With a rapidly changing climate that is already having massive impacts on Indian people’s daily lives, the absence of policies and plans supporting millions of working women in their ability to deal with these new challenges needs to be addressed. Representing over half the workforce in farming, fishing and forest harvesting, Indian women have an essential role to play in climate adaptation and planning. Granting women greater access to ownership and representation, and giving them a voice to describe their situation and needs to policymakers, will help all Indians diminish their vulnerabilities in the face of climate change.

This new film, directed by Krishnendu Bose and commissioned by CDKN, follows the Nahi women in their daily fight against climate change impacts. It shows how resourceful these women are in a context of high constraints and poverty. Supporting their local initiatives with adequate policies and laws could be a significant game changer in the way India manages to tackle climate change. ‘Missing' intends to convince policymakers of what can be achieved, were women to become integrated in climate change planning.

The film depicts Rita Kamila and her success at integrating farming practices with climate resilience. As a result of the changing climate, Rita has fish in her fields; she puts her chicken coup over the water so that when she feeds her chickens, some of it falls through into the water, and the chicken droppings also become fish food. Her practices have led to great economic benefit, and she shares her knowledge with her fellow villagers. However, Rita's success is an isolated story, as the video shows, and it is critical to scale up access to government schemes. Many government schemes are only for land owning farmers and less than 10% of female farmers own land.