The development gains and hard-earned productivity of Bangladesh are at risk of being inverted if the 1.5 degree Celsius limit of the Paris Agreement is breached. To that end, it remains imperative to equip vulnerable communities, key sectors and the government with vital instruments to bring about resilience and stability for all. At the end of last year, Bangladesh’s Prime …

Sitting on a plastic chair inside a small brick house in Cox’s Bazar, the light from the evening sun shining on his tired face, 70 year-old Mahmud* recalls the day when a five-metre tidal wave engulfed his home and land on Kutubdia island, killing his wife and two sons. The ‘1991 cyclone’ was one of the deadliest tropical cyclones to ever …

This paper aims to understand how environmental stressors influence people’s livelihood options in the coastal belt of Bangladesh. We argue that environmental stressors such as cyclones, riverbank erosion, salinity intrusion, and floods have negative impacts on people’s lives by reducing their livelihood options. Twelve in-depth interviews (Livelihood Histories) and twelve Focus Group Discussions (FGD) based on two Participatory Rural Appraisal …

An overview of research findings from the 2013 to 2018 Gibika project. Understanding how environmental stress and climatic changes influence people’s livelihood resilience and lives in Bangladesh. By: Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson Contributing authors: Kees van der Geest and David Wrathall Introduction A climate-resilient and sustainable future for people in vulnerable countries starts with resilient livelihoods. There is an urgent need to …

The three day long Second Annual National Conference on Urban Resilience to Climate Change has already started from 25th November 2017. The International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) along with multiple other partners are organizing this national conference from 25 to 27 November 2017 at the …

C. Emdad Haque one of our Visiting Researcher share his story.   Learning resilience from the people of Bangladesh By C. Emdad Haque In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a panel of experts on CNN suggested that if any country or society needs to learn about resilience to natural disasters, they should look to Bangladesh. This is because Bangladeshis have confronted …

The last day of the First Annual Urban Conference kicked off with the topic “Financing the Sustainable Urban Development Agenda” hosted by BCAS. The topic’s main focus was to uphold clear and sustainable financing in the urban context. The session was chaired by Dr. Atiq Rahman executive director at BCAS and the chief guest for this session was Dr. Samsul …

The second day of the First Annual National Conference on Urban Resilience started of with the third plenary session on Participatory Vulnerability Assessment organized by ICCCAD-IUB. The session’s keynote speaker Mr. Terry Cannon of Institute of Development Studies, UK covered an interesting topic on participatory vulnerability assessment where Mr. Cannon challenged the term Resilience in the current status quo. He …

The First Annual National Conference on Urban Resilience is being organized by International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at Independent University Bangladesh (IUB), and Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), Bangladesh. The inaugural session was opened by keynote speaker Mr. John I. Carruthers, Director of Sustainable Urban Planning Program at George Washington University. Mr. Carruthers expressed his …

(Originally published here) After tense negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Paris in December, the world finally has a deal that, although not perfect, for the first time allows us to be optimistic that we will decelerate the pace of climate change. For those of us who have been working towards this for nearly two decades, it …