Browse by Theme: Climate Change

As the climate crisis makes natural disasters a daily reality for people around the world, communities and humanitarian organisations are looking for ways to mitigate risks and build resilience. In 2019, in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai – which ravaged the coast of southern Africa – CARE’s Emergency Shelter Advisor, Crystal Whitaker, travelled to Malawi to support recovery and learn how communities were using simple savings groups to break the devastating cycle where repeat floods would wipe out homes and livelihoods, forcing families to start over again and again. Below she shares seven lessons for practitioners looking to build longer-term risk mitigation measures into shorter emergency or preparedness programmes.

Last March, the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced tens of thousands of people in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. A year on, Idai serves as a warning that the climate emergency is not going away – and that affected communities need long-term investment, not just piecemeal steps that will continue to be wiped away by the next storm, or dried up by the next drought.

I have been part of rapid response teams deploying to typhoons, cyclones and floods in Asia and droughts in East and Southern Africa and worked on emergency responses for 15 years. Each time, I’ve seen first-hand how around the world, women and girls are all too often on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

When this new government was elected, CARE International UK and our supporters called for four actions in their first 100 days that would demonstrate their commitment to gender equality, tackling climate change and spearheading international development.

Gender inequality is a major driver of poverty and a major obstacle to sustainable development. It’s also a key determinant of exposure to climate change risk: women and girls are more vulnerable to climate change impacts. So if we want to reduce this risk, reduce poverty, and promote sustainable development, adaptation projects and programmes must not only address gender-based vulnerability – they must seek to be gender transformative. What can we learn from good practice examples of programmes where gender equality outcomes have been sought and secured?

Climate change is leading to more regular, and more catastrophic, risks for people living in poor and vulnerable communities. Is insurance the way forward to help people manage these risks? And how viable is it for people in poor households? CARE’s recently published review, Insuring for a changing climate, provides some useful lessons and discussion points.

In late November 2018, Saigon was submerged by Typhoon Usagi – officially the 'longest and heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Saigon history'. Tim Bishop, who lives in Saigon and works for CARE, writes about the initiatives of the TUKLAS Labs in providing solutions for communities to build disaster preparedness and resilience.