Climate Change and Migration in Bangladesh: Empirically Derived Lessons and Opportunities for Policy Makers and Practitioners

Abstract

South Asia is one of the most densely settled and disaster-prone regions in the world. Furthermore, in many low-lying coastal contexts both slow-onset and rapid-onset natural disasters coalesce with existent conditions of poverty and vulnerability to progressively erode and compromise human adaptive capacity, resulting in a persistent flux of livelihood driven human migration into cities (A background video documentary to this research was published by UNSW Australia on 18 February 2015 and may be accessed at https://youtu.be/PBJeelgnadU). While climate change cannot be isolated as the definitive cause of this movement, it is impossible to dismiss it as a contributing factor. Lack of basic education plays a key role in limiting options for arriving daily wage labourers and their respective families, constraining many to struggle for subsistence survival in subhuman conditions in urban slums where vulnerabilities have been described as even more severe than the problems in rural communities of origin that triggered the migrations in the first place. Drawing on field research conducted in Bangladesh, this paper examines the linkages between climate change and human movement with a view to encouraging more congenial migration and human development outcomes. It extends previous research by expressly inviting the grassroots perspectives of rural communities of origin in Bhola Island and urban centres of destination in Dhaka and Chittagong. The research develops recommendations in areas of poverty reduction, livelihood security, transitional education, and government planning. Experiences and lessons gathered in this paper will be useful for both policy and practice serving the cause of climate change adaptation in South Asia.