Project Summary

Despite the existence of female activists and networks in both Nepal and Myanmar little is known about how they respond to the intersectional impacts of climate shocks, poverty and conflict.

These crises are often compounded by gendered inequalities, which further deepen the vulnerabilities of women and girls the activists are trying to support. Our research aims to fill this gap and is urgent given the ever-deteriorating climate emergency in Myanmar and Nepal, both ranked in the top five most climate impacted countries globally.

Beginning in late 2024, our research has been gathering evidence on the intersections described and the current different forms of women-led activism in each country, the differing routes to activism for women activist leaders today and how differing layers of activism interlink. We are also generating online, accessible training resources to support activists at the local level.

We are applying a multiple methods female-centred approach to collecting evidence, gathering data from dozens of stakeholders in each country. We are also using novel, safe and ethical data collection techniques in Myanmar, where the current context limits our ability to gather data in the same ways we can in Nepal.

This project is already generating critical insights into the role played by female activists in Myanmar and Nepal in mitigating and challenging the gendered and intersectional impact of climate crises, conflict and gendered inequalities including violence against women and girls. These include: deepening poverty, food insecurity, social exclusion including lack of political representation in resource allocation decision making, intensification of vulnerabilities that expose women and girls to even more and more frequent forms of violence.

In both countries evidence is clearly emerging that the most vulnerable, often women and girls, are at the forefront of facing the intersectional impacts of climate shock, poverty and conflict. Women are both the first responders to the climate crisis and the most impacted, with increased violence when climate shock occurs being an intersecting issue in both contexts. Advocates in both contexts have entered activism as a result of often experiencing a big shock, and historic training and support by international partners, underlying the importance of on-going support to such efforts.

---

---

Myanmar:

• Women are invisible in climate change discussions taking place at any level, with eco-feminism only a recently emerging area of advocacy.
• There is a burgeoning grassroots civil society network trying to respond to these multiple crises, often using innovative ways and means to carry out their work including navigating insecurities.
• The vacuum of governance in certain areas impacts on communication, logistics and huge difficulties in responding to crises.
• Types of crisis response (such as humanitarian activities) are becoming highly politicised, and seen as acts of defiance against the military junta, which impacts on activists ability to undertake their work.

In Nepal:

• While there were earlier gains in gender equality in Nepal, progress is slowing down and stagnating. Political interference, migration, food insecurity, and sidelining of other feminist agendas such as GBV, young women, women using drugs, sex workers, single mothers etc. are weakening the movement.
• Women’s issues used to be a big area of interest and support of the international community and government but is now very fragmented, with female set-aside political participation rates being manipulated and the women’s caucus dismissed during the second constituent assembly. Although there is a scope to form women groups in the current federal parliament in legislative procedure regulation, in practice so far, it is not formed formally which shows strong disinterest towards maintaining a caucus to drive collective issues the impact disproportionate on women. 
• Relief and recovery efforts usually focus on general aid but fail to address the specific needs of women, e.g. pregnancy, menstruation, and caregiving.
• There are efforts to include gender in disaster planning in Nepal. Yet in reality evidence suggests that tokenistic ‘women-washing’ is occurring – where voices may have been heard in planning, little evidence is found that actions emanate for what is advocated for by these voices.
• The municipal government is taking back the space that NGOs have held over the last 20 years during the political vacuum, meaning a redrawing of power and power dynamics  across stakeholders, which impacts on the ability of women led responses to climate crisis.
• Stronger alliances, consistent funding, leadership development, and real participation of women at all levels from grassroots to government through existing networks, WROs, etc is weak.

The Political Economy of Climate Change in Myanmar and Nepal

The intertwined negative consequences of climate disasters with other crises and harmful gendered norms disproportionately impact on the lives of women and girls in both Myanmar and Nepal. This has been recognised by multiple global institutions including the WHO that recently published a paper ‘Protecting maternal and new-born and child health from the impacts of climate change: call for action’ (2023). The paper states; “Women and girls carry a disproportionate burden of the impacts of climate change, since it contributes to the complex interplay of gender and social norms and roles within homes and communities.” (WHO 2023: 7) It is critical research on climate action takes a women and girls centred approach and seeks every opportunity to create and protect space for female activists to speak to the distinctive impacts that women and girls experience.

