, linking them with microfinance and technical training and establish gender-balanced water user groups to manage pond recharge systems and tube wells, with clear roles for adolescent/youth leaders.

smunima@yahoo.com