DFID’s climate change programme in Bangladesh

84% of the 162 million people living in Bangladesh survive on less than $2 a day. They are highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate, particularly cyclones and floods.

Score: Green/Amber
  1. Status: Completed
  2. Published: 22 November 2011
  3. Type: Other
  4. Subject: Climate change and biodiversity, Country focus
  5. Assessment: Green/Amber
  6. Location: Bangladesh
  7. Lead commissioner: Graham Ward CBE

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Review

This review assesses whether a key part of UK assistance for climate change adaptation is effectively and efficiently responding to the needs of the people of Bangladesh. It focuses on the £75 million Department for International Development (DFID) Bangladesh Climate Change Programme, approved in September 2008. As a result of our findings this review has been marked green-amber, and we made five recommendations.

Findings

We found that the programme had started well, with progress in pilots and early initiatives across a wide front. Challenges remained to take such progress to scale. There were significant management challenges that had yet to be resolved.

Recommendations

  1. DFID should ensure that organisations implementing UK aid are selected competitively and managed according to clear performance targets, set out in a service level agreement.
  2. DFID should ensure that all UK resources that support Bangladesh’s response to climate change are managed in a co-ordinated and integrated manner.
  3. DFID should support monitoring by local and international civil society organisations of the activities and achievements of the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan.
  4. DFID in Bangladesh should use the programme to fund research and activities to address migration caused by climate change over the next 20-30 years. It should support building capacity to deal with such effects of climate change.
  5. DFID should plan more explicitly for what will happen at the end of the programme. In particular, more effort is needed to build capacity within government to enable activities and administration to be led by local, not international, institutions.

 

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Timeline

Review publication

Published 22 November 2011

Government response

Published 22 May 2013

ICAI follow-up

Published 1 July 2013