In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Interventions will be required over a long time for adaptation and mitigation. They will need to adopt different approaches to programming, while the ongoing development initiatives will need to be sensitive to climate change.

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My colleagues in The Asia Foundation’s Environment Program recently returned from Bangkok, where the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum they were scheduled to attend was canceled due to the worst flooding in Thailand in 60 years. The disaster resulted in over 600 deaths, approximately 10 million lives affected, $21 billion in lost revenues from major industries, and an estimated $24 billion dollars in damage to property…

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Earlier this year, Sumaiya Akhter, a 12-year-old resident of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, hanged herself from her ceiling fan with a scarf. She had been verbally harassed by Selim, an older neighborhood boy, on the way to and from school every day. Sumaiya told her parents, but just prior to her death, her mother scolded her for what was happening…

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According to the United Nations, a baby born this week became the world’s 7 billionth person. As four babies are born somewhere around the world each second, no one knows for sure exactly which baby was the 7 billionth, or where he or she was born. However, it is probable this person was born somewhere in Asia…

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The phrase “gender equality as smart economics” has become the recent mantra of such powerful women leaders as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet. It is also the rallying cry of the World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report…

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s controversial off-the-cuff remarks made earlier this month on the influence of conservative Islamic groups on the Bangladesh polity, led the Indian government to announce immediately – quite contrary to diplomatic practice – his much-awaited visit to Dhaka on September 6-7.

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Since the 1980s, microfinance institutions in Bangladesh, such as the Grameen Bank, have touted the success of women microentrepreneurs in starting and operating thousands of microenterprises throughout the country. While this is certainly an achievement, Bangladeshi women have not achieved…

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On April 12, Dhaka was vibrating with excitement as residents celebrated the first day of Bengali New Year, or Pahela Baishakh. Lavish, colorful street parties mixed in with bicycles, rickshaws, cars, and motorbikes added…

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On March 26, Bangladesh celebrated its 40th year as an independent nation. That same weekend, over 350 participants from over 60 countries gathered in Bangladesh for the 5th “International Conference on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change.”

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Bangladeshi communities – living in a nation recently dubbed “climate change ground zero” – have been quietly innovating and adapting to climate change in their backyards for some time. In coastal areas, floating gardens supply families with fresh vegetables in once dry, but now water logged areas.

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