Insights on the cross-sections of gender and climate vulnerability – Yale University

The research team has collaborated with Yuganter a Bihar based organization that works on disaster relief and preparedness to recruit local volunteers from their networks with the goal of helping communities undertake timely preventive measures. These grassroots volunteers are trained to understand advanced alerts from Googles FloodHub tool and amplify their reach and salience using community outreach activities that employ a hybrid of digital and traditional communication channels.

The researchers have taken a gender-intentional lens in the design of the intervention to further facilitate a user-friendly dissemination approach. Women and men also have different responsibilities during floods, and abilities in how they respond, noted Rohini Pande, Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University, one of the Principal Investigators on the study. Focus group discussions with community members indicated that while men tend to take the livestock and leave the region in boats, women tend to stay back with the children and move to the roofs of the house or to the highways. "There are also huge gender gaps in smartphone usage and accessin this area, like most other areas in India, Pande added.

To address gender-specific barriers in accessing information, the team worked to recruit and include women volunteers a prospect that also entailed grappling with challenges related to norms around womens mobility and participation with the aim of reaching groups who might otherwise be left out.

This was one component of a wider effort. During the 2022 monsoon season (June-October), when over 27,000 flood alerts were sent to volunteers operating in 160 panchayats in Bihar, local volunteers acted on 81% of these alerts to help disseminate the warnings widely in their local communities. An accompanying midline survey conducted by the researchers indicated that households in treatment communities had better access to alerts, in terms of receipt, timeliness, and perceptions of accuracy.

To further build trust in these alerts, the researchers plan to test the effects of leveraging and including local leaders in the alert outreach model during the 2023 flood season. Results from the 2019 pilot which involved sending flood alerts to local leaders suggest that women local leaders had higher recall of receiving and disseminating them to villagers. It seemed like the women leaders paid more attention to floods than men leaders, said Maulik Jagnani, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Colorado, one of the other Principal Investigators of the study. Exploring the gender-specific impacts of such components in the alert delivery model can help identify ways to make these systems truly integrated and inclusive.

Anjana Kumari herself joined the effort during the 2022 monsoon season while she was pregnant to alert people in her community to imminent floods.

Her experience in the program suggests that building trust among community members requires time. She had the support of her husband, family, and other women in the community, yet her participation in the project wasnt without some resistance. The villagers used to taunt me and my family initially, she said. It took some time for them to trust and pay heed to what I was saying in the village. Ultimately, though, Kumari feels that it has been gratifying for her to be of service to her community.

The assessment of researchers backs Kumari up. We really needed women to reach women, Pande said.

The authors wish to thank Sathia Chakrapani, Advait Moharir, Surya Ravindran, Rajesh Sarma, and project Field-Managers for conducting interviews in Bihar

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Insights on the cross-sections of gender and climate vulnerability - Yale University