Drilling into individual political-economic contexts the urgency of this research is further evidenced. In Myanmar, the transition from military dictatorship to democracy made only modest progress under the National League for Democracy (NLD) which came to government after the 2015 election. In 2020 the NLD achieved a further electoral win securing 920 (82%) out of the 1,117 seats. On 1st February 2021, the day of the first Parliament session, the military of Myanmar (Tatmadaw) announced ‘one-year-long state of emergency’. The State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint and other leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) were detained. As a result, a resistance movement has emerged not least to counter the violent military crackdown on peaceful protests. Military rule is being resisted through three mechanisms; the civil disobedience movement, the establishment of People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and the creation of coalitions with Ethnic Armed Organisations.  As of the 1st June 2024, there was an estimated total internally displaced persons (IDPs) of 3,093,700 in Myanmar. (UN in Myanmar).This desperate conflict induced situation is further perpetrated by the ongoing climate crises. Myanmar has suffered massively ranked now as the world’s second most affected country. The last crises in May 2023 occurred when Cyclone Mocha hit (World Bank 2021 and ILO 2021).  Disaster risk-prone areas in Myanmar are Central Dry Zone (Drought); Coastal Rakhine, Delta, Yangon (Cyclone); Taninthayi, Yangon, Rakhine, Delta, Mon (Heavy rain); Ayarwaddy, Chindwin, Sittaung, Thanlwin rivers and coastal areas (Storm); Central Dry Zone (Extreme temperature); Delta (Sea level risk). In general, Delta and Central Dry Zones are highly exposed to hazards and have both high poverty levels and low response capacity.

According to the global climate change risk index Nepal is ranked fourth in the world as the most vulnerable to climate change. Cyclic flooding causes yearly displacement in the Himalayan foothill areas that are prone also to landslides. The crises are further compounded by deep levels of poverty. According to a recent economic survey conducted in 2022/23, 15.1% of the population is under the poverty. Dahal et al., “gender inequality and violence are not mutually exclusive phenomena but complex factors affecting each other.” (2022:3) Research published by Co-Is for this project (Bradley, Martin and Shrestha 2021) further evidences how the climate crises intensify the vulnerabilities of women and girls seen in even higher levels of violence including harmful practices such as child marriage. Women in Nepal are also living with the historic trauma of the brutal sexual violence which occurred during the Maoist civil conflict (1996-2006).

In both contexts it is the dominance of gendered norms that maintain the inequalities that deepened under crises (see Bradley 2020). This project will evidence how this occurs and generate material and training to support activists and policy makers in challenging it. “During the two terms of elected quasi-civilian government, measures to ensure gender equality were extremely weak.”  (IDEA, 2022). After the attempted military coup on 1 February 2021, the policies and strategies for gender equality are no longer effective.” The National Consultative Council (NUCC) was formed in 2021 followed by the formation of the National Unity Government (NUG). A Gender Equality Position Paper (NUCC, 2023) was developed to guide efforts towards gender equality, not only in elimination of dictatorship but also building a federal democratic union. The political context in Myanmar is far more fragile and highly unstable, making it difficult to secure commitments from both the NUCC and the NUG.

In both contexts the main focus we will be fostering closer collaboration with the network of women-led civil society organisations and the relevant international bodies supporting them. In Nepal this will include the UN gender hub, in Myanmar it is the World Food Programme that is active in responding to the humanitarian crisis.  Our partner in Myanmar SEGRI working with the GenderLab at AIT, has been at the forefront supporting the work of female activists in Myanmar. In Nepal the Women for Human Rights Organisation is working to improve the cohesiveness of the women’s movement in better responding to the needs of the most marginalised from climate impoverished communities. Our activist partners and Co-Is have helped to design this proposal and will give leadership in the operationalisation of the research ensuring it benefits the work of climate change activists.

This research will provide important findings that will be integrated through our uptake strategy into state and non-governmental development programmes. Through our project Co-Is and partners we will work closely with the Nepal government Departments of Women and Children and of the Environment lobbying for a gender sensitive lens in shaping the climate response. “The economy in Myanmar is expected to contract around 18% in 2021 Fiscal Year and the share of Myanmar’s population living in poverty is likely to more than double by the beginning of 2022.  Nearly half of Myanmar’s population (as much as 25 million people) will live below the national poverty line by early 2022, and women and children are projected to bear the heaviest brunt of such poverty”. (ILO 2023). The research will generate tangible outputs to support those working with the most deprived communities in Myanmar.

In Nepal poverty levels have remained persistent. The Asian Development Bank in its 2023 factsheet states that the proportion of employed population below $1.90 purchasing power parity/day in 2022 was 5.1%. The unemployment rate was 10.7. The root causes of poverty in Nepal are multiple but felt most acutely in rural areas where traditional agriculture-based economy still dominates resulting in poor standards of living. These factors only intensify during the climate emergency and have done post the major earthquake of 2015 and more recently in 2023.

This project will generate research that will support and feed into processes to strengthen civil society activism focused on overcoming the intersectional negative economic consequences of the climate crises.

Project Team