Policy analysts call for more climate financing, proper monitoring of expenditure

Bangladesh needs to minimise the gaps between climate financing and the actual requirements, said policy analysts and experts.

The country should also recruit skilled manpower to handle the climate policies and expenditure to reduce overlapping, and underfunding or overfunding, said discussants at a dialogue on green public finance management, organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) yesterday.

Participants at the event suggested that the government should bring clarity to climate expenditures, and engage with a broader section of stakeholders, including the private sector, non-government organisations, civil society, and community-based organisations in the formulation and implementation of the climate budget process.

Presenting the keynote, Centre for Policy Dialogue Executive Director Fahmida Khatun recommended enhanced utilisation of the climate budget as its implementation history indicates more utilisation of non-development expenditure than development expenditure under the climate criteria.

She pointed out that budget utilisation under the criteria, "Strengthening institutional capacity for climate risk management", declined to 75.71% in FY22 from 90.71% in FY21.

Stating that the budget allocation of Tk6,897.85 crore in FY24 for the directly affected climate-vulnerable people is only 6.07% of the total allocation in the Social Safety Net Programme, Fahmida Khatun added, "Allocation for climate-vulnerable people should be increased in the Social Safety Net Programme."

Funds from some international sources, including the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, and bilateral sources are often sought to support climate-related projects. However, the share of disbursed climate funds in Bangladesh is lower compared to other Climate Vulnerability Forum countries in Asia and the Pacific due to a lack of bankable projects.

"So the projects should be developed by experts while capacity development for designing projects is also needed. Mobilisation of resources for the climate change trust fund should be expedited," Fahmida Khatun said.

She also recommended more clarity in projects tagged in various thematic areas of the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan.

Panellist Dr M Asaduzzaman, former research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said recipients and places of climate financing need to be clarified under the legal and governance framework approved by the parliament. 

Dr Haseeb Md Irfanullah, visiting research fellow of the Centre for Sustainable Development at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, recommended restructuring the climate budget in a live portal and the inclusion of youth in the budget process.

Nayoka Martinez Bäckström, first secretary for Environment and Climate (Development Cooperation Section) at the Swedish embassy, reiterated the ethos of public finance management, which is to communicate with taxpayers about the decisions being made on the budget or to make them understand how these decisions relate to the development of society. 

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, termed monitoring or quantifying the actual impacts of climate budget allocation and implementation as a challenge for Bangladesh and many other countries.

"But the big challenge, particularly for Bangladesh, is the inadequacy of funding when the requirement has been increasing over time with fresh climate risks," Saber Chowdhury said.  

Lawmaker Tanvir Shakil Joy, Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies' Executive Director Dr Atiq Rahman, United Nations Development Programme's climate change specialist (Resilience and Inclusive Growth Cluster) Dr Maliha Muzammil, WaterAid Bangladesh's Policy and Advocacy Director Partha Hefaz Shaikh, among others, also spoke at the programme.