Bangladesh

Senior government officials, development partners, and education stakeholders convened in Dhaka today to launch coordination under the Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative (CSESI), a national effort to strengthen Bangladesh’s education system against the growing impacts of climate change. Bangladesh faced extended closures last year, keeping children out of school for longer periods and resulting in learning loss. Supported by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), CSESI aims to integrate climate change adaptation and environmental sustainability into education sector plans, budgets, and strategies to mitigate these challenges.

Reduced funding, which has led to cuts in essential services like education and healthcare, and international aid cuts have meant that this has been a particularly difficult year for children living in the world’s largest refugee camp.

Shahidul Haque is Save the Children’s Advocacy, Communications and Media Director in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Having worked on the response for six years and living close to the refugee camps himself, he has seen firsthand how worsening conditions—exacerbated this year by recent aid cuts—are affecting a generation of children growing up in the world’s largest refugee camps.

Bangladesh experiences 19 landslides annually, with a 4% increase in these disaster events each year. They are particularly prevalent in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and surrounding districts including Chittagong because of intense monsoon rainfall, rapid urbanization, deforestation, and unregulated hill cutting. These events have caused over 700 deaths since 2000, destruction of infrastructure, and long-term displacement.

More than 1.8 million children will miss out on learning due to aid cuts impacting Save the Children’s education programmes in over 20 countries

With just a few weeks to go until the food ration cuts take effect, desperation inside the camps is growing, several families told Save the Children.

Children made up just under half - 44% - of predominantly Rohingya refugees leaving Bangladesh and Myanmar by boat in 2024 as the number of people taking to sea continues to rise.

Cyclone-proof food, climate resilient schools and aid delivering drones are just some of the ways Save the Children has been tackling the impacts of the climate crisis on children in 2024.