ACCESS4ALL Group

Through the vulnerability mapping exercise and community testimonials from Dhaka, Cox’s Bazar, and Satkhira, I got to know how climatic hazards affect different communities in different ways. In Dhaka, informal settlements, unsafe living conditions, poor drainage, water and sanitation systems significantly increase exposure to floods, heatwaves and storms, especially for slum dwellers and women. In Cox’s Bazar, both local communities and Rohingya refugees are vulnerable to cyclones, storm surges, heatwaves, floods, and coastal erosion due to weak housing materials, poor healthcare system, unsafe conditions for women, and weak institutional capacity. In Satkhira, cyclones, tidal floods, salinity intrusion, river erosion, and water scarcity directly threaten livelihoods such as agriculture and fishing, while embankment failure further increases vulnerability.

One key insight from this module was that across all three regions, communities are actively trying to adapt through strategies, such as livelihood diversification and rainwater harvesting, among others. At the same time, they do receive support from the government, and more significantly from the NGOs through drinking water sources, shelters, food and financial support, alternative livelihood opportunities, healthcare, and training. However, as seen from the testimonials, this support is limited and uneven across communities in different regions. Therefore, there are efforts to address climatic hazards, both at the community and institutional levels, but these are constrained by insufficient institutional support, poor infrastructure maintenance, gender inequality, and limited access to basic services such as healthcare, safe water, housing, and education. The vulnerability mapping exercise made it clear that building climate resilience not only requires addressing environmental hazards, but also the social, structural and institutional factors that make certain communities more exposed and less able to recover.