Multi-Level Climate Governance in Bangladesh via Climate Change Mainstreaming: Lessons for Local Climate Action in Dhaka City

Abstract

Over the last three decades, Bangladesh has implemented various initiatives to address different climate change impacts. In a multi-level governance arrangement, addressing climate change impacts is often constrained by climate change mainstreaming. In Bangladesh, a crucial question that arises is how mitigation and adaptation efforts are addressed at both national and sub-national levels. This paper examines the integration of climate change issues into national, sectoral, and city development plans with a particular focus on Dhaka using a framework developed based on the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) climate change mainstreaming guidelines for national development processes. The review finds evidence that mainstreaming of climate change is strong in national and sectoral development plans and has been incremental since 2002. However, climate change mainstreaming in Dhaka city development plans is moderate, especially in terms of climate risk and opportunity assessment, institutional arrangement, and capacity building for climate action. To augment existing efforts at mainstreaming at the sub-national level, the paper suggests the need to build sub-national level climate capacity with particular attention to institutional coordination and cooperation among agencies at different levels of development planning and to establish a national financing arrangement that allows sub-national agencies to harness climate finance.

Tracing the past: an insight on flood risk management strategies in the development instruments of Bangladesh and Dhaka city

“…This procedure is conceptualized in Figure 1. As the central planning organization, the Bangladesh Planning Commission is responsible for designing and preparing the short-to long-term national development planning (Fatemi et al, 2020b). Through the Five-Year Plans (FYPs), it determines the overall planning direction for growth and development of the urbanized areas in the country (Damianova et al, 2008).…”

Are local development plans mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture? A mixed-content analysis of medium-term development plans in semi-arid Ghana

“…Similar to Fatemi et al ( 2020 ) and Pieterse et al ( 2020 ), the scores were the basis for quantitative comparison and the text data associated with each score formed the basis of qualitative content analysis. The content analysis provided context and evidence of CSA or otherwise in the plans as well as a validation of the quantitative assessment.…”

“…To understand CSA mainstreaming in the 2018–2021 MTDPs from the Upper West Region, the study tailored the suggested report structure by the NDPC guidelines for preparing MTDPs in Ghana to general mainstreaming assessment frameworks (Fatemi et al 2020 , p. 4; Pieterse et al 2020 , p. 4). In the NDPC guidelines, there are seven recommended chapters namely: (1) Profile/Current Situation/baseline; (2) Prioritization/key Development Issues; (3) Development Goal, Adopted Objectives and Strategies; (4) Development Programs and subprograms; (5) Annual Action Plan; (6) Monitoring and Evaluation Plan; and (7) Communication Plan.…”

“…The quantitative scoring employed in this study allowed for comparison between the MMDAs and some level of generalization for the region. However, germane to this assessment was an aim to identify strengths, gaps, and weaknesses to inform improvements in mainstreaming akin to other assessment frameworks (Fatemi et al 2020 , p. 5; Godschalk and Rouse 2015 , pp. 21–23; Pieterse et al 2020 , p. 3).…”

Flooding in mega-cities: using structural equation modeling to assess flood impact in Dhaka

“…Floods impacts are projected to be significant, with the World Resources Institute's data indicating a doubling of global flood victims by 2030, from 65 to 132 million and from 7 to 15 million for riverine and coastal flooding, respectively (Kuzma and Luo, 2020). In the phase of climate change impacts, the situation is acute in developing countries, where slow progress in human development, deficits in infrastructure (Fatemi et al, 2020b, unplanned urbanization coupled with rapid loss of natural drainage channels and flood retention areas due to encroachment (Khan et al, 2018) are expected to deepen flood vulnerabilities. Already in the Asia-Pacific region, inundation has intensified and become commonplace in many cities ( UN-Habitat, 2015;Adikari et al, 2010).…”