With Bangladesh's spending on climate change growing every year, the government has recently formed a high-powered coordination committee and four working groups to prepare strategy and procedures to garner an increased amount of funds from external and internal sources.
The principal secretary to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) will head the coordination committee of the Bangladesh Climate Development Partnership (BCDP) while four ministries will lead the working groups, officials said.
The coordination committee will meet twice a year which is tasked with the responsibility to prepare a guideline for implementation of projects to face the impacts of climate change.
The body will also identify necessary projects and advise the concerned ministries to implement those.
Also, the committee will carry out necessary activities to develop skilled manpower to successfully face the impacts of climate change.
The coordination committee will also provide advice to concerned ministries and departments on how to explore required funds to finance the climate-related projects.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Finance Division, Planning Division, Economic Relations Division (ERD), Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue (NBR), and the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) are members of the coordination committee.
On the other hand, the Finance Division will lead the Climate Finance (Domestic) working group, ERD will head the Climate Finance External working group, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will lead the Policy, Knowledge and Capacity Building working group, and the Planning Division will lead the Project Development Support, Monitoring and Evaluation working group.
The Climate Finance (Domestic) working group has been tasked to provide necessary advice for finding sources of local funding from the public and private sector while the Climate Finance External working group will provide advice to find foreign sources of funds to take climate change-related projects.
The Policy, Knowledge and Capacity Building working group has been entrusted with the task of building skilled manpower and preparing a database of projects which were taken to face the impacts of climate change.
The Project Development Support, Monitoring and Evaluation working group will work on preparation of a guideline for implementation of climate change-related projects, identify suitable projects and advise the ministries concerned to implement those. The working group will also help avoid repetition of taking similar projects and assist evaluation of projects.
The BCDP will assist the ministries to get low-cost foreign loans even after Bangladesh officially gets out of the group of least developed countries in 2026, according to a finance division memo.
In the budget for the current fiscal year, the government has earmarked Tk 370 billion as the climate-related allocation for 25 ministries and divisions, which is 8.99 per cent of their total budget.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a recent note indicated that the annual average damage to Bangladesh from tropical cyclones alone has already reached $1.0 billion or 0.7 per cent of the GDP.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report 2021, Bangladesh incurred losses of nearly $11.3 billion in 2021 due to climate-induced natural disasters, which is about 2.47 per cent of its GDP for the FY 2021-22.
Data shows that Bangladesh has so far secured $374 million from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for seven projects and another $380 million in loans, including $6.1 million in grants, from the same fund for eight readiness activities.
On the other hand, the country has so far received a total of $160 million in grants and $1,037 million in additional co-financing for 58 projects from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
The country has also received a total of $110 million in grants and near-zero interest credits from the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF).
These funds are considered very meagre compared to its spending against climate change impacts and the loss and damages the country incurred despite being a non-mentionable polluter.
Dr A Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), earlier told the FE that there are scopes for securing global climate funds provided the government agencies can submit high-quality proposals.
However, he said, the standard of most of the applications submitted to the global funds from Bangladesh is "comparatively poor", which is why they are "unsuccessful", as donors check competitiveness before paying money.
Mr Rahman said private sector research organisations and activists have taken Bangladesh's vulnerability to the international community, but the government has not been able to convert this into money.
"Also, we have a bad image in the market over accountability in spending money," he said, adding that it also contributed to the failure in securing funds from abroad.
syful-islam@outlook.com