Background

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Since July 2017, FAO has been implementing a project titled “Enhancing Resilient Livelihoods to Address the Climate Change, Disaster and Poverty Nexus in Asia”. The project is rooted in the understanding that causal factors for poverty, disasters and climate change interact with each other and building resilient livelihoods, especially through sustainable natural resources management, would be an effective way to address this nexus. The project is a joint initiative of three Strategic Programmes (SP) of FAO namely, Make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable (SP2), Reduce rural poverty (SP3) and Increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises (SP5).

The Asia-Pacific region is exposed to a range of disaster risks –from natural hazards, plant and animal diseases as well as conflicts. Climate change will exacerbate these risks. The region is also abound with examples of development that create new or intensify existing risks. These poorly planned developments often lead to degradation of natural resources and ecosystems which is a key driver of increasing risks of disasters, climate change and conflicts - many of which originate due to competition over scarcity of natural resources. At the same time, poverty hinders the sustainable management of natural resources as millions of poor depend largely on water, land, forests, fisheries and other natural resources for food and income. Resultantly, livelihood programming ends up working at cross-purposes and this nexus between climate change, disaster, and poverty worsens existing vulnerabilities and risks and perpetuates cycles of deprivation.

Addressing this nexus is instrumental to achieving sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda, including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, offer unique opportunities to redefine the narratives around poverty eradication, disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in a way that acknowledges and addresses this nexus through common aim of resilience building.

In this backdrop, the project seeks to strengthen capacities of target countries (Bangladesh, Myanmar and Vietnam) to understand the climate change-disaster-poverty nexus, identify implementation models that address this nexus effectively, and make recommendations to incorporate these models into country policy and planning processes. Towards this, country-specific studies have been undertaken in the three countries within the following broad objectives:

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1. Fill in research gaps and evidence base on the Disaster, Climate Change and Poverty Nexus.

2. Assess the effectiveness of existing implementation models in strengthening the resilience of agricultural/rural livelihood against climate change and disaster.

3. Provide recommendations for enhancing existing poverty alleviation, DRM and CCA models to effectively strengthen resilient livelihoods.

4. Provide recommendations for FAO to take the results of the studies forward with a focus on embedding the effective models into national policy and institution processes.

5. Contribute to capacity building of target FAO country offices to effectively address the disasters, climate change and poverty nexus for strengthening resilient livelihoods.

Draft reports for the three countries are now ready. A two day regional synthesis workshop is proposed to review the emerging findings, taking stock of the commonalities and individualities across the three countries, as well as from other countries facing similar challenges, and consolidate emerging regional level recommendations. Workshop discussions will inform both the finalisation of the country reports and development of the regional synthesis report.

The participants at this workshop will include government officials from relevant ministries (including, Agriculture, Rural Development, Urban Development, Social Welfare, Disaster Risk Management and Climate change/environment) and study teams from the three countries. Government officials from other countries in the region that face similar triple challenge of climate change, disaster and poverty as well as UN agencies, development partners and academia at the regional level will also be invited. By the end of the workshop:

• Study teams would have received inputs for finalisation of country reports, and

• Emerging regional level findings and recommendations would have been consolidated.

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Agenda​

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The tentative agenda of workshop is as below: