Climate change and development risk: Local perspective

The Daily Star (Bangladesh) ran a loooong piece about climate change issues by M Aminul Islam, the Sustainable Development Adviser for the UN Development Programme in Bangladesh. It’s full of content about adaptation issues, but I've snipped much of it here: ….The core challenge is to prepare an adaptation road map for the government and demonstrate possible strategic interventions in and across sectors, so that a comprehensive action plan of adaptation to address the vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, including variability can be developed which is under active consideration of the government.

….The IPCC, as well as the recently concluded NAPA process, highlight a number of issues that must be overcome in order to successfully implement policies and programmes that promote climate change adaptation. They include:

(i) National capacity at policy and programme levels for climate change adaptation yet not build up;

(ii) lack of climate risk assessment at different levels as well as comprehensive implementation plans;

(iii) inadequate preparation for climate-resilient agriculture and sustainable livelihood options in vulnerable areas;

(iv) lack of climate resilient water resource management technologies;

(v) need for developing community-based adaptation capacity;

(vi) incomplete and un-coordinated (institutional) management systems with overlapping roles and responsibilities;

(vii) limited capacity of staff in key local agencies, particularly the analytical, planning, monitoring and evaluation skills;

(viii) weak knowledge management infrastructure as well as usage in planning processes;

(ix) limited awareness of stakeholders and population on long-term planning frameworks to address climate change concerns and (x) limited development of economic instruments including insurance and other emergency preparedness measures as tools to facilitate improved preparedness for enhanced climate induced events….

Flag of Bangladesh, "SKopp," Wikimedia Commons