We focused on theoretical perspectives from the literature concerning organizational initiatives for sustainable livelihood development in the disaster-affected communities to interpret the primary data. The community-based disaster risk reduction strategies of NGOs mainly approach livelihood development through building community capacities such as community awareness, rights-based advocacy, food security, financial assistance, infrastructure, and healthcare. However, not all of their functions have positive impacts on the community’s livelihoods; some initiatives reinforce the social, economic, physical, and environmental vulnerabilities of the community.
In Table 3, the extent and nature of the impacts of non-DRR NGOs’ coping strategies on livelihood development and disaster risk reduction capacity of the coastal communities have been summarized. Sustainable livelihood strategies always consider disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies and actions because DRR approaches contribute to promote the livelihood of the disaster-affected communities by enhancing their skills and adaptive capacity and vice versa (Alexander et al. 2006, Jones et al. 2010).
Table 3: The nature of the impacts of non-DRR NGOs’ coping strategies on livelihood development and disaster risk reduction capacities of the coastal communities.
Indication = Positive impactΡ Negative impactς. Mixed impactΩ
Livelihood risks of coastal communities | Non-DRR NGOs’ coping strategies | Impacts on livelihood development | Impacts on DRR capacity | Lesson learnt critical point of view. |
Floods, surges, cyclones, food and agricultural loss, isolation, waterlogging, deaths, illness, water risks, socioeconomic and environmental risks. | Awareness and training | Ρ | Ρ | NGOs community-based associations contribute to increasing community knowledge and awareness for combating disasters for survival. |
Food security | Ω | Ω | NGOs' alternative sustenance strategies increase the communities' economic and environmental vulnerability due to their less focus on sustainable environment and development. |
Financial support | ς | ς | NGOs' financial support decreased the community's adaptive livelihood capacity by increasing disaster risks and vulnerability due to their high interest, forced installment collection, and inclusion error. |
Settlements and infrastructure | ς | ς | Poor technology, profit motive, and short-term project prolong the vulnerability rather than increase coastal communities' livelihood. |
Health and sanitation | Ω | Ω | NGOs’ less focus on environmental impact assessment reinforces environmental health hazards and reduced livelihood capacity. |
Source: Author
The themes that emerged from the study covering the interpretative alignments based on the participants’ reflective experiences regarding non-DRR NGOs’ strategies to improve the livelihood in disaster-affected coastal communities of Bangladesh are discussed in the following sections in detail.
4.1 Awareness and training to survive in a hostile environment
NGOs have a number of community-level voluntary organizations (women’s groups, youth groups, microcredit groups) that raise awareness in communities to enhance sustainable livelihoods. With a focus on health, daily life, sanitation, and managing disasters, they constitute essential learning and social engineering forum for facilitating community participation. These groups get together in weekly meetings in which individual and group-based discussions create an avenue for developing problem-solving skills and shaping the community's empowerment approach. In the same vein, Izumi & Shaw (2012) stated that community empowerment is an essential prerequisite for developing livelihood, especially in disaster-affected areas. NGOs’ training programs help beneficiaries improve their livelihoods by enhancing their skills. Similarly, Griffin (2014) explored that training programs organized by NGOs develop the knowledge, awareness, and potential of members of associations to perform their prescribed functions for the welfare of the affected communities. They also increase the knowledge and awareness among the beneficiary communities of the benefits and process of eco-friendly agriculture, which contributes to improving their livelihoods in a hostile environment. Their awareness and training programs enhance the level of rational practices among the communities towards nature. Similar findings from Haslinda & Mahyuddin (2009) found that programs also help to positively transform the functions and thoughts of the community, impacting their behavior and contribution to livelihood development. One of the participants stated:
The soil and water of this area are very saline, and in Satkhira district, disasters are very frequent, affecting our lives. The NGO gave us a handbook with clear pictures that make it easy to understand and a red marked calendar to hang at home so that we can follow the information from there and complete our farm work on time.
Sometimes NGOs, in collaboration with other organizations, organize mock drills or practical sessions centered around reducing disaster risk, where the members of associations participate either as the actors or audience. This practical experience helps the beneficiaries establish a safety culture in the society by mastering different ways of overcoming the dangers. As Mathbor (2007) stated that these type of practical participation increase their knowledge and awareness of tools and best practices for combatting disasters for survival. In the same line, Forino et al. (2015) found that members also compose and curate folk songs, local songs, drama, drawing competitions, simulations, and documentaries that serve as vital means of instruction for communities, which is an influential factor in adaptation to a disaster-prone environment. NGO programs contribute to raising awareness among beneficiary communities about identifying easy escape routes, preserving important documents, sharing information, moving livestock to a safe place, and helping others before and during disasters. One of the beneficiaries observed:
Last year, a foreign NGO, in collaboration with our local NGO, conducted training in the NGO’s office on how to reduce the loss of life and property in the event of any disaster. There, we dramatized how to go to a safe place quickly with our emergency documents and cattle. We experience one or two disasters in our area every year, with very high damage, but now the damage is much less because we know better.
