The government is going to formulate a strategy for selecting climate change adaptation projects, aiming to provide increased funds in the areas which got lower allocation so far, official sources said.
The move is taken, as the government has lowered allocation to Climate Change Trust Fund (CCTF), an initiative for funding climate change adaptation projects, they added.
Until now the CCTF board of trustees (BoT) has approved some 225 government sector projects worth Tk 20.35 billion.
The government allocated only Tk 2.0 billion for CCTF in the budget for the current fiscal year, drastically slashing down its previous year's allocation.
Some 108 projects under ministry of water resources got 49.14 per cent of total allocation or Tk 10 billion from the fund. Projects under local government ministry got 14.68 per cent or Tk 2.98 billion, and projects of ministry of forest and environment got 12.86 per cent or Tk 2.61 billion.
Besides, projects under ministry of agriculture got Tk 1.13 billion or 5.58 per cent of the total allocation, and projects of disaster management and relief ministry got 5.75 per cent or Tk 1.16 billion.
The projects under ministries of water resources and local government got a total of 64 per cent of the total allocation.
Officials said CCTF finances projects under six thematic areas of Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2009.
Until now infrastructure-related projects got the highest 69 per cent of the total allocation, while mitigation and low-carbon development-related projects got 14 per cent fund.
Food security, social protection and health-related projects got 10 per cent of fund, research and knowledge management-related projects got 4.0 per cent of the total allocation.
Besides, capacity building and institutional strengthening-related projects got 2.0 per cent fund, and comprehensive disaster management-related projects got 1.0 per cent of the total allocation.
The CCTF BoT at a recent meeting has asked the trust officials to prepare a strategy for fund allocation in the face of the government's lower allocation for adaptation projects.
It has also asked the officials to give importance to selecting sustainable and result-worthy projects while preparing the strategy.
Sources said the trust officials have prepared a draft of the strategy. According to it, from now on increased volume of fund will be allocated in favour of the thematic areas that got lower allocation in the past.
It also proposed for fixing up a ceiling of year-wise allocation for each thematic area. Besides, importance will be given to projects, taken targeting the worst affected areas of climate change.
The draft also suggested for selecting small-scale projects instead of big ones, which need substantial fund for implementation. In this case the ministries will be asked not to take projects, costing higher than Tk 80 million.
The ministries that got lower allocation from the fund will be encouraged to take more adaptation projects. No ministry will be given allocation of higher than 20 per cent of the total fund a year.
syful-islam@outlook.com