How rural women in Odisha, India, are navigating climate change

Key takeaways

• Participatory rural exercises (PRAs) with 150 women in four Odisha districts reveal local climate impacts including links between forest loss, migration, health, and nutrition that standard data collection methods often miss.

• Rural women in these communities are directly experiencing the effects of climate change as declining rainfall, water scarcity, and extreme weather increase their labor burdens, disrupt livelihoods, and worsen household nutrition.

• The PRAs generated concrete, community-led solutions , with women identifying priorities such as water harvesting, forest restoration, mixed cropping, and better policy coordination grounded in their lived experience.