Mass rallies organized by NGOs to increase public awareness have had a positive impact at the community level, with placards, banners, pictures, festoons, and sound systems in these rallies helping the people of the community to easily understand the importance of the messages being communicated. Through the NGOs’ efforts, people are now more aware of child marriage, sanitation, stockpiling emergency food supplies for floods and cyclones, using mosquito nets regularly, and making Orsaline to prevent outbreaks of dengue, malaria, and diarrhoea during floods. Similarly, Chan et al. (2020) stated that the awareness of health, food, and cleanness are closely related to hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. The net result of all these various activities is a reduction in disaster risk with enhancing livelihood capacity.
4.2 Food security: Enhancing self-reliance or reinforcing dependency?
NGOs' rainwater harvesting, ponds diking, and household greening projects ensure the use of existing local resources to make the community self-dependent. These programs developed the beneficiary community's skills by providing training, awareness, and technical supports to reduce their vulnerability and help them adapt to the hostile environment. Similar study findings from Amelia et al. (2020) explored that strengthening community capacity is vital to reduce disaster risk and encapsulates activities undertaken by individuals and communities to mobilize local resources to reduce vulnerability to hazards and increase livelihoods. NGOs incorporate a large number of beneficiaries (especially women) to ensure the regular flow of their income through employment creation.
More than eighty percent of the people of this area live on agriculture and fishing, but no crops or native fish are cultivated here due to salinity and arsenic contamination. The NGO has set up model shallow machines for a small number of the beneficiaries, with which it is possible to quench arsenic and iron through filters. This NGO backed model has inspired other farmers in the area to install such irrigation machines. Some NGOs are marketing salt tolerance high yielding seeds, promoting food security for many disasters affected beneficiaries. By fostering these livelihood development strategies, NGOs in the subject area mitigate vulnerability and exposure to disaster-affected communities. Similar findings are shown in another study conducted by Khatun (2003) as disaster risk, and communities' vulnerabilities can be reduced by adopting appropriate and sustainable strategies that improve community members' livelihood with NGOs and government support., as explained by a participant:
After getting this irrigation machine from NGO, I am a hundred times better than before. In the past, I could hardly manage one meal a day. Now I have rice in my house all year round. I am getting the opportunity to take a lease of the land of others who do not have a machine for irrigation. This makes me self-dependent.
In Satkhira district, almost all water sources except rain are saline, and this water is neither potable for animals nor usable in agriculture. Keeping this problem in mind, NGOs' strategies of conserving rainwater in the small ponds in front of the house and water tanks have reduced the suffering of the affected areas' beneficiaries for clean water. These strategies adopted for water conservation reflect an understanding of the environmental challenges and the innovation required to solve them. Similarly, in his study, Shaw (2012) showed that NGOs in Kenya and Ethiopia's drought-prone areas helped community members build sand dams that served as artificial aquifers for water preservation to sustain community members throughout the dry season. One participant remarked:
On the advice of NGOs, we buy water tanks and store rainwater in the tanks by setting pipes on the roof of the house. We can use this water for drinking and household purpose. However, in a multi-member family, this water does not last long. But, we can drink pure water for a few months and that is a big thing.
Figure 4: NGO-supported water tanks. Source: Field.
NGOs put efforts into developing the communities' alternative livelihood development strategies by introduced maize cultivation thinking the reduced harvesting time. However, this maize cultivation increased beneficiaries' socio-economic vulnerability and exposure to disaster due to their strategic flaws and profitable attitude. NGOs provide microcredit for small farmers to cultivate maize, and they also sell seeds to the beneficiaries at high prices. Similarly, Banerjee & Jackson (2017) revealed that NGOs do not consider the long-term environmental effects of implementing community-level agriculture. The beneficiaries are not allowed to take an NGO loan without buying seeds from them at high prices, which impacts beneficiaries’ sustainability and long-term development by increasing their economic vulnerability to disasters, as Bendell (2017) stated that sustainability considers economic growth with human progress. One of the beneficiaries explained his bitter experience:
When maize is cultivated on land, the long root of maize absorbs all the natural nutrients from the depths of the soil, making it very difficult to grow any other crop on that land. Last time, I could not even recover the cost of the maize cultivation; the land's fertility was also ruined. This year, I have to apply a lot of chemical fertilizer on the land to cultivate paddy.
