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Environment and Sustainable Development
Development Context and Business Case
Poverty, growth and environmental sustainability are inextricably bound together in Bangladesh. Half the population are
poor and depend on an over-exploited and degrading natural resource base. Industrial and urban growths are contributing
economic livelihoods but already are serious threats to environmental and human health because of inadequate attention to
environment and sustainable development. Study reveals that annually about 4% of GDP is lost and 22% of diseases are
because of environmental degradation. 66% of country’s precious wetlands have been seriously degraded, natural forest
cover has been shrunk to 6%, and ecosystem productivity has been seriously decreased because of alterations and pollutions.
Unwise use of agro-ecosystems, wetlands and water resources is posing a serious threat towards country’s agricultural
productivity as well as its food security. Degraded lands, wetlands, forest areas and other common pool resources has put
extra pressure to the poverty situation and retarding the pace of poverty reduction process. Poorly planned development
interventions as well as economic activities are converting cities and towns unliveable and limiting the carrying capacities of
ecosystems and hinterlands.
In the last two decades Bangladesh has made significant progress in terms of reducing population growth to 1.7% per annum,
increasing economic growth to about 5% per annum or more, and almost halving the percentage of population considered
hard core poor. Despite this Bangladesh faces huge challenges which pose serious questions for the environment and
sustainability of these trends. With the present growth rate the population could be double by 2050, reaching some 270
million. It is predicted that most of the additional people will live in the rapidly growing urban areas. Population density is
already the highest for a non-city state and is likely to average over 1,800 people per km2 by 2050. At present about 48% of
people live below the poverty line, and the natural resources on which the poor disproportionately depend are increasingly
stressed. There are also critical external environmental trends that have to be taken into account for a sustainable Bangladesh.
Climate change is predicted to raise average sea levels by around 30 cm by 2050, and could make an additional 14% of the
country extremely vulnerable to floods by 2030, further squeezing population and resource use patterns. Being the lower
riparian country not only makes Bangladesh highly prone to floods, but also dependent on trends in the 93% of the
catchments that lie upstream and outside Bangladesh. Comparable trends in population density, population growth,
industrialisation, and lack of forest occur in the catchments, and can be expected to result in less water and of poorer quality
reaching Bangladesh in the dry season.
The content for United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for 2012-2016 has already been finalized and
expected to be signed by the Government of Bangladesh and UN next month. Environment and Climate Change has been
one of the major programming thrust areas in UNDAF. Besides national priorities and needs, one of the driving factors of
UNDAF and subsequent Country Programme Document (CPD) was the strategic focus to help the country for attaining
accelerated progress to achieve the MDGs. Recently concluded national MDG assessment evidenced that country progress
towards a number of MDGs are not on track and this is more applicable to MDG 7.
In response to the above mentioned analytics, efforts have been made to formulate an appropriate results framework for the
UNDAF/CPD which are to be achieved through formulation and implementation of programmes/projects and appropriate
partnerships. The two high level outcomes are (1) By 2016, populations vulnerable to climate change and natural disaster
have become more resilient to adapt with the risk; and (2) By 2016, vulnerable populations benefit from natural resource
management; environmental governance and low- emission green development. Three specific results streams would be
instrumental to aid achieving these outcomes and the result streams can be articulated as follows: (a) disaster risk reduction
and climate change adaptation; (b) natural resources management and environment governance; and (c) sustainable energy,
climate change mitigation and low emission development. The second result stream would be more applicable to the
situation mentioned above.
