Unequal burden of climate impacts
Half the world now lives in countries highly vulnerable to climate impacts. Inequity, poverty and limited access to basic services not only heighten sensitivity to those impacts, but also constrain the ability of communities to adapt.
BRAC’s locally led solutions for climate resilience
BRAC has half a century of experience working directly with people and communities on the frontlines of climate change. Our primary focus is strengthening the ability of communities to adapt, through locally-led and nature-based initiatives such as climate-resilient agriculture, soil regeneration, housing, access to safe water, agroforestry, crop insurance and climate forecasting.
We have a particular focus on working with smallholder farmers, who produce most of the food in South Asia and Africa, and mostly live in countries considered highly vulnerable to climate change
Our impact
16,000
women received appropriate adaptive solutions in Bangladesh to address the impacts of climate change in 2024
185,431
farmers across Bangladesh were provided with climate-adaptive training from 2019-2024
950,000
farmers reached across six countries, providing inputs, building adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers to climatic shocks. 65% are women.
How are people adapting to survive at the climate frontlines?
BRAC's Big Bet
The Big Bet is BRAC’s bold, multi-country initiative to mobilize major investment and partnerships that empower nearly two million women smallholder farmers to lead climate change adaptation
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An invisible threat lurking in the water is slowly destroying these women’s lives
Increased levels of a simple chemical is having disastrous health effects for those living in Bangladesh’s sprawling river deltas
Along the river, one of more than 700 tributaries and channels which converge in the swampy mangrove forests of Bangladesh’s coastal delta, doctors have observed an uptick in female reproductive health problems. -The Telegraph
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The climate crisis is coming to our plates. Here’s how we need to support farmers
Smallholder farmers - many of them women - grow most of the food consumed in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. They must be front and centre in locally led solutions for addressing climate change and bolstering food security
Half a billion small farms around the world are exposed to increasing changes in temperature and rainfall. Working together to protect our food systems in a changing climate is a strategic priority, especially when public spending shrinks, and market volatility increases. -Asif Saleh, Executive Director, BRAC
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Heat poverty: Field notes from a slum during the hottest year on record
With the hottest months of the year finally behind us in Bangladesh, we’re reflecting on the multiple months of extreme heat we faced in 2024. Our vantage point for the year was inside Korail, Bangladesh’s largest slum. It is in places like this, where heat and poverty violently collide, that have led economists to coin a new term – heat poverty.
Extreme heat also directly hurts people’s pockets. Many Korail residents earn their living by toiling under the sun, often through pulling rickshaws. According to a BRAC rapid field survey during the May 2024 heatwave, rickshaw pullers were on average forced to work two hours less a day, meaning a 22% loss in income. -Faruq Hasan
