Community participation in building climate change resilient rural housing: a case of the Jamuna river basin of Bangladesh

Abstract

The climate resilient community cluster village was established by a Non-Government Organization named "ActionAid Bangladesh" to ensure safe community living for the inhabitants of a vulnerable ecological zone of Bangladesh situated in the Jamuna river basin of Bangladesh. The experience was that local people had their houses destroyed by a flood almost every year with a far-reaching threat to livelihood and solemnity of women. It was, therefore, essential to facilitate the community in building multi-hazard resilient houses to make them self-protective from climatic hazards like a windy storm, flooding etc. Moreover, as the poor usually had no savings or insurance, there was additional need to make provision for livelihood sustenance. Therefore, it is important to provide for some flood free land, for instance, to grow vegetables and fruits or pond for fish culture, both self-consumption and selling in the market. The program started with a threadbare discussion with the vulnerable communities in a participatory manner where the program staffs had discussed with the community groups, to generate the basic analysis of vulnerabilities and its link to climate change. The community itself analysed the vulnerability faced by them. The result was building of climate resilient community cluster village housing for ten families whose dwellings were devastated almost annually by the flood. A social and economic feasibility analysis was carried out to determine to scale up of these types of adaptations to similar ecological zones of the country and elsewhere.