https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

List of Diagrams - List of Graphs - List of Maps - List of Tables - List of Abbreviations - Glossary of Foreign Terms - Introduction - Security and Vulnerability in Livelihood Systems - Coping and Adapting - Monitoring How People Feed Themselves - Drought, Food Insecurity and Early Warning in Mali - Livelihood Safety Nets: the Inner Niger Delta in the Sahel - Livelihood Systems - Production Entitlements - Exchange Entitlements - Coping and Adaptive Entitlements - Tracking and Tackling Food Vulnerability - References - Index

Adaptable Livelihoods: Coping with Food Insecurity in the Malian Sahel@@@Securite alimentaire et strategies de maitrise chez les pecheurs du delta interieur du fleuve Niger au Mali

We develop a Socioeconomic Vulnerability Index (SeVI) for climate change affected communities in seven unions 1 of Koyra upazilla 2 in south-western coastal Bangladesh. We survey 60 households from each union to collect data on various vulnerability domains and socioeconomic indicators. The SeVI aggregate these collected data using a composite indicator index, where a relative weight is assigned to each indicator with a view of obtaining weighted average index scores for different vulnerability domains in different unions. Results suggest that southern and south-eastern unions are relatively more vulnerable, which are the most exposed to natural hazards and mostly surrounded by the mangrove forest Sundarbans. Furthermore, social, economic and disaster frequency are found as more influential indicators to adaptive capacity, sensitivity and exposure respectively in Koyra. This pragmatic approach is useful to figure out and monitor socioeconomic vulnerability and/or assess potential adaptation-policy effectiveness in data scarce regions by incorporating scenarios into the SeVI for baseline comparison.

The socioeconomic vulnerability index: A pragmatic approach for assessing climate change led risks–A case study in the south-western coastal Bangladesh

For generations, cyclones and tidal surges have frequently devastated lives and property in coastal and island Bangladesh. This study explores vulnerability to cyclone hazards using first-hand coping recollections from prior to, during and after these events. Qualitative field data suggest that, beyond extreme cyclone forces, localised vulnerability is defined in terms of response processes, infrastructure, socially uneven exposure, settlement development patterns, and livelihoods. Prior to cyclones, religious activities increase and people try to save food and valuable possessions. Those in dispersed settlements who fail to reach cyclone shelters take refuge in thatched-roof houses and big-branch trees. However, women and children are affected more despite the modification of traditional hierarchies during cyclone periods. Instinctive survival strategies and intra-community cooperation improve coping post cyclone. This study recommends that disaster reduction programmes encourage cyclone mitigation while being aware of localised realities, endogenous risk analyses, and coping and adaptation of affected communities (as active survivors rather than helpless victims).

/pdf/cyclone-disaster-vulnerability-and-response-experiences-in-5724jkxyh7.pdf

Cyclone disaster vulnerability and response experiences in coastal Bangladesh

The influence of the environment and environmental change is largely unrepresented in standard theories of migration, whilst recent debates on climate change and migration focus almost entirely on displacement and perceive migration to be a problem. Drawing on an increasing evidence base that has assessed elements of the influence of the environment on migration, this paper presents a new framework for understanding the effect of environmental change on migration. The framework identifies five families of drivers which affect migration decisions: economic, political, social, demographic and environmental drivers. The environment drives migration through mechanisms characterised as the availability and reliability of ecosystem services and exposure to hazard. Individual migration decisions and flows are affected by these drivers operating in combination, and the effect of the environment is therefore highly dependent on economic, political, social and demographic context. Environmental change has the potential to affect directly the hazardousness of place. Environmental change also affects migration indirectly, in particular through economic drivers, by changing livelihoods for example, and political drivers, through affecting conflicts over resources, for example. The proposed framework, applicable to both international and internal migration, emphasises the role of human agency in migration decisions, in particular the linked role of family and household characteristics on the one hand, and barriers and facilitators to movement on the other in translating drivers into actions. The framework can be used to guide new research, assist with the evaluation of policy options, and provide a context for the development of scenarios representing a range of plausible migration futures.

Migration and global environmental change

Self-care as a response to diarrhoea in rural Bangladesh: Empowered choice or enforced adoption?

Exploring the meaning of health security for disaster resilience through people's perspectives in Bangladesh

This article highlights multiple aspects of risk perception in relation to cholera control and infectious disease risk reduction in Beira, Mozambique. Findings suggest that risk perceptions vary over time and are interpreted on the basis of visible contamination, cognition and context. Risk perceptions influence the efficacy of risk reduction strategies. Although risk is viewed as a communal problem, notions of individual, community and institutional responsibilities structure the perceptions and attitudes to local hygiene and infectious disease reduction strategies. Perceived risk variously acts as a motivator in the adoption of risk management approaches. However, a lack of infectious disease interventions by other community members and local institutions devalues individual motivation to combat risk of cholera. Community involvement in addressing vulnerability to disease requires knowledge of multiple influences on risk perceptions and governance contexts that facilitate collective control and responsibility.

The role of risk perception in reducing cholera vulnerability

Health security is a relatively new concept in terms of how it is practised in disaster-prone locales. We observed 10 rural households in Bangladesh for four months using informal interviews, field diaries, and observation. The findings suggest that the everyday practises of health security involve the capabilities of “caring for themselves” in resource-constrained contexts. Understanding how households care for themselves prior to and during disasters presents an opportunity to examine how improved health might reduce the effects of disasters, ill health, and poverty. Some interventions are proposed to improve health security for poorer households in general and women in particular.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09614524.2016.1132678

Everyday health security practices as disaster resilience in rural Bangladesh

The importance of resilience and people-centred risk reduction of disease have led to growing interest in local coping strategies in disease management. These ideas resonate strongly with the concept of self-care which has been identified as a primary public health resource and a predominant response to ill health in disease endemic environments such as Bangladesh. A series of qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to examine the adoption of self-care in rural Bangladesh to understand how human coping and resilience is achieved. Findings identify how self-care is implemented as part of resilience to disease through the utilisation of finite natural resources and seeking cost-effective healthcare solutions. It is advocated that self-care acts as an effective disease management strategy enabling households to cope with endemic disease. Although it does not represent a panacea for health equity, self-care could provide a mechanism for achieving better equity and social justice in health.

Ross Edgeworth

Papers

Self-care as a response to diarrhoea in rural Bangladesh: Empowered choice or enforced adoption?

Exploring the meaning of health security for disaster resilience through people's perspectives in Bangladesh

The role of risk perception in reducing cholera vulnerability

Everyday health security practices as disaster resilience in rural Bangladesh

Disease resilience in rural Bangladesh: the adoption and practice of curative self-care