Insights from climate-impacted communities
MSI, in partnership with YLabs, presents findings from a study that captured the lived experiences of nearly 200 people in Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Pakistan who are navigating climate change while trying to protect their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Climate hazards such as droughts, floods, cyclones, and extreme heat are disrupting access to health services, increasing the strain on health systems, deepening economic vulnerability, and influencing reproductive choices. These impacts are not temporary, they are becoming a defining feature of the contexts in which health providers must operate.
We have a critical role to play in ensuring gender-responsive climate action by using climate-adaptive approaches in the way we deliver reproductive health services.
Key findings
Climate shocks threaten sexual and reproductive health and rights
Women and health workers described both direct health risks – especially during pregnancy – and indirect effects driven by access barriers, health system disruptions, and economic stress.
Access to care breaks down during climate emergencies
Flooded roads, damaged infrastructure, and unsafe travel conditions routinely prevent women from reaching health facilities. This increases the risk of complications, unwanted pregnancies, and preventable deaths.
Health systems are not climate change ready
Participants described staff shortages, facility closures, and recurring stock-outs of contraception and commodities following climate events. Emergency preparedness plans rarely include reproductive health.
Climate change deepens economic vulnerability and risk to women’s sexual health
Loss of livelihoods forces households to make difficult trade-offs between food, shelter, and health care. In some settings, climate-driven poverty increases migration, transactional sex, and exposure to HIV and STIs.
Reproductive choices are part of climate adaptation
Women and families are already adapting their reproductive lives – including choices about spacing and limiting births with contraception – as a way to adapt to the growing impacts of climate change.
Thank you to the co-funders of this research, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
