No proper assessment as ADP, climate projects overlapped

None of the projects under annual development programme (ADP) or climate change trust fund is undertaken through proper assessment and targeting to address climate change issues resulting in overlapping of the activities, said a study by the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).

There is 54 per cent climate change related activity in the ADP projects and 50 per cent development related activities in the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) projects, the study found.

The study titled 'Assessing Synergies between Climate and Development Projects: Which One is More Effective, Efficient and Transparent?' has also found that despite the government's commitment to prioritise adaptation, it has allocated only 17 per cent for adaptation while global allocation is only 13.6 per cent of the total fund pledged.

The research report was presented by AK Enamul Haque, Director of Asian Centre for Development, at a press briefing at the TIB auditorium in the capital.

TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said that the flow of green climate fund is very low compared to the national assessment. Bangladesh needs US $2.2 billion annually for adaptation from 2015 till 2030. But it has got only three projects worth $113 million which is for a couple of years. These projects are also implemented by international agencies, he said.

Expressing frustration over the non-possibility of increasing flow of green climate fund in near future, Iftekharuzzaman emphasised on nationally funded projects to address climate change challenges either from the BCCTF fund or from ADP.

Regarding the findings of the research, the TIB chief said that it suggests to identify special climate related components of a project and prepare timely work plan, allocation of budget from both domestic and international sources, evaluation, monitoring and auditing of the projects to ensure transparency and accountability.

The study concludes that projects financed through the ADP windows are relatively more effective to stakeholders and better aligned to meet DAC criteria. As such, BCCTF projects may benefit from following the project implementation and monitoring process of the ADP projects.

Finally, since many of the ADP projects have climate components, there is also a need to carefully segregate climate activities of the development projects in order to access global climate funds.

In his presentation, Enamul Haque said that although the financial management of BCCTF projects is comparatively transparent than that of the ADP projects, the quality of work is relatively poor.

The development projects are being implemented for a long time, he mentioned. Therefore there is more efficiency and experience, he said. But climate related activities are relatively new having less experience and efficiency, he noted.

So far Bangladesh has been able to receive a pledge from the rich countries equivalent of 30.4 billion US dollars while actual deposit to the fund is only $26.1 billion, he said. From this, $19.3 billion has been approved for various projects but real disbursement is only $6.8 billion. Of the total approved projects under global climate funds, nearly 77 per cent are allocated to non-LDC countries while in terms of disbursement, it is about 79 per cent of the total disbursed funds.

Share of LDC countries is only 23 per cent of the total pledged amount; of which, more than 60 per cent are for low-income LDCs. The Non-LDCs mostly received commitments from multi-country, regional and global funds. UMIC LDCs, LI non-LDCs, and HI-LDCs have received the least of the climate funds, Mr Enamul added.

TIB senior programme manager of good governance in climate financing unit M Zakir Hossain Khan said that Bangladesh is yet to assess the climate change vulnerability in different areas for which there are overlapping of climate change related activities. Although it was mentioned to prepare a climate financing strategy paper in the 7th five year plan, it is not done yet.

If there is no vulnerability assessment, the estimation and targeting will be wrong, said Mr Zakir. Also Bangladesh cannot claim the proper amount for climate vulnerability without proper assessment.

The research was conducted between July 2018 and June 2019 on 17 BCCTF projects and 14 ADP projects and analysing 47 activities.

It was found that ADP financed projects are perceived to be better than that of BCCTF financed projects in terms of effectiveness (measured in terms of rendering benefits to the communities) and efficiency (measured in terms of being managed well) by their stakeholders.

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