Climate resilience requires health systems that work for women and marginalised communities

AI Summary

In Uganda's Rukiga District, an innovative UK-funded project equips frontline healthcare workers to address climate change's effects on food security and health among vulnerable women and communities. The program links climate-smart agriculture, maternal care, and family planning to combat drought-induced malnutrition and domestic violence.

Rukiga District in Southwest Uganda is an area that is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Communities there are part of something extraordinary. Under an innovative project funded by the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative,1 frontline healthcare workers are trained to provide not just usual maternal care, but also to provide information about how to mitigate the worst effects of climate change to protect food and livelihoods. Working with community members, healthcare workers identify the populations most vulnerable to climate change. They trace how increasingly prolonged droughts trigger malnutrition, expose the link between environmental degradation and rising domestic violence, and advocate for climate-smart agriculture alongside family planning and maternal care.23 In climate emergencies, cross-sector programmes can ensure that even if the roads flood and the power grid fails, boats and supplies can be mobilised with local health workers to enable a displaced teenager to access contraception, and a pregnant...