Drawing from the discussion, although NGOs’ local resource mobilization and provision of irrigation to agriculture have a positive impact on the community's livelihood, their alternative sustenance strategies become failures due to their less focus on sustainable environment and development.
4.3 NGOs’ financial support reinforcing poverty and vulnerability
Most of the NGO officials claimed that they offer microcredit to selected beneficiaries to improve their socio-economic conditions and livelihoods by helping them cope with the challenges posed by disasters. However, it was observed that the NGOs’ objective-based initiatives brought about some unintended outcomes that weakened the community’s ability to manage disaster risk, thus making them more vulnerable. NGOs’ microcredit program increased the beneficiaries' exposure, physical and mental vulnerability, which hinders sustainable livelihoods. As Boyce (2000) stated, vulnerability to natural hazards results from poverty, exclusion, and inequality in material consumption. Besides, NGO officials generally do not consider the feelings, emotions, or problems of the beneficiaries collecting loan installments. Even after few days of any disaster, NGO officials visit the disaster-affected beneficiary community to collect the loan installments, which increases their emotional vulnerability to disasters. Hence, microcredit programs in the research area make beneficiaries financially vulnerable, trapped in a poverty cycle with growing stress and exposure to disasters. Many studies (Al Amin 2017, Nduwarugira &Woldemariam 2015, Siddiquee &Faroqi 2009) showed that NGOs’ higher interest and repayment policy built inflexible installment rule was also implemented without considering long-term sustainability, which left the beneficiaries trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty.
The microcredit program's inclusion and exclusion process increased the inequality and deprivation in society. The marginal poor, who are the most vulnerable to disasters, are deprived of this microcredit due to their inability to pay the loan installments. Similarly (Pfeiffer 2003, Rahman &Razzaque 2000) explored that the marginal poor or the most deserving groups have no participation in NGOs’ microcredit programs, and this system of exclusion leads to greater inequality and vulnerability in the society. In the continuation of this statement, Abramson et al. (2015) found that social and economic discrimination increases vulnerability and reduces the resiliency of the individuals and community, which leads to a significant threat to their livelihood.
The beneficiaries stated that microcredit was the NGOs’ business model. They also complained that the NGOs’ interest rate was higher than other financial institutions, and their installment payment rule never considered sustainability. This, in turn, drew the beneficiaries into a vicious cycle of poverty rather than self-dependence (Nduwarugira &Woldemariam 2015). As stated by the participants, the inclusion and exclusion process of the microcredit program increased inequality and deprivation in society. The marginal poor, who are the most vulnerable to disasters, are deprived of this microcredit as they cannot pay the loan installments. The moderate poor who have received microcredit have lost their assets due to falling into the NGOs’ loan cycle. One interview participant stated:
Before giving the loan, the NGO official came and looked at our house, cows and goats, land, gold, bank balance and asked about our financial condition. They also sought out information from neighbors and group members. The well-being and interest of the people are not a consideration for them, they are simply concerned about the borrower’s ability to repay the loan.
NGOs’ microcredit program has also increased social stress and tension as well as demoralized the solidarity of the community members. Women, as loan recipients, are more prone to harassment by family members and NGO officers. NGO officials insult women borrowers in front of other members of the association due to the failure of paying any installment. In his study findings, Al Amin (2017) noted that NGO officials undermine women beneficiaries' social status by insulting them in front of group members. If someone fails to pay the NGOs' installments, sometimes, NGO officials seize their household furniture. Some credit programs even disempowered women making them default debt collectors, increasing social tension and unrest. These outcomes increase socio-economic vulnerability and social disparities of the beneficiaries. As part of the patriarchal society, women take loans and hand them over to the family's head, the male member. Most men avoid the obligation of installment, as the NGO pressures the woman as the borrower to pay the installment. Thus, microcredit is degrading women socio-economically on the one hand and creating rifts in family relationships on the other, which makes them weak physically and mentally to deal with DRR. Sultana (2010) pinpointed that in a patriarchal social structure, microfinance has failed to strengthen intra-household gender relations or raise women's status in society. Various studies (Bradshaw &Fordham 2015, Mulyasari &Shaw 2013, Sultana 2010) showed that women are the worst sufferer of the disasters due to the pre-existing social inequalities regarding the restricted access to resources, unequal power relations, and indirect participation in decision making.
