Attaining MDGs: Combating climate challenge

The government forest land covers both natural and plantation forest. Out of 64 districts, 28 districts had no public forest in the past. But now almost all districts have been brought under forest coverage through Social Forestry Programme. The ever-increasing population of Bangladesh is creating pressure on existing government managed forest resources and has resulted in over exploitation of such resources.
With a view to bringing the government-owned fallow khas land under forestry coverage, participatory social forestation programme was introduced in the early 1980s. The government has amended the rules so that extreme poor are eligible to participate in the programme. Besides, the government has also increased the profit margin significantly for the participating poor that have increased people's participation in forest management. Based on the implementation of the Social Forestry Programme through people's participation, about 0.40 million hectare of land has been brought under forest cover. About 55 million seedlings have been raised under plantation. Nevertheless, widespread destruction and clearing of forest land for agriculture and homestead seriously impede achieving the target of 20 per cent forest cover with tree density more than 70 per cent coverage by the end of 2015.
Climate is the vital factor for Bangladesh in various aspects. Though on MDG goal 7 (attaining environmental sustainability) Bangladesh could not attain much as was expected (due to largely for shortage of fund), it tried to devote as much as possible to ameliorate the adverse impact of climate change. It is widely recognized that climate change will affect many sectors, including water resources, agriculture and food security, ecosystems and biodiversity, human health and coastal zones in Bangladesh.
The cyclones (SIDR in 2007 and AILA in 2009), and droughts and floods which occurred during the recent years indicate that IPCC predictions on extreme climate events were on track in Bangladesh and that a rise in sea levels could have a significant impact on the lives and livelihoods of up to 30 million people. Bangladesh is in the top of the list of 10 most disaster affected countries.
During 1990-2008 the country incurred annual loss of US$ 2,189 million (1.8 per cent of annual GDP) from disasters. These changes will have serious consequences on the Bangladesh economy and threaten the significant achievements Bangladesh has made over the last 20 years in increasing national income and reducing poverty. It has, therefore, become imperative for Bangladesh to prepare itself to mitigate the negative impact of climate change and safeguard the future well-being of her people.
WORK DONE: Over the past years, the government of Bangladesh, with the support of development partners, has invested over $10 billion to make the country less vulnerable to natural disasters. The challenge Bangladesh now faces is to scale up these investments to create a suitable environment for the economic and social development of the country and to secure the well-being of our people. To prevent the climate change impact in the country, the Government of Bangladesh has carried out several initiatives in the policy making system.
The establishment of Climate Change Unit (CCU) is one of the major initiatives to address both climate change adaptation and mitigation. The CCU started its activities in January 2010 under the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy & Action Plan has been developed by the Government. It builds on the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA), published in 2005. Bangladesh has launched a Multi-Donor Trust Fund with its own resources to implement its Climate Change Strategy. Through this funding arrangement, which awaits more pledges from international donors, Bangladesh effectively fosters participating ministries and stakeholder to implement the strategy. The government has also prepared National Sustainable Development Strategy (2010-2021) with a view to achieving its stated vision and addressing long-term sustainability issue of productive resources.
THE CHAMPION: Bangladesh, being a densely populated and a least developed country in the world, has been treated as a champion in the implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The success story of Bangladesh in achieving MDGs is acclaimed globally when our  Prime Minister was awarded with 'UN MDG Awards 2010'. She was also awarded the South-South Award 'Digital Health for Digital Development' in 2011 for her innovative idea to use the Information and Communication Technology for progress of the health of women and children. The Human Development Report-2013 of the UNDP has placed Bangladesh among the 18 countries of the world that have made substantial progress in achieving MDGs. They have identified three notable drivers of development: a proactive developmental state, tapping of global markets and determined social policy and innovation.
The World Development Report-2013 of the World Bank mentioned that development pessimism about Bangladesh was understandable, but has been now proven wrong. Some countries have done well in human development indicators, and others have done well in economic growth, but Bangladesh belongs to a rather small group of countries that have done well on both fronts, the initial pessimism notwithstanding. This is the crux of the 'development surprise' that transformed Bangladesh.  
In June 2013 Bangladesh received the 'Diploma Award' from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations during FAO's 38th session Conference in Rome, for its achievement in the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG-1) by the end of 2012. Besides the 'Diploma Award', Bangladesh along with other 37 countries was honoured with the 'special recognition' for their outstanding progress in fighting hunger and poverty.
The last two decades have shown that it is possible to defeat the scourge of poverty. The world has become considerably less poor in the past three decades. In 1981, more than half of citizens in the developing world lived on less than $1.25 a day. This rate dropped dramatically to 22 per cent in 2010. Moreover, despite a 35 per cent increase in global population, there are slightly fewer people living on less than $1.25 a day today (1.3 billion) than there were three decades ago (1.8 billion). Progress is undeniable and most likely the downward trend of poverty has continued after 2010. Progress has not been uniform across countries, and there have been setbacks and disappointments. But overall, the rate of progress in reducing poverty and in increasing access to basic health, education, water, and other essential services is unparalleled in many countries' histories.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have provided an important motivational force and measuring rod for this progress. They were deliberately ambitious, and their achievement would require an unprecedented pace of progress in most countries. The fact that many countries are on track to achieve a significant number of the goals will transform the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people, and should be a sign of hope and a spur to action in others. Findings from some studies suggest that contributing factors for success of achieving Millennium Development Goals include:
1. Consistent leadership committed over an extended period of time to reducing poverty, backed by strong implementation and human capacity.
2. Sound macro-economic policies, open trade, and recognition and active management of the complementary roles of market and state.
3. Long-term institutional reform aimed at making the public sector accountable to citizens, and devolution of responsibility and accountability to local levels.
4. Prioritisation of investment in human development, and protection of budgets in health and education.
5. Active community and civil society participation, encouraged by government.
6. Openness to new technologies, and support for innovation, adaptation, and scaling up.
7. Support from, and partnership with, the international community including government and non-government agencies.
It is likely that some of the goals of the MDGs would remain unfulfilled by 2015. Therefore, the world community must continue its efforts to make the earth free from hunger and poverty in the shortest possible time.
In retrospect, it may be stated that one of the basic tenets of the MDGs is that a big push in terms of provision of resources and other efforts would accelerate progress beyond historical norms in respective areas and meet the goals. Perhaps this is feasible in the case of certain goals which are physical in nature such as water supply and sanitation, but this is unlikely to be achieved in the case of majority of the goals where complex interactions of social and economic forces determine the outcomes. These outcomes are only indirectly linked to financial inputs and require more supply-side interventions and good governance policies both at macro and micro levels.
There would possibly remain some unfinished agenda even if we put all our efforts by the time left. Those unfinished agenda must carefully be re-crafted in the Post 2015 development agenda, the discussion process that have already started in the global arena.
 Prof. Shamsul Alam is Member, General Economics Division (GED), Bangladesh Planning Commission. [email protected]