This struggle has been challenging. Fishermen couldn’t get the desired price for their fish. Crab collectors couldn’t sell crab due to the shut-down of farms. Farmers struggled to get market because of ongoing restrictions. Honey collectors had to sell their stock at a low price. Day labourers remained without work in the lockdown situation. However, life can’t be stopped, even in this burdening double crisis. Since then, villagers have tried hard to slowly recover, based on their coping strategies and resources.

While people explored different survival and recovery options, the spending of savings and taking loans have been the predominant strategies to ensure survival in the Vamia village, according to our team’s assessment. At the initial stage of Covid-19, people who had personal savings tried to meet the daily needs by spending these savings. However, most of the villagers had to take loans from NGOs as well as local money lenders. In the latter case, interest rates were very high. Financial aid and food assistance provided by the Government and NGOs, aided in reducing the sufferings in the pandemic days for some but not all people.

When super-cyclone Amphan devastated the village in the midst of the pandemic, the coping capacity of the people was overburdened. The community people tried to protect the embankment by risking their lives – but finally, they couldn’t prevent the embankment’s collapse. As a consequence, the livelihoods of most people were destroyed. At that stage, relief assistance provided by the government and NGOs became the major means of survival. Apart from assistance, people sold their remaining resources and took loans again. As a result, they are now even more indebted, which makes them more vulnerable. Some families are changing their sources of livelihoods. Others have tried to regain their occupations through new loans. For this short term, the Government’s “Work for Food” programs have been playing a vital role for day labourers to survive the crisis. Altogether, those people who have alternative income sources which are less vulnerable to climate change have been in a comparatively better condition.

Amphan forced many affected families into starvation, who had already reduced their food consumption due to Covid-19. People were scrambling for food, water and for assistance from each other. Consuming less food with inadequate nutrition, starving, drinking less water, or using saline water for domestic purposes have been and continue to be the worst coping mechanisms, leading to food and water insecurity, as well as to diseases and worsening health status of vulnerable people. However, some freshwater sources have been cleaned from saline water, with the assistance of NGOs and community participation. Also, vegetable gardening has been restarted by some of the community people.

Women have played a vital role in household management during the crisis. They used their savings to ensure their families’ survival, generated income from growing vegetables, rearing cattle and ducks, small businesses like tailoring, handicraft making, tutoring and working at crab farms. Such alternative income sources for women have been vital for families to survive during the Covid-19 lockdown and even after Amphan.

It turned out that women who run small and micro-business like tailoring have been less affected by the twin crisis. Nevertheless, gender inequalities continue: Though the workload of the women has been increased in terms of cleaning, maintaining hygiene, taking care of children, managing meals for family members, women are reportedly the primary reducer of daily food consumption to adjust with this peril. Many of the school- going children were becoming addicted to the internet, mobile phone, or even smoking, which are adversely affecting their mental and physical health. Furthermore, our team also found cases where children became engaged in income-generating activities on demand of their families.

While these coping strategies may decrease the pain for a while, they can’t end the suffering in the long haul. On the contrary, they may even deepen vulnerability. Integrated, sustainable and effective recovery approaches are almost absent at the community level. Most of the existing adaptation practices which were initiated in different NGOs projects were overburdened by the twin Covid-19 and Super cyclone Amphan crisis. Measuring the real impact of adaptation activities, without doubt, is extremely important to identify the best adaptation options, given that the climate risks will further rise in future, and that the next disaster will strike.

Most local people believe that comprehensive management of embankments, including local community participation, can reduce disaster risks significantly. The government and NGOs should incorporate climate change adaptation in their development plans and act accordingly. Projects should always assess and seek to reduce the risks of future climate extreme events in the project design and implementation. This is essential to strive for long-term sustainability. If this is not going to happen, the next disaster, like Amphan, will wash away all the investments done so far.

The combination of a pandemic like Covid-19 and climate impact can pose the risk to dampen the development aspirations expressed in the Bangladesh Delta Plan. Avoiding such risk and build back better should be the top priorities of all our recovery efforts – from the local to the regional, national, and international levels.