NGOs selected women as beneficiaries to empower them, but the main objective is to ensure they are available at home during the installment days. One of the NGO officials said:
Men run away from home on the day of the collection of installments, so we feel comfortable providing loans to women so that we can collect the installments on time, as women are always available at home.
The regular surveillance of the members of the ‘self-selected group’ formed as a strategy to avoid NGO liability, created distance, mistrust among members of the association, and destroys social bonds, which are indispensable in reducing disaster risk. Besides economic vulnerability, NGOs’ microcredit operation mechanisms increased the beneficiary community's social susceptibility to disaster. NGOs prefer to form self-selected groups who would be accountable to themselves. If someone of the group receives a loan from the NGO, all group members become liable to get back the borrower's loan. If the borrower defaults on the repayment plan, the installment is deducted from all members’ shared purse due to their disadvantage. With keeping this in mind, all microfinance group members regularly visit the borrower’s house and keep their eyes on her to get the installment in time.
Sometimes, group members abuse the borrower verbally and physically while missing the installment and paying the installment selling her household goods, destroying mutual trust and solidarity. Thus, they deny the collective efforts regarding warnings, recovery, and preparedness during and before disasters.
In summary, NGOs' microcredit programs negatively affect the community's livelihood capacity by increasing their poverty, socio-economic vulnerability, and exposure.
4.4 Infrastructure: How helpful is it for sustainable livelihood?
NGO's support related to infrastructure is not adequate due to the absence of strategic planning. The majority of their projects are short-term and focused on individual projects over wholescale development via several linked projects that addressed the beneficiary community's key challenges. These programs are project-based and last for only a few months. The impact of these temporary community-level programs did not contribute to ensure sustainable development, as NGOs were known to abandon such projects without carrying out detailed assessments to evaluate their degree of success and make data-backed reports for future projects.
Most of the NGO’s community-level programs in the subject area are adhoc based and have little effect on long-term sustainability. In implementing community-level projects, NGOs mostly depend on donors' directives and interests rather than duly considering local demands and the beneficiary community's peculiar needs as they navigate the persistent challenge of disasters. Similar findings from Moroto et al.(2018) stated that NGO initiatives are sometimes criticized due to a lack of transparency and over-dependence on foreign donors. These sentiments have cast a cloud over their interventions in addressing vulnerability, exposure, disaster risks, and resiliency in development projects, with a debate about the effectiveness of their role raging on. NGOs were maximizing profit in providing financial support to the beneficiaries for constructing and repairing homes. They usually did not consider the quality and sustainability of the shelters. They neglect to monitor the construction process or issue guidelines and provide expert support for quality control.
These houses are not built with the disaster in mind, so it is damaged by strong wind or storm. As a result, the borrowers cannot enjoy the benefits of the home. At the same time, they become financially weak, providing NGO’s loans back with interests, which increased beneficiaries’ physical and economic vulnerability to disasters. In this regard, in his study, Negh (2013) showed that the lack of experienced leadership, large-scale misappropriation, and the prevalence of widespread corruption limit NGOs' scope of activities in rural infrastructure development. In the same line, Islam & Walkerden (2014) explored that the houses and other infrastructure NGOs rebuild are not strong enough to protect the risk of vulnerability to hazards.
Criticizing an NGO’s poor housing project, a beneficiary participant stated:
NGOs do not provide monitoring for construction activities or give guidelines for building standards. They provide a small amount of loans for people who want to build houses, but the amount is often only able to build houses of tin sheds. The walls and roofs of these houses are made of bamboo and tin, making them less durable.
Most community-based NGO support programs, including agriculture and IGA projects, increased social inequality and reinforced dominant power structures within the community, keeping the poor (the most vulnerable to disasters) out of their services. Similar study findings from Platteau (2004) explored that only the rich and elite who can pay for the services received the NGO services. NGOs curry favor of the elites by providing privileged services in return to guarantee that they would exert their influence to aid NGOs' local level interest. For instance, NGOs sometimes face challenges in collecting loan installments from the default beneficiaries and using this powerful elite to enforce collection. This type of service extends the scope of socio-economic exclusion and rejection of the vulnerable groups in society. One of the respondents noted:
We are a privileged middle class in this neighborhood, but we still have to cope with the non-availability of water that persists throughout the region. However, one of our influential neighbors had a good connection with this NGO official. And he was able to leverage this relationship to get access to clean water provided by the NGO.
