The intersections between climate change and gender-based violence
This panel will focus on recent findings that highlight how climate change-related factors such as extreme heat, natural disasters and displacement disproportionately impact women and girls and have exacerbated violence against them.
Trigger warning: This session will deal with issues including gender and sexual violence and abuse which may be triggering to survivors.
This session will be moderated by Professor Veronique Filippi, Professor in Maternal Health and Epidemiology, LSHTM.
Programme
- Findings from a systematic review on natural hazards, disasters and violence against women and girls
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Speakers
Dr Meghna Ranganathan, Assistant Professor, LSHTM
Dr Meghna Ranganathan has conducted both quantitative and qualitative research exploring the linkages between economic strengthening interventions, including social protection programmes and sexual health and gender-based violence outcomes in low and middle-income countries.
She is affiliated with the Gender Violence Health Center at the LSHTM and the cash transfers and intimate partner violence (IPV) collaborative. She co-authored a global mixed-methods systematic review on natural hazards, disasters and violence against women and girls in 2021 and is interested in policy-relevant research that explores climate-related extreme events, livelihoods, and violence against women.
Ms Alyssa Thurston, Policy Officer, Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Network
Alyssa Thurston is a Policy Officer at CDAC Network, where she works on advancing communication, community engagement and accountability to communities affected by disasters. Prior to her current role, she has worked with international organisations, UN agencies and LSHTM, specialising in disaster management, protection and behaviour change interventions.
She completed her MSc Public Health at LSHTM and published her summer project on the associations between disasters caused by natural hazards and violence against women and girls.
- Healthy wetlands for the cranes and people of Rukiga, Uganda
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The “Healthy wetlands for the cranes and people of Rukiga, Uganda” project examines the interconnections between environmental degradation and human health. It focuses on the impacts of the climate crisis on women and families in the wetland area of Rukiga, Uganda. Data have highlighted the multiple ways in which degradation of local environments and destruction of crops through flooding directly affects human health, with one direct consequence being an increase in gender-based violence.
Speakers
Dr Susannah Mayhew, Professor of Policy, Systems and Reproductive Health, LSHTM
Susannah Mayhew is Professor of Health Policy, Systems and Reproductive Health in the Department of Global Health and Development at LSHTM. Her research specialisations are in policy analysis, policy implementation, governance and accountability research – including community engagement; health systems and systems integration research (including for reproductive health and HIV); and reproductive health and rights.
She has held in excess of £16 million in research funding over the past 20 years, leading multi-partner research projects in numerous countries across sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. At present, she works primarily in West and East Africa where she is conducting research on cross-sectoral responses to climate and health challenges, including reproductive health, with a focus on community engagement with health systems. She also travels regularly to Ghana, the country of her birth.
Mr Richard Muhumuza, Field Worker - Team Leader at the Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Uganda Research Unit (MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit)
Richard Muhumuza is a multidisciplinary researcher with over 10 years of experience in social behavioural and medical research in areas of HIV, communicable diseases, health systems, sexual and reproductive health and sustainable development. He has worked on different study protocols that have yielded different peer-reviewed journal articles, which have informed policy and public health best practices. His recent work has focused on health, the environment and livelihoods for sustainable development. His recent work is on rapid qualitative research to support integrated environment, livelihoods and health programming in Uganda to develop messages for integrated programming in Rukiga district.
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