Bangladesh must ensure the participation of stakeholders along with transparency for formulating the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) to address the impacts of climate change and increase capacity in adaptation activities.
If the plan is formulated without the participation of the affected people and other stakeholders, it will not be able to generate effective contributions.
Speakers on Wednesday made the recommendations at a national level stakeholders’ dialogue on the identification of the regional challenges to tackle the negative impacts of climate change and inclusion thereof in the National Adaptation Plan.
Center for Participatory Research and Development (CPRD) organised the dialogue at BRAC Center in the capital with support from AOSED, Bread for the World, CCBVO, Diakonia, and SDS.
At the dialogue, suggestions, proposals, and data were presented that had been obtained from the local level consultation carried out by CPRD and other partner organizations in three individual regions (coastal region, river-bank erosion-prone region, and drought-prone region) with special attributes.
Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) was present as the chief guest at the event.
He said, ‘There is no alternative to formulating and implementing a good NAP to ensure sustainable development, and for ensuring sustainable development of Bangladesh. We prepared many documents in the past too. Now we need a proper appraisal of our previous successes and failures and we must take lessons from our previous failures. Otherwise, the NAP will never be successful. The NAP must be formulated as a ‘living document’, and the stake of the general people must be taken into account properly’.
Atik Rahman, Executive Director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) said that the NAP process is advancing slowly and the process is likely to end by April 2022. The formulation and implementation of the NAP must take into consideration the region-specific realities. Bangladesh is a seaside country. Hence, the negative impacts of climate change are becoming clearly evident in all the areas of the country.
He said, good governance is not merely perceived as reducing corruption, formulation of the right plan at the right time and implementation thereof are also, at the same time, part of good governance. In the formulation of the NAP, this must also be taken into consideration.
Md. Shamsuddoha, Chief Executive of CPRD said, “Bangladesh has already started its activities for formulating the NAP aiming at tackling climate change and enhancing the capacity of adaptation actions. In incoherence with the UNFCCC guidelines, the process of formulating the NAP must be participatory and transparent.”
He continued, ‘It must be formulated taking into consideration the special risks of the women, indigenous people, and communities falling behind, and alongside the risks at the local level and the actions required for reducing those risks. Otherwise, it will not be able to generate effective contributions.”
He also mentioned that ‘one of the major challenges for the developing countries like ours is making sure the proper utilization of the project funds, and this fear remains in case of NAP as well. With regard to reducing carbon emissions as the most effective means to stave off climate change, Bangladesh must continue its own actions and keep pressurizing the global community.’
Among others, Dhareetree Kumar Sarker , Deputy Secretary of MoFECC , Fazle Rabbi Sadeque Ahmed, Deputy Managing Director of PKSF , Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, President of Forum of Environmental Journalists of Bangladesh (FEJB), A. K. M. Azad Rahman, Programme Specialist of UNDP, Dilruba Haider, Programme Specialist of UN WOMEN also spoke at the event.