NGOs have set up water treatment plants to get arsenic, saline, and iron-free water to promote community livelihoods. However, most of the plants were found to be inactive due to mechanical problems. At one plant, the beneficiaries paid 0.50 taka per litre of water, and most of the time they did not get service as it took a long time to fix the problem. This water treatment plant required electric power to continue service, so the beneficiaries had to pay the electricity bill. However, a water crisis occurred due to a lack of electricity during a disaster.
NGOs did not consider the pre and post-disaster risk of installing the plants, so this service rarely contributed to sustainable community development or reduced the community's disaster risk. NGOs’ poor technology and design, attitudes to profit, and short-term projects prolong beneficiaries’ vulnerability rather than improve the livelihoods of the coastal communities.
4.5 Health and sanitation: How far do they consider a livelihood development approach?
Health is an important indicator for livelihood development. NGOs play an eye-catching role in promoting community health and hygiene behavior by raising awareness and providing financial support. NGOs’ field workers (FW) also improve sanitation behavior, family planning, and lifestyle habits among the beneficiary communities through training and household counselling. Similar findings from Thapa et al.(2021) revealed that NGOs’ supports for family planning, sanitation, nutrition, and water promoted integrated social and behavioral change within the community. In the research area, the beneficiaries learned from FW to alter long-held habits that put them at risk and protect themselves from outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera, dengue, and other skin-related diseases that increase during and after disasters, increasing preventive measures in the community. As Pascapurnama et al. (2018) revealed, community awareness and knowledge of health risks reduce the occurrence of disaster-related infectious diseases, and the preventive measures of post-disaster conditions also contribute to mitigation and preparedness for future disasters. The rural people do not know much about the community clinics' services that the government has launched at the local level as part of the decentralization of health services and their rights there. NGOs’ efforts to facilitate community access to healthcare have increased their physical and economic capability to face disaster challenges. Similar findings from Shoaf & Rottman (2000) showed that NGOs are also enhancing the community-level clinics' service delivery system and promoting the community’s access to health services through constant training and information sharing, contributing to promoting the community’s livelihood capacity and reducing vulnerability to disaster.
In addition to government health care providers, NGO's promotional activities have made significant contributions to maternal and child health. Participants from all walks of life praised the NGOs’ role in reducing maternal and child mortality. Similarly, Mercer et al. (2004) showed that NGOs service promotes mother and child health and has proven crucial in reducing maternal fatality. In the same vein, Coates et al. (2013) revealed that NGOs’ awareness-raising programs, campaigns, and joint listing of individuals eligible for vaccines with government officials had played a key role in treating primary diseases at the community level and maximizing immunization rates in Bangladesh. Perry & Chowdhury (2020) more clearly stated that in the mid-1980s, the immunization rate was around 2%, and in recent times, it has been increased to 70% through NGOs' social mobilization for immunization. A local government official observed:
NGOs are conducting maternal and child nutrition programs. The NGO pays them two thousand and two hundred (BDT-2,200) every month until the baby is six months old. This project starts in the first month of the pregnancy. As a result of this project, many low-income families can provide nutritious food and treatment for mothers and babies.
In addition, before the catastrophe, NGO workers' health and hygiene counseling has mitigated the community's health risks. NGOs' healthcare programs have raised community awareness and made them physically and mentally healthy, which enhanced their disaster resiliency and livelihood capacity. Similar study findings from Chandra et al. (2013) explored that health promotion increases the community's livelihood capacity because it helps communities get better preparation by strengthening the community’s ability to withstand the next disasters. Because health is directly related to the livelihood and coping capacity of the community. In this regard (Basumatary &Basumatary 2020, Kim &Marcouiller 2020) stated that health impacted economic development by reducing production, and poor economic conditions lead to weaker preparedness and mitigation.
However, NGOs rarely consider existing environmental health hazards and do not carry out an environmental impact assessment before launching a community-level program. As a direct consequence, NGO programs sometimes reinforce environmental health hazards leading to disaster vulnerability. An NGO official participant acknowledged the weakness of this program as:
"Without long-term planning, poverty and disaster risks cannot be reduced by providing cows, goats, and poultry. During disasters, some cattle die due to lack of food and shelters, stench spreads in the air and causes environmental health problems”.
Besides, widespread corruption among NGO officials has marred the distribution of health kits at the community level. They extort money from beneficiaries under various guises. In short, NGOs' health care services increase the community's income ability to carry out their livelihood by enhancing physical and mental strength. Let's consider every point (codes emerged under sub-themes). It will then help make an effective assessment of the impact of NGOs’ coping strategies on communities’ livelihoods and their capacity to deal with disasters, contributing to the future policy-making process in this regard. In Fig.5, the different indications used to show the outcomes are stated as: