Climatic shocks: Making the already difficult task of poverty alleviation even harder

We met Shamsul (31) in Notun Jibonpur village in Companiganj, Sylhet, in 2022. He was sitting on the road alone, facing the cropland. Assuming he was a farmer, we started a conversation. It turned out he was a construction worker who had been working in Dhaka for 13 years, but he was also a farmer. 

In the multiple flash floods that year, he lost his boro paddy grown on about two bighas of land. The floods also washed away his home.

This year, Shamsul again lost some of his aman rice, which he only dared to cultivate because he was located close to Meghalaya's Himalayan foothills. A little to the south of the area, the people living in the haor cannot cultivate Aman paddy as the land becomes totally inundated.

Of course, Shamsul is not alone. Hundreds of thousands of families have suffered the same fate in Sylhet and Sunamganj districts. Both cities have gone under water, just like in 2022. Back in 2017, half of the boro yield of the haor area was destroyed due to a devastating flood.

Apart from the unprecedented floods in Feni, Cumilla and Noakhali that shocked the locals and the nation alike, multiple floods in Netrokona, Jamalpur and Sherpur also devastated many families, while the floods in the Teesta basin hardly got any attention due to their 'regular' nature.

While many suggest that the frequency of floods has increased in recent times as a part of climate change, many victims of river erosions, in the last two decades, have moved to the floodplains of major rivers. 

They have either bought land there or have settled on the khas land. These people suffer from flooding every year because the land they are on is just supposed to get inundated in the monsoon. 

Jamalpur's Dipali Khatun is one of them. An inhabitant of Chinaduri in Islampur upazila, Dipali's home has been flooded twice this year alone. On the bank of the Jamuna river, the crop fields in her village are flooded every year, but her homestead also goes underwater often, damaging the tin-shed house.

If you visit Dipali in Jamalpur or Shamsul in Companiganj, you cannot help but notice one thing in common — they all have damaged homes. The tins, rusted and deformed from the force of gushing water, have not been replaced in years, as the families do not have any savings left to purchase new housing materials.

Along with the crops in the fields and the livelihood options, the floods take away the chances of such families to graduate from extreme poverty. In other words, the nation's struggle to alleviate poverty becomes harder due to the ever-intensifying climatic shocks.

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters are rising. New areas are being hit by disasters, where it never happened before. This is hampering our interventions targeted at the ultra-poor population. Floods hit Moulvibazar three times this year. Netrokona was flooded twice. It has become a big concern for our project. The cost for disaster risk management inside the project has shot up.

Upoma Mahbub, senior manager of BRAC's Ultra Poor Graduation Programme

Floods are just one example; on the coast, it is the high tide bringing in salinity, the depressions and storms in the sea failing fishing missions, cyclones in worst-case scenarios, or drought in the north-western districts. The results come out the same.

"In the last flood, the earthen floor of my house washed away and the tin fences were damaged. I did not have any money to repair them. The house is still in that condition," said Khurshid Ali, a farmer from South Burdo in Islampur union, Companiganj.

Two years back, Khurshid got these housing materials from an INGO. As part of the project, he also paid a part of the repair bill. The house got damaged this year.

These hard-working, resilient people go to great lengths to fight back. Goni Mia, an elderly man living in Chandpur in Companiganj sent his wife and two daughters to Narayanganj to find work after 2022. Shamsul of Notun Jibonpur went back to Dhaka to work as a construction worker. 

But the climatic shocks keep eating up whatever they rebuild.

Those involved in poverty alleviation projects say this is making the job harder, and the goals difficult to reach.

"The frequency and intensity of natural disasters are rising. New areas are being hit by disasters, where it never happened before. This is hampering our interventions targeted at the ultra poor population," said Upoma Mahbub, senior manager of BRAC's Ultra Poor Graduation Programme.

"Floods hit Moulvibazar three times this year. Netrokona was flooded twice. It has become a big concern for our project. The cost for disaster risk management inside the project has shot up," she added.

Upoma further said that whoever is working with poverty alleviation, health or education projects — be it NGOs or the government — has been facing tremendous challenges. 

Build Back Better?

Building Back Better (BBB) has been a catchphrase in the disaster management and climate change arena since 2005. This strategy aims at reducing the risks of disasters and climatic shocks.

If you look over the Dholai river from the Upazila Health Complex in Companiganj, you will see a couple of elevated government buildings, built on pillars. Two years back, many houses in the area were washed away by flood. The elevated buildings show exactly what is wrong with the houses in the area frequently washed away by the strong current of the overflowed river.

Yet, when the houses were rebuilt, they followed the traditional design, keeping them vulnerable to the next floods.

Why are we not building them in a better design, capable of withstanding disasters?

"Building back better requires a lot of planning and design specific to areas. People can build anywhere they want, they can construct their house at any elevation they want. This cannot go on. BBB is not possible with emergency response projects, it needs comprehensive planning," said Gawher Nayeem Wahra, member secretary of the Foundation for Disaster Forum and a former adjunct professor at Dhaka University.

"Our country is a delta, a lot of water drains through this land. It requires special planning, but those in charge of doing it do not own this country. They either live abroad or leave for other countries at any time. So they don't try to foresee what the land is going to look like 70 years later," the disaster management expert said.

"Due to the population boom, people now have to live on the floodplains, but without building the arrangement for drainage of water, it is not possible to evade natural hazards," Nayeem Wahra added.

He said farmers are worst affected as they no longer own the land and the 'Tebhaga' (sharing by thirds) is not in practice. Landowners basically lease out the land to the farmer, so the loss of crops due to disasters is no longer shared by the former.

Wahra stressed that early warning systems — which are now port-based — must be made easily understandable by the commoners so they can take precautionary measures before the hazards hit.