In the climate finance universe, programs and policies should align

Eight hundreds family of Mollar Char union and four hundreds families from Kamarjani Union, surrounded by river of Sadar Upazila of Gaibandha has migrated elsewhere losing their homestead, assets, lives and means of livelihoods due to river erosion of mighty Bramhaputra. People of coastal region including Padmapukur and Gabura union of Shymanagar of Satkhira and Dakhin Bedkashi, Uttar Bedkashi, Koyra Sadar union of Koyra Upazila of Khulna has also been suffering from coastal river erosion since year after year and force to migrate other regions only for survival.

The article published in climate tribune on 26 december 2020

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  In the climate finance universe, programs and policies should align
   Prodip Kumar Roy
   Published at 09:19 am January 9th, 2021

The intensity and frequency of cyclones, floods and climatic hazards are increasing due to climate change, the experts say. Recognising the facts of climate change, the government has adopted different policy measures like BCCSAP, NAPA, Climate fiscal framework, Country climate investment plan etc and programmes like BCCTF, allocation of fiscal budget in climate change adaptation. But are these policies and programme protecting the people of Kamarjani, Mollar Char, Padmapukur, Gabura, Bedkashi and Koyra Sadar Union?

Webinar: Global Climate Action Day

#FIGHTCLIMATEINJUSTICE
The coming months and years will be crucial in ensuring a safe pathway below 1.5°C increase in global mean temperature, a target stated in the Paris Agreement. If we are to minimise the risks of triggering irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, we need to act now. It is therefore vital that the climate crisis doesn’t get forgotten in the shadow of the coronavirus but is regarded as the utmost priority. Fridays For Future will keep protesting as long as exploitation of nature is allowed to continue. The form of protest will be adjusted according to local Covid-19 conditions and in places where physical action will be taking place, participants will be asked to take precautions to prevent the spread of the virus. In cases where physical protest is inappropriate, we will instead turn to digital action.
- FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change and her organization `Fridays for Future’ asked to observe the school children and youths to observe “Global Climate Action Day” on 25 September 2020 to act on the climate crisis.

As part of the call and connecting the youth volunteers to the global activism, Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods – CSRL and Jalbayu Parishad (Climate Council) convened a online discussion with youth volunteers, working at Koyra, Shyamnagar and Gaibanhda today. Shoeb Chowdhury from CSRL moderated the discussion.

• Read More:

  • _{Youth Action in Climate Adaptation}
  • _{GLOBAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION}
  • _{Riches must bear the burnt of climate change}
  • _{Youth Action: Experience Sharing and Discussion Meeting}
  • _{A third of my country was just underwater. The world must act on climate}
  • _{Resilience and Recovery: Highlighting Solutions for the G20 on Climate and Sustainability}
  • _{Regional office of Global Centre on Adaptation launched in Dhaka}
  • _{Bangladesh declares climate change a “planetary emergency”}

Global cooperation for protecting planet and humankind

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina virtually addresses the high-level roundtable event held on the sidelines of the 75th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday, September 24, 2020 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday placed a five points actions for global leaders at the high level roundtable on climate change held at the 75th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA@75) to protect the planet and humankind from the adversities of the climate changes.

Five points action for global leaders:
1. Increase international cooperation to protect the planet and mankind;
2. Polluting countries must increase their NDCs through necessary mitigation measures and keep global temperatures bellow 1.50C;
3. Implement all articles of the Paris Agreement;
4. Keep the promised funds and make it available to climate vulnerable countries.
5. Recognize the global responsibility for rehabilitation of climate induced displaced people.

A third of my country was just underwater. The world must act on climate

The climate crisis and Covid-19 are crying out for international cooperation, writes the prime minister of Bangladesh. Courtesy: The Guardian.

One-third of my country was underwater last month. The heaviest rains in almost a decade began and have still not abated. More than 1.5 million Bangladeshis are displaced; tens of thousands of hectares of paddy fields have been washed away. Millions of my compatriots will need food aid this year.

Youth Action in Climate Adaptation

Most of the disastrous impacts of climate change are expected to be felt within the near future. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the impacts, as they are often on the margins of decision-making and will face the climate change impacts for many more years to come. So it would be unethical to take steps (or not) to mitigate climate change or adapt to the problems without their contributions.

GLOBAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION

Solidarity with #FightClimateInjustice

Resilience and Recovery: Highlighting Solutions for the G20 on Climate and Sustainability

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I’ll urge G20 countries to mainstream the issue of losses and damages as in many parts of the world the environmental losses have become permanent and irreparable

Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister, Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said the G20 has a greater responsibility to come forward with stronger commitment to mobilise global support to address the issue of displacement or climate refugees. “Peace and security of all will largely depend on how we’ll be able to manage this forced displacement of innocent people,” she said. The Prime Minister said this while addressing the “Resilience and Recovery: Highlighting Solutions for the G20 on Climate and Sustainability” virtually from her official residence as keynote speaker organised by F20 Foundations and King Khaled Foundation, reports UNB.

Riches must bear the burnt of climate change

Radha Rani (36). Husband Krishna Das, a fisherman. Living near of the Brahmaputra river. Fishing is their means of livelihood. She has two sons Lakshman, Phulbabu and two daughters Lakshmi and Swarasati in Gogat village No. 1 of Kamarjani union of Gaibandha. She has lost her home several times due to river erosion caused by floods. About 548 sq km of Gaibandha Sadar, Sundarganj, Fulchhari and Saghata upazilas have been submerged in the river in the last 146 years due to erosion of Teesta and Jamuna rivers including Brahmaputra river. And in this long time, about 4 lakh people of these four upazilas have lost everything due to river erosion. Total 40 districts of Bangladesh has been affected by floods this year during June-August causing a total loss about BDT 6000 crore. The cyclone Amphan occured in 20 May of this year has claimed the financial loss Tk 11.5 billion.

WEBINAR ON GENDER BASED VIOLENCE

WEBINAR ON GENDER BASED VIOLENCE DURING COVID-19 SITUATION

Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration project

1st June 2019
Safiar Rahman, General Secretary
Save Teesta, Save the River Committee

7 September 2020
Shafiar Rahman, General Secretary
Save Teesta, Save the River Committee

People adjacent of Teesta River are dreaming a city like Switzerland and Singapore while the government has taken a mega plan to develop the Teesta Region with financial assistance of about eight thousands crore taka of Chinese government. “The beach-like marine drives would be built in the both side of the river Teesta, so that tourist and people go long drive smoothly, hotel-motel and power plant would be built”, leaders of the movement committee on `Save the Teesta, Save the River’ said. On 8 September 2020, on a consultative meeting, the leaders of the committee has also expressed their gratitude to the Prime Minister for hearing their long times demand.

Read more:
Dammed river, dead river: A case study on Teesta
Package Deal Between Bangladesh and India
Houses are disappearing in front of eye…

#Make Them Pay

Solidarity with #MakeThemPay, # PolluterPay

Big Polluters are in large part responsible for the multi-faceted crises we as a global community are facing. They have eroded the power of governments to effectively address worldwide disasters like the climate crisis and COVID-19. For at least a century, they have polluted, destroyed, and stolen the land, water, and air that Black and other communities of color, Indigenous communities, and communities in the Global South take care of and live on.

Regional office of Global Centre on Adaptation launched in Dhaka

I hope this regional office will share the best adaptation practices of Bangladesh as well as other countries and exchange practices within the region. It will serve as a centre of excellence and a solution-broker for adaptation measures in the region.
- Sheikh Hasina 
Prime Minister, People's Republic of Bangladesh

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has inaugurated the Bangladesh regional office of the Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) for South Asia on 08 September 2020. Ban Ki-moon, Chair of the Board of the Global Center on Adaptation and 8th Secretary General of the United Nations, and Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte have virtually attended on the occasion. Ministers from South Asian countries along with Patrick Verkooijen, Chief Executive Officer, Global Center on Adaptation has also attended at the virtual launching event. Following the press conference, experts, academics and representatives from South Asian and global organisations working on climate change participates in the inaugural GCA South Asia Partnership Forum.

LITERACY AND LEARNING: COVID-19 AWARENESS

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COVID-19 Awareness: Challenges and How to address it

_{jalbayu Parishad}

75 members of Jalbayu Parishad at Koyra, Shyamnagar and Gaibandha are mobilizing GO-NGOs and Private Sector to create mass awareness on COVID-19

Get involved

_{climate volunteer}

60 Youth Volunteers of Jalbayu Parishad are conducting community Monitoring at their own community to mitigate challenges and create mass awareness on COVID-19

Get involved

YOU CAN JOIN AND ACT AT YOUR OWN COMMUNITY.

Role of CSOs in Policy Decision

Have any impacts?

Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihooods – CSRL conducted a climate hearing on 2nd February 2018 focusing `embankment management involving LGIs’ in the context of climate change. CSRL has been organizing the event since 2009 in Bangladesh. The hearing took place for the first time on December 4, 2009 and then again on November 8, 2010. On 2018, the hearing was the third edition of the National Climate Hearing where three plaintiffs fro Gaibandha, Khulna and Satkhira district raised petitions on their suffering caused by global warming. They Jury panel included lawmaker Saber Hossain Chowdhury, formar Banker Khondkar Imbrahi Khaled, academicians Dr. Jahangir Alam and Dr. Mahbuba Nasrin, panel of experts included Dr. Ainun Nishad, Dr. Tofayel Ahmed, Dr. Ahsan Uddin Ahmed. Dr. Qazi Khiliquzzaman Ahmad, Chair of CSRL declared the verdict to include local government institutions in embankment management to reduce vulnerability of people due to climate change.

Get together

After a long time break, a few members of Online Knowledge Society convened at a online get together on 4th September 2020. The members who were youth volunteers of Online Knowledge Society during 2009-12, now they engages with different institutions and organisations. At 2009, there was a very limited internet facility to the common, but Online Knowledge Society took its volunteers in online and an online office was run to discuss daily updates. We used ning website when it was free. But later the website was charged, then we shifted to facebook and later in wordpress.

Ninety Thousands families of flood prone region have been benefited directly

Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation – PKSF is going to implement a new project called ‘Extended Community Climate Change Project-Flood (ECCP-Flood)’ funded by Green Climate Fund (GCF). In the first phase of the project, 90,000 families in the five districts of Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Gaibandha and Jamalpur have been identified where many houses have been flooded. These families will be provided with high-rise houses, a tube-well for drinking pure water, goat rearing for employment and small vegetable gardens.

Loss and Damages of Flood 2020

“Two hundred and fifty people have died in the flood-hit areas of the country this year. Most of them have drowned. However, 67,301 people have been affected by various diseases including diarrhea, skin diseases and bronchitis in the 33 flood-hit districts. Of these, half are diarrhea”, the information came up in the report ,‘Update on Natural Disasters and Flood Deaths’ of the control room of the National Health Crisis Management Center of the Department of Health. The data for the last two months from June 30 to August 28 was released. Of the 251 people in the flood-hit area, 210 drowned, 13 were struck by lightning, 25 by snake bites, one by diarrhea and two by injuries. The update has published at Daily Ittefaq today.

But the ministry of disaster management and relief said on 25 August 2020 that only 42 person have died during the floods. So there have controversy in number of death between Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief and National Health Management Crisis Center.

More Read:

• Plight of Commons during corona and disasters
• 10 lakh 21 thousand families were flooded
• Houses are disappearing in front of eye…
• Flooding will rise up to 50 per cent by 2100

NEWSLETTER

LEARN TO UNLEARN
NEWSLETTER

prodip k. roy blog post

Prodip K. Roy works as Coordinator of Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods – CSRL. He writes personal blog frequently to reflect his own observation and thoughts on different issues. Let’s read the blog……

COMMUNITY MONITORING AND CASE MANAGEMENT IN HEALTH EMERGENCIES

Bangladesh now has to face two emergencies together – health emergencies and disaster emergencies. People who are facing disaster emergencies, they are focusing more on disaster than health. But considering the health emergency, it is even more important to prevent the spread of the corona virus. There is no way to exclude any. The both emergencies have to be tackled together.

Gender-based violence in health emergencies: Challenges and How to address it

“The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency — but it is far more. It is an economic crisis.  A social crisis.  And a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis.” – UN Secretary General, Antonio Gunterres. “ The coronavirus is not going to go away so we must learn to live with it.” – Special envoy of WHO David Nabrro.

CSRL and Jalbayu Parishad started a three-day long training / workshop on ‘COVID-19 Awareness, Gender-Based Violence and Community Monitoring’ from yesterday. The first session was on ‘COVID-19 awareness’. After concluding the session, participants were asked to come up with action ideas on ‘COVID-19 Awareness’ in the following day.

COVID-19 Awareness: Challenges and How to address it

The world including Bangladesh are facing corona emergency, but the cyclone-flood prone people are living in disaster emergency. The victims of disasters like cyclone Amphan and longest period of floods said, they are more concerned about cyclone-flooding than Coronavirus.

As like other countries of the globe, Bangladesh has also adopted the non-therapeutic preventive measures like lock-down, social distancing, hand washing, masks wearing, travel bans, isolation etc to face corona emergency, but these measures have faced challenges in coastal and riverine region, while cyclone Amphan and severe floods washed away everything of the people. The people of lower income group has been facing severe challenges for their daily lives and livelihoods since last March. Actually they are living in disaster emergency. So, they are more concerned about disaster than coronavirus.

