Resilience in Bangladesh: Challenges from COVID-19 and Climate Change

Bangladesh is currently at a crossroad with multiple challenges of a pandemic and climate among the two there highly interlinked together. Such overlapping crises have exposed fundamental fragilities in public health systems, social protection systems, and disaster preparedness and response. While considerable attention has been given to climate adaptation efforts, an equally challenging one is climate mitigation. Mitigation policies – energy transitions or subsidy reforms, for instance – are often adopted in the name of international bargaining, but their costs are borne locally, and disproportionately by poorer communities. This paper explores the potential of a new, expanded post-crisis lessons learned approach by addressing three opportunities for more effective resilience associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises. It argues that social protection must be an integral component of the approach to address the impacts of climate change and the economic costs of mitigation—not simply a temporary measure. This will require coordinated policies which link social, environmental and economic priorities — especially at the local level, where most implementation diverges from national policies.