Chapter 10: Asia
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10.3 Regional and Sub-regional Characteristics
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10.3.3 Demographics and Socioeconomic Characteristics
A broad-based understanding of gender vulnerability in the context of poverty and social discrimination, as well as diverse social and cultural practices in different political, geographic and historical settings, apart from climate variability along with environmental and natural risks, is central to understanding people’s capacities to cope with, and adapt to change (Morchain et al., 2015; Yadav and Lal, 2018; Rao et al., 2019). Studies highlight the fact that disasters do not affect people equally; mostly findings show that insufficient disaster education, inadequate protection measures and powerful cultural issues, both pre- and postdisaster, increase women’s vulnerability during and after disasters (Isik et al., 2015; Reyes and Lu, 2016; Hamidazada et al., 2019). In particular, cultural issues play a role after disasters by affecting women’s security, access to disaster aid and health care (Raju, 2019). There must be more nuanced understanding and examination of gender, as well as poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, in vulnerability and risk assessments (Reyes and Lu, 2016; Reyer, 2017; Xenarios et al., 2019).
10.5 Adaptation Implementation
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10.5.1 Governance
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10.5.1.3 Knowledge Gaps and Future directions
As shown in the case of Pakistan, level of education shares a positive relationship with the implementation of adaptation measures (Ali and Erenstein, 2017). However, a closer examination of the educational imperatives that drive CCA in ways that improve the representational architecture of adaptation actions through a focus on gender is needed. Mainstreaming of gender into CCA would involve addressing a host of barriers to education and involvement that are often rooted in the differential structures of households, social norms and roles, and the domestic division of labour (Rao et al., 2019). A study from the Indian state of Bihar shows that gender plays a major role in determining intra-household decision making and also inhibits the ability of femaleheaded households to establish access to agricultural extension services (Mehar et al., 2016). Even within wider female farmer-operated federations, such as the Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (BKS), the barriers to participation stem from social factors that include the limitation of female mobility through the gendered division of labour and a lack of recognition of female agency (Routledge, 2015). Gendered inequalities in educational attainment and outcomes viewed through the lens of social vulnerability thus intersect with environmental vulnerabilities in ways that affect the ability of women to participate in CCA, owing also to a lack of access to health and sanitation facilities. These factors have a direct impact on the ability of adaptation to be effective in the global South, and are especially important in the context of the commitments of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women countries to the objective of gender equality (Roy, 2018).
10.5.6 Social Protection
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10.5.6.2 Findings
In each of these instances, governments are using SP to protect populations suffering from climate change or are adversely affected by structural, pro-climate economic reforms (Hallegatte et al., 2015). However, additional research is still needed and new tools need to be developed to inform policy design and support the implementation of ‘green’ SP, as well as to measure the net-welfare impacts of such policies (Canonge, 2016). In order to enhance SP programmes, one of the cross-cutting issues is to discuss the linkages between gender roles and responsibilities, food security, agricultural productivity and the mediating role that SP programmes can have (Jones et al., 2017). Social protection has a potentially important role to play in contributing to food security and agricultural productivity in a gender-responsive way (Holmes and Jones, 2013). As such, experience from Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Targeting the Ultra Poor programme in Bangladesh has promoted social innovation by creating social and economic values, fostering microenterprises, increasing food security and fostering inclusive growth, all while empowering ultra-poor women (Emran et al., 2014; Mahmuda et al., 2014). Although there is increasing evidence that SP programmes are having a positive impact in terms of reducing vulnerability in women’s everyday lives (Jones et al., 2017), the transformative impact of these programmes is rare due to limitations in recognising women’s access to productive inputs and resources (Tanjeela and Rutherford, 2018; Cameron, 2019).
| Sub-region |
Sectors |
Adaptation interventions |
Education and capacity-building factors affecting adaptation |
Supporting references |
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| East Asia |
Disaster risk reduction |
Conducting community participation and disaster education so that people can take action in disaster management |
Educational-resilience system tested and revised through experiences from past disasters; recognising and integrating gender perspectives into mainstream disaster management; ‘school-based recovery concept’ facilitating short-term recovery and the longer-term community building needs, which can also help communities in building new networks and solving chronic social problems |
Japan (Matsuura and Shaw, 2014; Saito, 2014; Shiwaku et al., 2016) |
10.6 Climate Resilient Development Pathways
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10.6.2 Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate-Change Adaptation Linkages
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10.6.2.2 Findings
Climate risk management in Asia is approached by focusing on hazards that are associated with extremes (i.e., extreme weather events with increased frequency and severity) as well as climate- and weatherrelated events. For example, farming has been affected by climatic variability and change in a wide variety of ways that include an increase in drought periods and intensity, a shortage of irrigation water availability, an increase in flooding and landslides, pest infestation of crops, a rising number of crop diseases, the introduction of invasive species and crop weeds, land degradation and an overall reduction in crop yields (Khanal et al., 2019). Estimation of the number of daily patients of heat-related illness based on the weather data and newly introduced metrics shows that the effects of age, successive days and heat adaptation are key variables (Kodera et al., 2019). Because most developing countries in Asia are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to a number of factors, many studies have focused on understanding vulnerability, for instance, gendered vulnerability at the micro scale, which limits capacity to respond to both climatic and socioeconomic stressors (Ferdous and Mallick, 2019); vulnerability of urban poor communities due to the interaction of environmental and social factors (e.g., low incomes, gender, migrant status) and heightens the impacts of climate change on the poor (Porio, 2014); social–ecological vulnerability where a degraded environment influences hazard patterns and vulnerability of people (Depietri, 2020); and livelihood vulnerability due to perceived climate risks and adaptation constraints (Fahad and Wang, 2018; Hossain et al., 2020).
