12 hours Ago
The impacts of climate change are visible in all crucial aspects of life, be it agriculture and food security or access to healthcare and human potential to work. In vulnerable regions, climate change, which is rapid and forceful, is aggravating the existing social and economic problems such as extreme poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, social conflicts over resources, and gender inequity. The 2022 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserted that climate change is pushing us into a high-risk-centred world, where the growing impacts of climate change are limiting the adaptive capacity of humans as well as the ecosystems.
The National Adaptation Plan (2023-2050) of Bangladesh has identified several climate-induced stresses that are affecting regions, people, their livelihoods, and ecosystems across the country. Traditional occupational groups such as small farmers, fishers, daily wage earners, and people dependent on natural resources are suffering the most. The poor, particularly women and socially marginalised communities, are severely affected in all the climate hotspots; they are highly exposed and sensitive to climate disasters like extreme heat stress during summer, frequent and devastating floods, cyclones, tidal surges, and landslides.
They lack adaptive capacity in terms of awareness, motivation, disaster preparedness, and resources to address climate change impacts. It is evident that many climate-vulnerable people in Bangladesh mainly depend on their wage earnings and livelihoods based on natural resources (such as subsistence agriculture, fishing, and horticulture), which are again very sensitive to climate change. Furthermore, natural resources like forests and wetlands are very often captured and controlled by local influential people.
Thus, climate change is increasing deprivation and social conflicts in the existing social systems, where local government institutions are weak and biased towards the power elites. Recent studies suggest that all the climate hotspots in Bangladesh have high levels of poverty, livelihood insecurity, and gender inequity. Many of the poor, especially women, are forced to migrate to the cities in search of livelihood options, where they live in the slums and fringe areas, in degraded social and environmental conditions.
The NETZ Bangladesh, an international development agency, recently conducted an exploratory study to understand the physical causes—like climate-induced stresses—as well as social causes of vulnerability and gender inequity in three climate-affected regions: southwest coastal areas, northwest drought-prone areas, and north-central river basin. The study also explored the nature and types of social conflicts triggered and aggravated by climate change. The surveyed people (covering 400 respondents) in the three study areas agreed on the rise of social conflicts (63 percent) during and after a climate disaster.
Social conflicts were found to occur the most in the coastal region (82 percent), compared to the high Barind (61 percent) and the river basin (49 percent) areas. Over 90 percent of the respondents in coastal villages said they frequently face conflicts over accessing fresh water for small agriculture, catching fish in the open water bodies, and accessing grazing lands. The study findings also reveal that social conflicts increase due to frequent natural disasters, salinity intrusion, high tides (linked to sea level rise) and waterlogging in coastal villages.
Conflicts are increasing while collecting drinking water from limited sources of water, as the demand for fresh water is on the rise in climate-affected localities. Public water distribution points (like piped water supply and rainwater harvesting systems) are inadequate compared to the growing needs of the vast number of poor people. The poor are not allowed to send their cattle on the grazing lands.
Agricultural lands owned by marginal farmers are often converted into shrimp farms forcefully. These are the main sources of social conflicts in coastal villages. Local rich people and power elites very often win in the fight since they are well-connected to political parties and local government institutions (LGIs).
The existing conflict resolution mechanisms do not protect the interest and rights of poor women, ethnic groups, and marginalised people. There is an urgent need for strengthening alternative and transformative conflict resolution mechanisms, where civil society groups and local partners can play a significant role in empowering the poor, particularly women, to pursue social justice and gender equity. LGIs like union parishads and sectoral agencies in the upazilas should be made more accountable and responsible to the poor, women, and socially excluded groups.
Furthermore, gendered drivers, such as women's lack of mobility and participation, as well the patriarchal norms and values affect the decision-making power of women, girls, and socially disadvantaged groups. Hence, the social capitals of the poor and women, in terms of organisational capacity, cohesiveness and raising collective voice, should be advanced with institutional linkages for locally led solutions, conflict resolution, and climate-resilient livelihoods. LGIs, NGOs, and civil society should promote gender-responsive and pro-poor adaptation and social protection mechanisms for poor women and marginalised groups, which will build resilience of the vulnerable communities and empower them, in order to ensure gender equity as well as a peaceful and just society in the long run.
These should be supported by rights-based organisations and their networks. Dr Dwijen L Mallick is fellow at Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS). Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission . The impacts of climate change are visible in all crucial aspects of life, be it agriculture and food security or access to healthcare and human potential to work.
