As climate change deepens poverty in low-income countries: A call for better data
Climate change is exacerbating poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with the poorest populations hit hardest. Even when broader populations remain unaffected, vulnerable groups in these countries face the brunt of environmental shocks like natural disasters, losing wealth and experiencing higher mortality rates. Children and women are especially at risk, and the impacts exacerbate existing inequalities.
Climate adaptation strategies are essential to combat the growing threats of food insecurity, income loss, health impacts, and displacement. However, a lack of robust data on climate resilience in LMICs is hindering efforts to identify the most vulnerable populations and assess the effectiveness of adaptation measures.
While global frameworks like the UN’s Global Goal on Adaptation set action areas, existing measures of climate resilience focus mainly on national-level disaster management. They fail to capture the nuanced effects on individuals and households – critical data needed to inform effective interventions.
To address this gap, Jade Benjamin-Chung, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth System Science, Department of Environmental Social Sciences, and Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, as well as Rosamond (Roz) Naylor, William Wrigley Professor of Global Environmental Policy in the Doerr School of Sustainability, have joined forces to create the Climate Resilience Measurement Lab. With funding from the King Center on Global Development, the lab aims to create standardized tools for measuring resilience at the individual and household levels. By integrating these tools into other ongoing large-scale surveys, this effort could transform how governments, NGOs, and researchers understand and respond to climate impacts.
Wong-Parodi explains: “Developing and testing a climate resilience measure will allow us to better understand climate vulnerability in low- and middle-income countries, and to assess the effectiveness of interventions in bolstering resilience to climate change impacts.”
The lab’s long-term goal is to produce high-resolution maps and actionable data, enabling targeted interventions that better prepare populations for climate hazards. By linking socioeconomic factors and health outcomes, these tools could catalyze policy changes and evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation strategies, ultimately offering a path forward for reducing the climate-driven poverty that disproportionately affects the world’s most vulnerable populations.
With the King Center kickstarting the initial work in Bangladesh, Benjamin-Chung says the interdisciplinary team is excited to work with scientists from Bangladesh who have “deep expertise in climate adaptation to develop this new measurement tool.” She explains, “Data generated with this tool will shed light on the adaptations of people and households as they live through climate change. It will be a powerful complement to other data sources used in sustainability science, such as remote sensing data.”
"Better data helps governments better target and tailor interventions to support communities hit by negative shocks like floods and droughts," says Katherine Casey, faculty director of the King Center on Global Development. "And this initiative aims to do just that."
