Displacement in the Era of Climate Change: A gender sensitive approach to international environmental governance and disaster management in Bangladesh

Climate change impacts will increasingly threaten ecological environments and community livelihoods, inducing higher vulnerability for people who are already marginalized in the Global South. Notably, increasing sea level rise and the intensity of disasters have impacted countries particularly in South Asia where communities have already experienced displacement when areas become uninhabitable. To date, there are no international laws that protect vulnerable communities that bear the brunt of environmental violence as climate change intensifies. Moreover, the latter’s agency and voices often go unaccounted for in international environmental decision-making processes. Particularly, groups that are more vulnerable to human rights violations and disaster risk are made up of women, due to structural gender inequality within political, economic, cultural and environmental processes. Coordinated responses from relevant policy actors, experts, organizations and practitioners are critical towards establishing comprehensive and cohesive approaches to address the protection concerns that arise from displacement, including migration concerns. However, enhancing capacity to effectively implement policies into operational practice, while proactively addressing the gendered implications of climate change, disaster and displacement may require further investigation. This Major Paper aims to investigate the implementation of existing policy frameworks that mainstream disaster risk reduction strategies with a focus on gender; the idea is to assess how disaster management efforts at the national and global level are directly applied on the ground for affected-communities, particularly women, through humanitarian organizations. Among several devastating environmental disasters in Bangladesh’s recent history, this Major Paper studies policy responses and disaster relief efforts during Cyclone Sidr (November 2007) 2 and Cyclone Roanu (May 2016). With a gendered lens, this Major Paper unpacks the effectiveness of disaster governance and how it can be strengthened for the displaced.