South Asia Research Grants for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

From 2012–2015, Farrukh Zaman a Policy Officer for WWF-Pakistan, and colleagues conducted an interdisciplinary grant on Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in the Indus Ecoregion. The project was one of the six grants provided by START in partnership with the Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) that were awarded to organizations in India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The grants program aimed to support research and assessment on disaster risk in the region and facilitate communication among scientists, practitioners and decision-makers.

Of his experience, Farrukh says, “Working on the project such as this one with a strong regional focus offered me the opportunity to understand different perspectives on disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation in South Asia not only through doing research and policy engagement in Pakistan, but also, through collaborative knowledge exchanges with partners in other countries on similar issues”. He recalls, “…the project was ambitious and allowed me to work on a range of outputs, from microeconomic research on estimating productivity losses associated with floods to writing blogs and making documentaries on how the project impacted vulnerable communities, and experience issues from different lenses.”

In addition, Farrukh was partially supported by the grant to attend the UN COP20 in Lima, Peru, where he shared the findings from the project with government and civil society representatives. He’s currently working towards his graduate degree at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in the US.