Climate Change and Livelihood Resilience Programme

Programme Description: 

Situated in one of the most climatic volatile region, Bangladesh annually faces floods, droughts, riverbank erosion, coastal erosion and cyclones that form in the Bay of Bengal due to the country’s funnel shaped coast. Its location on an active delta also makes the country both fertile and volatile with active rivers constantly shifting and changing their flow of direction. As such, the people of Bengal have always lived in a precarious situation facing a variety of natural hazards annually. Climate change also threatens further worsen these problems with scientists predicting cyclones to become more intense and the rate of erosion to increase as tidal waves become more rapid. With its deltaic fertile land and enormous numbers of river, people in Bangladesh are mostly involved with agriculture and fishing. But if livelihood systems are not resilient, environmental shocks can have long-term impacts on human well-being and development goals. Livelihood Resilience programme aims to advance a scientific understanding of livelihood resilience in general and its linkage to climate change impacts in Bangladesh. It also applies scientific conclusions towards community-led solutions (projects in the communities) that improve the living conditions of vulnerable people.


Team Members:

Istiakh Ahmed
Coordinator, Resilient Livelihoods Programme
Shababa Haque
Coordinator, SDG Porgramme
Mahmuda Mity
Research Assistant

Juel Mahmud
Project officer
Shahrin Mannan
Research officer
Sumaiya Binte Selim
Junior Researcher

Programme Objective:

  • Rigorous scientific knowledge about resilience in livelihood systems
  • Community empowerment in decision-making and implementation
  • Livelihood transformation in the focus communities in Bangladesh
  • Disseminate findings, insights and experiences to influence national policy and facilitate wider use

Current projects:


Panii Jibon:

Panii Jibon is a project addressing water related threats and vulnerabilities of an already impoverished population living in the disaster prone coastal areas of Bangladesh affected by saline water intrusion, tidal surges and cyclones. It aims to build resilience of severely disadvantaged and vulnerable communities and families (including women led households, people with special needs, and extreme poor people affected by recurrent disasters) in accessing safe drinking water and in adapting their (homestead based) farming systems for enhanced food security, nutrition and income.

It is being funded and implemented by HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation. This project builds on partnerships between HELVETAS, International Centre for Climate Change and development (ICCCAD), Development Organization for Rural Poor (DORP), Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Centre (BDPC), Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program (OKUP) and national NGOs. OKUP and ICCCAD are partners with complementary profiles, skills and advocacy networks are a concern in the partnership.

Mechanisms are well positioned to connect grass-root work with national and international knowledge sharing and advocacy networks. OKUP is a migrant organization promoting safe migration and advocating rights of migrant workers, HEVLVETAS already relates with through joint national and regional engagements in promoting migration governance and migrant rights. ICCCAD and HELVETAS maintain an institutional and professional relationship through joint work at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation (PROVIA). The knowhow and the institutional relationships of the four organizations have been used already extensively during the design of the Project, and will be leveraged fully during its implementation.

(See details on Panii Jibon info page)

Governance for Climate Resilience (G4CR)

Governance is being one major issue that ensures proper management of different activities regarding any issues. The Governance for Climate Resilience (G4CR) is a two year project to promote grassroots resilience in development policies and processes at the local level in the area of water, food security and livelihoods.  In relation with the climate-induced impacts and relevant governance and justice issues that act as barriers for the local communities to build their adaptive capacity with especial focus on women and youth.

It is a partnership between the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), the Center for Climate Justice- Bangladesh (CCJ-B) and the Center for Natural Studies (CNRS), funded by New Venture Fund (NVF), USA.

Key goals

  1. Emphasizing governance issues to promote climate justice, through vulnerability assessment and loss and damage assessment
  2. Demonstrate the capacity building of the local community as well as the local government to ensure better governance.
  3. Justifygood governance practice for stimulating climate resilience of the vulnerable communities in coastal zone of Bangladesh.

This project, will be a short experiment of methodology development; based on which we hope to have a good provided methodology and can apply them universally or applicable in other country that how to count the Loss and Damage.

Outcomes of the project will be communicated to the wider audience, including to policy stakeholders with the aim of shaping national adaptation strategies towards building social-ecological resilience in areas located at the forefront of climate change impacts in Bangladesh.

(See details on G4CR info page)

Previous Projects:


Gibika (Research to Action) project:

Gibika is a research to action project aimed at understanding the concept of livelihood resilience in the face of environmental stressors and changing climate, and demonstrate pilot action in one site based on the findings. This is a five-year research-to-action partnership between International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and Munich Re-Foundation (MRF). The project worked in seven sites of Bangladesh including Gabtola in Bagherhat District (Riverbank erosion and saline intrusion), Mazer Char in Pirozpur District (Riverbank erosion, storm surge and saline intrusion), Dalbanga South in Barguna District (Riverbank erosion, king tides, standing water, water logging and saline intrusion), Singpur in Kishoreganj District (Riverbank erosion and land loss), Babupur in Naogaon District (Dry spells, shifting rainy seasons and drought), Jamalpur in Naogaon District (Dry spells, shifting rainy seasons and drought), Bhola Slum in Dhaka City (Flooding and standing water). The first two years of the project was dedicated to conduct research and later three years were dedicated to demonstrate pilot action at the community level in Dalbanga South village of Barguna District on Disaster preparedness. The project also has a side component, Resilience Academy which invites scientist from around the world to meet in Bangladesh and discuss one issue of Climate change and propose possible scientific paper that can be generated from this group. A year later the same group meet again in Germany and share the progress of the papers and finalize most of it. This platform has produced several peer reviewed journal articles so far. (See details on Gibika info page)

Monitoring Environmental Changes in Cox’s Bazar following Rohingya Influx (MECCRI):

Overall Objective: undertake an in-depth environmental monitoring programme to identify predicated and unanticipated changes to the environment due to the concentration of the Rohingya camps in the area, and thereby contribute to building an evidence base options to prevent further degradation and if possible restore environmental quality within and outside the Rohingya camps.

Geographical coverage: Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Executing agency: International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Beneficiaries: Rohingya Communities and Host communities living in Ukhia and Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar, relevant government entities at national and sub-national levels, international humanitarian and development actors and civil-society organizations

Management site: Kutupalong Camp and Balukhali Camp in Ukhia and Camp sites in Teknaf)

Environmental Issues to be monitored: Water quality and availability of groundwater, Deforestation and land degradation, Biodiversity loss and wildlife-human conflicts, Indoor air quality, Solid and hazardous waste management.