INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT (ICCCAD)

Arriving in Dhaka on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr, my mind was inundated by unknowns. How will my work fit within the centre? Will there be someone to help supervise me and provide me with logistical information? What can I eat other than daal and rice being a vegetarian? These unknowns quickly surpassed upon meeting everyone…

Climate Knowledge Brokers

Oct 20, 2014

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in Blog, Gobeshona, Visiting Researchers

I recently attended the Climate Knowledge Brokers Workshop at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex University in Brighton, UK. The workshop brought together members of the Climate Knowledge Brokers (CKB) Group. This group is organised via a Coordination Hub hosted by the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) and a CKB Steering…

Land loss on Bhola Island

Oct 20, 2014

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Kathinka and I arrived in Elisha, a town on Bangladesh’s Bhola Island, early Sunday morning, tumbling out of the auto into a cluster of tin-shed buildings huddled on the bank of the Meghna River. The water teemed with fishing boats, wooden half-moons coughing black smoke and bearing tattered flags. We watched them from the road…

Environmental Migration in Bangladesh

Oct 20, 2014

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Bangladesh has long been a country of movement. There are as many reasons for migrating as there are people, but the first thing a migrant will typically tell you is that he or she moved for better economic opportunities. Bangladesh has also always been a country of dangerous weather, and, as climate change becomes a…

Children and Climate Change in Bangladesh

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I am conducting my research on children-focused disaster risk reduction (DRR) programs and how they enable children to reduce vulnerabilities to the climate-induced hazards like flood and cyclones. Bangladesh is a disaster-prone country due to climate change. According to a report on DRR for Bangladesh, climate experts predict that climate-induced hazards like floods and cyclones…

Index-Insurance: Should Policy Makers target Financial Inclusion as a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for Bangladesh’s rural Poor?

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The residents of Khulna and Barisal Divisions, in Southern Bangladesh, are some of the most resilient in the world. Cyclones, storm surges, salinization, rising sea level, flood and erosion threaten livelihoods, health and the broader development agenda of the region. NGOs here aim to provide knowledge, skills and opportunities to people living with climate change…

Migration experiences in the Bhola slum

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For the last 2 months I have been engaged in field work for my Masters thesis. I have spent several days in the Bhola slum in Dhaka to learn about the migration experiences of the people living here, the majority of them having lost their land to the river. Bangladesh is a country of human…

Reflections on ICCCAD: Samira Siddique

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Unlike the alarmist mainstream media coverage of climate change, ICCCAD research looks at climate change and development practically. We don’t think of those affected by extreme floods and rising sea levels as climate change “victims,” but as climate change “warriors.” Alongside the empowerment this change of wording gives to those affected, we acknowledge that there…

Embanked: Climate Vulnerability and the Paradoxes of Flood Protection in Dhaka

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Lying in the heart of the world’s largest river delta, Dhaka is both one of the world’s fastest growing cities and one of the most flood prone urban regions in the world. While the city’s first levees or embankments were built under the colonial regime during the 1860s, its first major flood control project was…

Loss and Damage in Khulna: A First Glance

Jul 24, 2014

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in Blog, Loss and Damage, Visiting Researchers

I thought the field trip would be nice escape from my routine in Dhaka but I never imagined it would become an inspiration to my work on loss and damage. More often than not, loss and damage is perceived as a calculation of monetary impacts following an extreme event, and more controversially as a method…

Understanding resilience at the local level

Jul 22, 2014

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