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UNEP, partners launch pilot project to build flood-resilient homes in Bangladesh
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and several partners launched a pilot project to build flood-resilient homes across Bangladesh to help communities cope with water-related disasters.
So far, the effort – also supported by the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre and BRAC, an international development organization – has built 37 residences.
The house – which cost around $12,000 – is designed to withstand cyclone-force winds and is built on an elevated platform to protect it from flooding. It has rainwater harvesting systems to provide safe drinking water, rooftop solar panels to supply electricity and an indoor livestock pen. The house even doubles as an emergency shelter capable of accommodating up to 40 people.
“When the roads are flooded or blocked, these shelters are close to where people live, so they don’t have to risk traveling miles with elderly relatives, young children, or livestock,” said Muhammad Liakath Ali, the Director of Climate Change with BRAC.
In a country where more than 7,000 cyclone shelters are estimated to be needed by 2025, these types of homes are essential, said Mirey Atallah, Chief of UNEP’s Adaptation and Resilience Branch, UNEP.
“For Bangladesh and many other developing countries, climate change is not some future threat – it is here, now,” she says. “The world needs to massively step up how it’s adapting to this challenge if we’re going to protect decades of hard-won development gains.”
According to UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report 2024, the developing world only has access to a fraction of the funding it needs to adapt to climate change, which has been linked to everything from heatwaves, to rising seas to more frequent and more intense storms. At the recently concluded UN Climate Change Summit in Azerbaijan, countries agreed to channel up US$300 billion a year to developing nations to help them adapt with climate change.
“Sometimes the arguments about climate finance can seem quite abstract,” Atallah said. “But what that finance means is more of these climate-resilient houses can be built, protecting locals and building their resilience.”
Nearly 190 people live currently in the storm-resistant houses. The buildings, which are spread across six districts, housed 1,000 people during Cyclone Remal, which unleashed torrential rains on large parts of Bangladesh in 2024.
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