Women's livelihood resilience and adaptation options for climate change

Abstract

Climate disaster. like flood puts a lot of pressure on women whose responsibility is still that of keeping families together and feeding them. tip until now. a gender perspective has been mainly lacking from the international debate on climate change. The main objective of my research is identifying the perception of women regarding their livelihood option and their capacity to cope to climate change and prioritize the adaptation option for reducing their vulnerability. Saturia upazila in Manikganj district is selected as my research area due to flood proneness of the area and women's vulnerability to climate changes in agricultural and livestock sectors. A number of FGDs were carried out to elicit the perception of women regarding climate change and their preferred adaptation options. The threat of climate change as perceived by women includes long term flooding. higher frequency of flooding and sudden flooding. Women are now facing threat of extreme poverty due to loss of income and damages to crops. As a result, their vulnerability is growing with alarming rate due to climate impacts on agricultural sector. Direct and indirect impact of current flooding is imposing negative effects on livestock sector also.The community resilience is to cope with flooding by changing food habits. diversion of income option and depending on credit loan from NGO or local money lenders.Adaptation options are urgently needed for the reducing women's vulnerability. The results of my research are highlighted to understand adverse impact of climate change on women's livelihood options and the draft adaptation menu is selected through bottom up approaches.