Government should respond immediately

The country had been facing severe floods in three times since 26 May, the longest period of flood in the history of Bangladesh. Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief said, `1,026 unions in 160 upazila’s are still in flood-prone condition and 7 lakh 92 thousand 748 families of these unions are waterlogged, 49 lakh 52 thousand 438 people have been affected.”

The ongoing heavy raining has increased the suffering of flood prone people. The Meteorological Department said that moderate to heavy rains are likely in the south-western and south-central coastal areas of the country in the next 24 hours. Although the river water has not reached the danger level, the suffering of the flood-affected people is not decreasing due to heavy rains. But the flood situation could remain stable. The official of Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief said the incidence of floods would ease after this week. But now the flood hit people are suffering in the rain.

Silence must be heard

On the advice of the local MP and under the supervision of the Upazila Chairman, Union Chairman and other leaders, about 21,000 local people were able to stop the tidal water by constructing a ring embankment at Gobra Ghatakhali in Koyra after Amphan. Ring embankment of was built in the Lebubunia of Gabura Union of Shyamnagar also.
But today the tidal water is entering the locality again with cracks in 5 places of Ghatakhali embankment. The people of the village are running again with spades and pickaxes to prevent the breakage of the embankemnt.

If a small budget was allocated to the Union Parishads for the repair of the embankment every year, the Union Parishads and the local people could repair the embankment themselves and reduce the suffering of the people.
It is too late for us to reach a conclusion. It also increases the amount of damage. The shaky embankments need to be repaired immediately with a quick decision. Later, step-by-step construction of sustainable embankments and coastal boards may be decided.

Lebubunia, gabura, shyamnagar

Shyamnagar: Lebubunia, Gabura Embankment at risk, the tide water entering the locality
Courtesy: Photo taken from Shahin Billah.

• It’s been three months since the super cyclone Amphan hit the coast. In these three months, the earth has rotated on its axis 90 times, orbiting the sun by a quarter, and many countries have returned to normal after overcoming the epidemic. But what about our coast? How are our people in this area? To understand that, the above pictures are enough, the people of the land coast have been living in the water like aquatic animals for three months.
  – Shahin Billah, Volunteer, Jalbayu Parishad, Shyamnagar and also works with other network and media.

Who are responsible…?

Even 89 days after Cyclone Amphan,
the village of Munda in Koyra, North Bedkashi, is still submerged.
Shadhona Munda from Munda village asked, who are responsible for this?

• Munda community one of the ethnic minority `adibashi group’, lives in 30 villages in different upazilas of Khulna and Satkhira in Bangladesh. The community lives in the adjacent of the riverbank. near the Sundarban, the largest mangrove forest of the world. So, they have been facing a severe threats to livelihoods due to the long term effects of climate disaster, such as tropical cyclones, floods, salinity intrusion, famine and heat waves since long time ago. Due to severe disasters like cyclones, occurred every years with growing intensity and erosion of embankment, their lives and livelihoods make very hard. Read More>>>

The people of Uttar Bedkashi in Koyra upazila of Khulna district are still floating in the water after the cyclone Amphan occurred on 20 May 2020. They have no place to cook, no place to urinate, no place to sleep, people who have lost their livelihood have no dreams for the future. They are living for survival at any cost now. Silent howls floating in the air, do we hear? Read More>>> Do we hear silent cries …?

Responding against injustice

• Gaibandha: A woman has given birth to her child on the streets after failing to get admitted to the Mother and Child Welfare Centre in Gaibandha. After the hospital reportedly refused the pregnant woman emergency medical assistance on Tuesday (11th August 2020) night, she went on to have her baby girl on DB road in Gaibandha town. 
  Later, the mother and her child were admitted to Gaibandha Sadar Hospital with the help of police, reports Bangla Tribune. According to the victim’s relatives, the woman in labour was rushed to the Mother and Child Welfare Centre when she started having contractions. Upon arrival, Selina Begum, an inspector at the clinic, told the pregnant woman to go elsewhere without any examination. 
  Despite repeated pleas, the woman was refused medical assistance and subsequently, the mother gave birth to her baby girl in an abandoned construction site on DB Road. After that, the mother and her child were admitted to Gaibandha Sadar Hospital with the help of locals and police.

Jalbayu Parishad, Nari Jote, Durbar Network and Nari Pakhha, leaded by Karmojibi Nari, Gaibandha have responded injustice today. Submitting a memorandum to district commissioner, Gaibandha, they have demanded to investigate the case and irregularity properly.