In 2014, climate resilience did not have a budget line.
The phrase existed in academic papers and IPCC reports. It had not yet entered the vocabulary of development funders in India. The money was in “disaster risk reduction” — a frame that treated cyclones, floods, and heat waves as discrete emergencies to be responded to, not as patterns to be adapted to.
The fishing communities along the Odisha coast did not care about the frame. They knew the weather was changing. The cyclones were arriving earlier, the surges were higher, and the warning systems — where they existed — spoke in a language and a medium that did not match how coastal communities actually received information.
This is where the work started.
What we built
The programming was designed around a specific premise: coastal communities already know a great deal about weather and risk. What they lack is not knowledge but specific, actionable information that fills the gaps in their existing knowledge — and they need it delivered through a medium they already use, in a language they speak, at a time when they are actually listening.
Radio was the medium. The Odisha coast had existing community radio listenership patterns. Fishing households tuned in during specific hours. The programming was designed to slot into those hours, not to compete with them.
The content was built from the ground up. We started by mapping what communities already knew: which signs indicated an approaching cyclone, where the traditional shelter points were, which boats were safe in which conditions. Then we identified the specific gaps: how to interpret the IMD’s colour-coded warnings (which most households had never seen), what documents to carry when evacuating (which families routinely forgot), how to secure fishing equipment against surge (which varied by boat type).
The result was a curriculum disguised as a radio programme. It aired before cyclone season. It was repeated. It was in Odia. And it was built with fishermen and their families, not for them.
Why this was climate adaptation before the term
The programming was commissioned under a “disaster risk reduction” banner. It was funded through DRR budgets. The word “climate” appeared in the project documents only in passing — as context, not as framing.
But the work was fundamentally about helping communities adapt to changing weather patterns over time. The cyclones were not freak events. They were becoming more frequent, more intense, and more unpredictable. The programming was not a one-time emergency response; it was a recurring preparedness curriculum designed to build long-term resilience in the community’s knowledge base.
In 2014, calling this “climate adaptation” would have confused the funder. By 2020, every funder in the sector was asking for exactly this kind of work — and calling it climate resilience. The communities had not changed. The communities had always known the weather was shifting. What changed was the label the sector used, and the budget line that came with it.
What we carry from this
Three lessons that have stayed with us across every climate and health project since.
First, local knowledge is the starting point, and institutional knowledge fills the gaps — never the other way round. The fishermen knew more about cyclone behaviour than the IMD’s district-level warnings could convey. The programming respected that by starting with their knowledge and adding the specific institutional information they lacked.
Second, the medium is a design choice with real consequences. Radio worked because it was already in the household. A mobile app would have required a smartphone, an internet connection, and a download — none of which were reliable on the Odisha coast in 2014. The medium has to match the user’s life, not the funder’s technology preference.
Third, the timing of the programme matters as much as the content. Programming that airs during cyclone season is too late. Programming that airs six months before is forgotten. The sweet spot was two to four weeks before the expected season — close enough to feel relevant, early enough to prepare. Getting that window right required understanding the community’s calendar, not just the meteorological one.
The work was done years before “climate resilience” had a budget line. The communities it served did not need the label. They needed the information, in the right language, on the right day, through the radio they were already listening to.