The intervention framework
An appropriate framework of programmatic interventions is a prerequisite to respond to the development context outlined
above. The composite result of programmatic interventions will help to minimise, halt and if possible, reverse environmental
degradation in ways that will benefit the poor and to enable growth that is consistent with a better environment. The
programmatic interventions should be able to change decision making at the macro-level in the direction of reversing past
negative environmental trends. It aims to bring principles of good governance to the environment sector, to develop
understanding and capacity within government, and to raise the profile of environment in policy making centrally and in local
decision making. The approach and intervention will demonstrate and extend restoration of bio-diverse forests and wetlands
to sustain watersheds and protect coastal communities in the face of growing hazards utilizing emerging instruments such as
REDD+ and co-management. It programme framework has to be grounded on integrated approaches to management of land,
water, and fisheries that enhance their overall productivity based on healthy ecosystem functions and are based on devolving
decision making to local people dependent on those resources in ways that give voices and responsibilities to the poor. On
the urban front, the result orientation must be aimed through enhanced compliance and enforcement to ensure that industries
and urban authorities clean up their past and future growth towards low emission sustainable cities. An informed knowledge
based decision making process is another prerequisite and an integral approach for the intervention framework. This should
ultimately aim to enable a range of government and non-government stakeholders to generate and share improved
information upon which future decisions can be made. Furthermore, this would look at the opportunities for partnership for
better utilisation of trans-boundary resources including rivers and other ecosystems. This conceptual framework can be
illustrated in the following schematic diagram:
UNDAF Outcome 2: By 2016, vulnerable populations
benefit from natural resource management (NRM);
environmental governance and low- emission green
development
Sustainable NRM for biodiversity
conservation and livelihood
protection
Low emission and cleaner urban
environmental management
Environmental governance for
sustainable development
Environmental governance
program (integration of PEN
in LG and CG)
Sustainable mgmt of
terrestrial (land) aquatic
ecosystems and its rsources
resources
Low emission and climate
resilient sustainable cities
initiative
Partnership for transboundary ecosystem mgmt /
national & local water vision
Partnership for pollution
abatement
Implementation support
mechanism for NCSA &
biodiversity program of action
UN REDD for Bangladesh
(forest/CCA PA)
Sustainable waste
management including
POPs
Community-public-private
partnership for green growth
environmental
management
Strategy
The underlying thought of the strategy will be to focus broadly on environmental quality and governance as vital needs for
reducing poverty. This would be guided by the UNDP/CPD and UNDAF Action Plan. Given the diverse and overarching
nature of environmental issues, this will require working with a range of government and non-government partners including
the relevant government agencies through direct partnerships and through support to civil society. In addition, appropriate
partnership with the private sector would be vital for ensuring environmental governance.
The strategy is based on three approaches. Firstly, demonstrating and ensuring the uptake of a more integrated and pro-poor
approach to ecosystem management. This will focus on restoring the productivity and environmental services of degraded
ecosystems through co-management approaches involving local communities, local government and government agencies.
This will be focused on specific locations, complementing and integrating with government initiatives to build local
institutions. NGOs are likely to play an important but time bound role in facilitating and strengthening local initiatives. This
will be complemented by developing resource related information to support better informed planning. Secondly, addressing
the adverse impacts of development processes on environmental health affecting people, especially the poor. Gaps in
existing planning processes, regulations and enforcement will be addressed. Compliance and corporate responsibility will be
encouraged, including facilitating partnerships with the private sector. Links will be made with projects within the poverty
reduction practice and those of other donors to support the cleaning up and greening of economic growth. Thirdly, reforming
national development processes where there are issues of updating and harmonizing policies, strategies, and practices to
mainstream sustainable development issues. Capacity within government and in future generations of policy makers will be
built and knowledge bases enhanced to achieve more informed decision making on the environment. This approach also will
address international issues and opportunities that affect the Bangladesh environment.
Entry points
The programme entry points will both include the ongoing project and non-project activities such as the (i) work with the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on MoEF; (ii) sustainable land management project and its follow on; (iii) CWBMP; (iv)
Coastal afforestation; (v) UNREDD; (vi) Analytical work on MDG 7; (vii) UNDP sustainable cities work; (viii) Regional
initiative on international water; (ix) ADR; (x) evaluation of earlier portfolio projects.
Related interventions
USAID-IPAC/Feed the Future, WB/ADB/IDB/JICA/NL- water resources programme, GEF/FAO-BoB, CASE, NL/IUCN/WB-transboundary Water programme, AusAID/SDC/Inter-corporation/EC- land/landuse, DFID-Governance programme
Resource requirement
A rudimentary calculation with different scenario analysis reveals that 50 to 90 million USD equivalent local currency will be
required to implement the programme during 2012-2016. The reason for the wide range is that some of the initiatives
could be in smaller scale such as environmental governance programme or sustainable cities initiative in case of resource
constraints. Potential funding sources are EC, SIDA, Norway, DFID, AusAid, DFID, Netherlands and Korea. Opportunities are
there for parallel funding from Government’s Climate Change Trust Fund and Bangladesh Climate Resilience Fund. GEF
resources (around $3million) is available for biodiversity and land degradation.
Way forward
The concept will proceed with following illustrative action plan
Timeline
Actions/activities
Responsible
official/office
March
Internal sharing, sharing with mgmt., key stakeholder consultation, MGMT
approval
MHK/AI/SM
Late MarchEarly April
Development of ToR, Fielding of mission, RCB mission, LCG sub group sharing,
target donor meeting
MHK/SM
April
Draft programme outline for stakeholder sharing and leveraging partnership
MHK/Mission
May-June
Finalization of the project documents
MHK/Mission/SM