Empowering Women in South Asias Slums: The Challenges of Environmental Degradation

Published: May 16, 2019, 1:37 p.m.

b'Environmental degradation reduces the environmental capacity to meet social and ecological needs of societies, which is exacerbated by natural hazards and extreme climate events, and often intensify existing vulnerabilities. Marginalized groups in cities, particularly women and poor, are disproportionately at risk to face negative consequences of such environmental stressors. To better understand relationship between women empowerment and environmental degradation in cities, researchers Ammar Malik and Amit Patel surveyed 1,199 households in 12 informal settlements of New Delhi (India), Dhaka (Bangladesh), and Islamabad and Lahore (Pakistan).\\n\\nToday on CID\\u2019s Speaker Series podcast, Ghazi Mirza, student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, interviews Ammar Malik and Amit Patel, who tested several linkages between empowerment and measures of environmental degradation and found many significant associations. \\n\\nRead the policy brief: https://bit.ly/2vY8Qos \\nInterview recorded on April 19, 2019.\\n\\nAbout Ammar Malik: Ammar A. Malik is the Director of EPoD Research. He leads research-policy engagements that derive actionable policy insights from rigorous research. He oversees EPoD\\u2019s labor market and education research portfolios in the Middle East, identifying and supporting opportunities for data and economic analysis to inform local policies that empower underrepresented groups and support social and economic development.\\n\\nAbout Amit Patel: Amit Patel, PhD: Amit Patel is Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Boston\\u2019s McCormack Graduate School for Policy and Global Studies. Amit\\u2019s research focuses on bottom-up approaches to improve socio-economic outcomes for urban poor. His main research projects funded by the National Science Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Urban Institute, and the World Bank focus on housing and health disparities concerning urban poor living in slums in the Global South. He regularly teaches courses on public policy theories, urban politics and policies, and advanced quantitative methods. Amit has a PhD in public policy from George Mason University and prior training in management, urban and regional planning, and architecture. When he is not in the field or in front of the computer, you will find him behind the camera.\\n\\nView the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-Empowering%20Women%20in%20South%20Asia.pdf'