The government is going to set up a separate wing in the environment ministry to supervise the implementation of projects under the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT), sources in the environment ministry said. The planned Climate Change (CC) wing will be headed by a joint secretary of the environment ministry, the sources added.
With the setting up of the unit, projects approved by the BCCT will go under direct supervision of the civil bureaucracy. At present, the BCCT is implementing 472 projects involving Tk 2,600 crore. The environment ministry has already prepared a draft proposal to set up the new wing for the BCCT, and it was approved by the Secretaries’ Committee on Administrative Improvement Affairs, at its March 9 meeting.
In his proposal, Istiaque Ahmad, secretary in-charge of the environment and forests ministry, said they would set up the new wing to properly implement the projects of the BCCT, with a view to facing the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The proposal says: “It is very tough to conduct the activities of the BCCT by three sections.” For setting up the new wing, 33 posts—including one of joint secretary, three of deputy secretary and six of senior assistant secretary—would be created, the proposal added.
However, a senior official of the BCCT told this correspondent on condition of anonymity that the trust had sent a proposal to the ministry concerned to make the trust into the Department of Climate Change a few months ago, but the authorities had rejected it.
“Climate change is an important matter and most of the countries are setting up departments or ministries to conduct activities related to climate change. But our high-ups are going to put the trust under bureaucrats,” he said. The BCCT currently implements projects in coordination with the environment ministry. A technical committee of the BCCT shortlists projects and sends the list to the Trustee Board, which gives final approval for implementation.
The environment secretary is the head of the technical committee, while the trustee board is headed by the environment minister.
Climate change experts assist the BCCT during dealing and consultations with international organisations.
“The activities of the BCCT are likely to be influenced directly by the environment ministry once the CC wing is set up, and this will most likely hamper implementation of its projects in the future,” an official of the BCCT told The Independent seeking anonymity.
Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world and the situation will take a turn for the worse as an impact of climate change.
Although the country has made considerable progress in meeting the targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), climate change induced risks like cyclone, tidal surge, coastal inundation and salinity intrusion due to rise in the sea level, erratic rainfall, floods, river bank erosion, drought, landslide and negative impacts on agricultural production. These have appeared as hindrances to achieving the targets of Vision 2021.
The Climate Change Trust Fund (CCTF) was created with government resources, aimed at reducing the vulnerabilities caused by the adverse effects of climate change.
The projects undertaken so far include construction of embankments and riverbank protective work, building cyclone-resilient houses, excavation/re-excavation of canals, construction of water control infrastructures, including regulators/sluice gates, waste management and drainage infrastructure, introduction and dissemination of stress-tolerant crop varieties and seeds, afforestation, installation of solar panels and so on.