In vulnerable regions, climate change, which is rapid and forceful, is aggravating the existing social and economic problems such as extreme poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, social conflicts over resources, and gender inequity. The 2022 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserted that climate change is pushing us into a high-risk-centred world, where the growing impacts of climate change are limiting the adaptive capacity of humans as well as the ecosystems. The National Adaptation Plan (2023-2050) of Bangladesh has identified several climate-induced stresses that are affecting regions, people, their livelihoods, and ecosystems across the country.
Traditional occupational groups such as small farmers, fishers, daily wage earners, and people dependent on natural resources are suffering the most. The poor, particularly women and socially marginalised communities, are severely affected in all the climate hotspots; they are highly exposed and sensitive to climate disasters like extreme heat stress during summer, frequent and devastating floods, cyclones, tidal surges, and landslides. They lack adaptive capacity in terms of awareness, motivation, disaster preparedness, and resources to address climate change impacts.
It is evident that many climate-vulnerable people in Bangladesh mainly depend on their wage earnings and livelihoods based on natural resources (such as subsistence agriculture, fishing, and horticulture), which are again very sensitive to climate change. Furthermore, natural resources like forests and wetlands are very often captured and controlled by local influential people. Thus, climate change is increasing deprivation and social conflicts in the existing social systems, where local government institutions are weak and biased towards the power elites.
Recent studies suggest that all the climate hotspots in Bangladesh have high levels of poverty, livelihood insecurity, and gender inequity. Many of the poor, especially women, are forced to migrate to the cities in search of livelihood options, where they live in the slums and fringe areas, in degraded social and environmental conditions. The NETZ Bangladesh, an international development agency, recently conducted an exploratory study to understand the physical causes—like climate-induced stresses—as well as social causes of vulnerability and gender inequity in three climate-affected regions: southwest coastal areas, northwest drought-prone areas, and north-central river basin.
The study also explored the nature and types of social conflicts triggered and aggravated by climate change. The surveyed people (covering 400 respondents) in the three study areas agreed on the rise of social conflicts (63 percent) during and after a climate disaster. Social conflicts were found to occur the most in the coastal region (82 percent), compared to the high Barind (61 percent) and the river basin (49 percent) areas.
Over 90 percent of the respondents in coastal villages said they frequently face conflicts over accessing fresh water for small agriculture, catching fish in the open water bodies, and accessing grazing lands. The study findings also reveal that social conflicts increase due to frequent natural disasters, salinity intrusion, high tides (linked to sea level rise) and waterlogging in coastal villages. Conflicts are increasing while collecting drinking water from limited sources of water, as the demand for fresh water is on the rise in climate-affected localities.
Public water distribution points (like piped water supply and rainwater harvesting systems) are inadequate compared to the growing needs of the vast number of poor people. The poor are not allowed to send their cattle on the grazing lands. Agricultural lands owned by marginal farmers are often converted into shrimp farms forcefully.
These are the main sources of social conflicts in coastal villages. Local rich people and power elites very often win in the fight since they are well-connected to political parties and local government institutions (LGIs). The existing conflict resolution mechanisms do not protect the interest and rights of poor women, ethnic groups, and marginalised people.
There is an urgent need for strengthening alternative and transformative conflict resolution mechanisms, where civil society groups and local partners can play a significant role in empowering the poor, particularly women, to pursue social justice and gender equity. LGIs like union parishads and sectoral agencies in the upazilas should be made more accountable and responsible to the poor, women, and socially excluded groups. Furthermore, gendered drivers, such as women's lack of mobility and participation, as well the patriarchal norms and values affect the decision-making power of women, girls, and socially disadvantaged groups.
Hence, the social capitals of the poor and women, in terms of organisational capacity, cohesiveness and raising collective voice, should be advanced with institutional linkages for locally led solutions, conflict resolution, and climate-resilient livelihoods. LGIs, NGOs, and civil society should promote gender-responsive and pro-poor adaptation and social protection mechanisms for poor women and marginalised groups, which will build resilience of the vulnerable communities and empower them, in order to ensure gender equity as well as a peaceful and just society in the long run. These should be supported by rights-based organisations and their networks.
Dr Dwijen L Mallick is fellow at Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS). Views expressed in this article are the author's own. Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals.
To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission ..