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Case studies on climate risk management and integrated CCA and DRR actions highlight some key lessons including: an integrated and transformative approach to CCA, which focuses on long-term changes in addressing climate impacts (Filho et al., 2019); adoption of an adaptive flood risk management framework incorporating both risk observation and public perceptions (Al-Amin et al., 2019); a holistic approach and non-structural and technological measures in flood control management (Chan, 2014); monitoring of changes in urban surface water in relation to changes in seasons, land covers, anthropogenic activities and topographic characteristics for managing watersheds and urban planning (Faridatul et al., 2019); removing ‘gender blindness’ in agrobiodiversity conservation and adaptation policies (Ravera et al., 2019); understanding uncertainties in CCA and DRR at the local level (van der Keur et al., 2016; Djalante and Lassa, 2019); promoting the use of IKLK alongside scientific knowledge.
Several studies also have identified enabling conditions to effectively implement CCA and DRR actions. In the Arab region of Asia (ARA), the following are critical: capacity building to develop knowledge and awareness; mainstreaming CCA and DRR in the national strategies and policies (e.g., water and environmental strategies); empowering the role of CCA and DRR actors, notably women and rural societies; adopting lessons learned from regions with physical characteristics similar to those of ARA; establishing forecasting and prediction platforms that are supported by advanced monitoring technologies (e.g., remote sensing); and encouraging universities and research centres to develop studies on CCA and DRR. In Southeast Asia, laws and policies, institutional and financial arrangements, risk assessment, capacity building, and planning and implementation are entry points in integrating CCA and DRR (Lassa and Sembiring, 2017; Agency, 2018). According to Cutter et al. (2015), holistic solutions and integrated approaches, rigorous risk research that shows coherent science-based assessment and knowledge transfer from research to practice, and aligned targets on disaster risk management, climate change and sustainable development targets, are critical. Social capital and SP measures could promote pro-poor and gender-responsive adaptation as well as socially inclusive policies (Dilshad et al., 2019; Yari et al., 2019). Community-based approaches could allow local perceptions of climate change and experience of place to be included in planning (Dujardin et al., 2018; Dwirahmadi et al., 2019; Widiati and Irianto, 2019), and multi-stakeholder participation could engage various actors such as the private sector in CCA and DRR. Furthermore, multilevel climate governance could benefit from vertical and horizontal interactions at different levels and layers in the city (Zen et al., 2019). To mainstream and secure funding commitments, CCA and DRR could be integrated into national development plans and sectoral long-term plans (Ishiwatari and Surjan, 2020; Rahayu et al., 2020; Rani et al., 2020b).
10.6.4 Social Justice and Equity
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Evidence is increasing on the importance of focusing on environmental sustainability, and relieving poverty and social injustice are not conflicting aims; in fact, there is a further need for mainstreaming such approaches in order to respond to the climate-change challenge in a socially just manner (Mayrhofer and Gupta, 2016). These nonconflicting aims are described as co-benefits as reiterated in the IPCC reports as a central concept that refers to ‘the positive effects that a policy or measure aimed at one objective might have on other objectives, irrespective of the net effect on overall social welfare’ (IPCC, 2014b). Better understanding of how social justice affects, and is affected by, efforts to build adaptive capacity will be crucial to avoiding unintended, and even perverse, outcomes. For example, on the Andaman coast of Thailand, responses to climate-change trends and events tended to be reactive rather than proactive, making already vulnerable people even more vulnerable and undermining their capacity to adapt in the future (Bennett et al., 2014). Different forms of inequality, moreover, render some groups more vulnerable than others to damage from climate hazards. In Mumbai, India, for example, the houses of poorer families required repeated repairs to secure them against flood damage, and the cumulative cost of those repairs consumed a greater proportion of their income than for richer populations (UN, 2016). Building the resilience of vulnerable groups requires strong community and government institutions that can support efforts to cope with devastating events, offering SP and social development initiatives to support at-risk or vulnerable groups (Drolet et al., 2015). In addition, agencies need to consider how they can best work in ways which potentially support longer-term positive change to gender roles and relations. For example, post-disaster activities must build and resource women’s resilience and adaptive capacity in practice and challenge the constraints that impinge on their lives (Sadia et al., 2016; Sohrabizadeh et al., 2016; Hadiyanto et al., 2018; Yumarni and Amaratunga, 2018; Alam and Rahman, 2019).
