Study urges Bangladesh to scale resilience for growth and safety
Investing in climate adaptation and resilience is not a cost but a high-return growth strategy that can generate trillions in global economic gains, create millions of jobs and safeguard vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh, according to a landmark report released today.
Investing in Adaptation to Drive Prosperity, Growth & Competitiveness, the report was unveiled by a Systemiq-led consortium of twenty organisations during the World Bank–IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, DC. It finds that every dollar invested in adaptation can yield returns equivalent to ten dollars. For countries like Bangladesh, strategic investment now can shield the economy from future losses.
The analysis estimates twenty-eight million new jobs across developing countries by 2035, with the global adaptation market projected to reach $1.3 trillion annually by 2030.
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Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General, said: 'Investing in climate resilience means protecting people and their livelihoods in the face of storms, heatwaves and floods. It is also an urgent economic imperative... This is a call to world leaders to make resilience and adaptation the investment agenda of our time', he said.
The report highlights Bangladesh's advances in climate-smart agriculture, drought- and salt-tolerant crops, mangrove restoration, embankment protection, cyclone and flood early-warning systems, resilient health systems and water and sanitation infrastructure.
Despite these efforts, Bangladesh still faces heavy annual losses from sea-level rise, cyclones, river erosion, salinity intrusion and floods. Developing countries experience ten times more damage from extreme weather than high-income nations and take four times longer to recover.
If current trends continue, global GDP could decline by 18–23% by 2050, with especially severe consequences for economies reliant on agriculture, fisheries and coastal settlements. Scaling up adaptation could create hundreds of thousands of jobs in Bangladesh's agriculture, construction and infrastructure sectors by 2035, lift developing-country growth by up to 15% by 2050, reduce foreign debt costs and prevent up to two million avoidable deaths annually through improved water, health and sanitation systems.
Achieving global climate resilience requires $350 billion in annual investment by 2035. Current spending stands at $54 billion, leaving a $296 billion gap. For every $1 invested in resilience, $87 is still being spent on risk-exposed infrastructure.
Dr Pep Bardouille, Climate Adviser to the Prime Minister of Barbados and Director of the Bridgetown Initiative, said: 'Resilience is the bedrock of prosperity, yet it remains the most undervalued investment of our time... COP30 must be a turning point—to rewrite the rules, recognise the real returns of resilience and unlock the financing that vulnerable countries need', she said.
For Bangladesh and other vulnerable nations, acting now on climate resilience is both an economic opportunity and a safeguard for lives, livelihoods and future growth.
