DHAKA, Feb 28, (2018) – The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved around $25 million in grant to support a project designed to build the adaptive capacities of women and adolescent girls living in the southwestern districts of Bangladesh.
The world’s largest multilateral fund for climate change action is providing the grant to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The UNDP in association with the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs and the Department of Public Health Engineering will be implementing the project from July, according to an UNDP release.
With a focus on women and adolescent girls, the new 6-year project – ‘Enhancing adaptive capacities of coastal communities, especially women, to cope with climate change induced salinity’ – will benefit 700,000 people living in disaster-prone areas.
This is first of its kind project in Bangladesh, where the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs is providing $8 million as a co-financer to empower women as ‘change-agents’ to plan, implement, and manage climate- resilient solutions.
The project will provide assistance to 39,000 women and girls in Satkhira and Khulna to adopt resilient livelihoods, while ensuring reliable, safe drinking water for 130,000 people through community-managed rainwater harvesting solutions.
It will also help strengthen the participation of women in dissemination of gender-responsive early warnings and continued monitoring and adaptation of livelihoods to evolving climate risks.
A key aspect of the project focuses on enhancing women’s access to markets and finance.
In addition to training in business development, the project will link women’s producer groups to business via networking activities, including through public-private initiative platforms to be established at local level.
It will also provide support to access credit from the financial sector and will link women’s producer groups to market.
Through the project, the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs will be integrating gender and climate change across sectors.
The Department of Public Health Engineering will be scaling-up climate- resilient solutions to ensure safe drinking water across coastal communities.
“This newly approved project will contribute towards priorities outlined in Bangladesh’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) and climate change strategies, including its Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan and existing Climate Change Gender Action Plan,” Women and Children’s Affairs Secretary Nasima Begum said.
UNDP Country Director in Bangladesh Sudipto Mukerjee said Climate Action, the Goal-13 of the Sustainable Development Goals, cannot be achieved if women remain ignored.
“It is very important to involve all other relevant ministries to empower women in safeguarding lives and livelihoods,” he said.
Ripan Kumar Mondal, Chairman, Deluti Union, Khulna said nearly 1500 women and adolescent girls from his union would learn about climate change through the project.