Help us build climate change resilient villages

The Problem

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to the risks of climate change. The country has been experiencing changes in rainfall patterns, increased temperature, increasingly powerful floods in river basins, strong cyclones on the coast, and widespread drought in the North. These, in turn, are exacerbating the long-term effects like salinity in water and cropland, extended water shortage, sea and river erosion, severe high tide and sea level rise, etc. According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, Bangladesh ranks seventh on the list of countries most vulnerable in the world to climate change-induced natural disasters. The data shows that from 2000 to 2019, Bangladesh suffered economic losses worth $3.72 billion and witnessed 185 extreme weather events due to climate change.

Solution with geographical focus

In response to the problem aforementioned, we propose the Climate Change Resilient Villages (CCRV) approach as the solution that will build localised community knowledge on climate change vulnerabilities and opportunities, effectively constructing plans from the village level up to the Upazila level. This building block approach will create cohesive regional methods and communicate needs at the local level by activating people power and mobilising informal networks.

Founded on the eight principles of Locally-led Adaptation, the CCRV approach works at the community level to identify and evaluate community-level vulnerability, create a shared resilience plan, and build local leadership and capacity to implement that plan. The result of the vulnerability assessment should give a community common understanding of the ways in which their specific community is vulnerable to climate change. Villages’ vulnerability assessments and action plans will be the building blocks for a Union Parishad (UP) level plan, representing their communities’ particular vulnerabilities, opportunities, and localised solutions through mandated ward Shavas. The UP plans will then feed into Upazila-level planning. Climate change resilience is a critical piece of regional and national stability. Climate change resilience at the UP and Upazila level are critical building blocks to national and sub-national climate and development goals.

The proposed solution will focus on six elements:

• 1. Building local leadership and institutional capacity to mobilise and empower the people of communities.
• 2. Mobilising, capacity building, awareness, and empowerment of the community people to assess the vulnerability of their own community and generate their action plan.
• 3. Development of the capacity of the Union Parishads to generate their local development plans with integrating community priority needs focusing climate change.
• 4. Providing technical support to the vulnerable communities and households to meet their adaptation needs and plans and linking with service providing agencies including financial institutions.
• 5. Engagement of local actors including elected officials and government functionaries at the local level to work as a driver for accountability of climate action.
• 6. Engaging and building the capacity of the UZP to develop its own integrated plan with considering Union Parishads’ priorities.

Impact

A community’s access to life-saving information will grow. The CCRV program will build and strengthen community knowledge systems related to climate change, natural disasters, nature-based solutions, and emergency services. These systems will also collect, document, and analySe data about losses caused by disasters associated with natural hazards.

Local governance systems will be more participatory, accountable, transparent, and responsive to the delivery of quality services and sensitive to climate change adaptation. Simultaneously, this solution will contribute to increasing climate-adaptive livelihood and nature-based solutions in the community, and increase LGIs' investment in climate-resilient actions.

Cohesive communities that can solve problems and generate solutions are better prepared to do more with humanitarian aid in times of crisis. These mobilised informal networks activate people's power, build on already existing local capacity and knowledge, and deepen the social capital networks of each community. The CCRV model does more than build climate resilience; it deepens and strengthens an intelligent and mobilised communal body of knowledge and action.

Monitoring

As per the project monitoring framework, the project will be monitored closely by staff and the community in a participatory way. Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be used for project monitoring. This will include the regular collection of program output data, entered into our web-based M&E system, direct observation, document review, focus group discussions, photographs, and semi-structured interviews.

Evaluation: External or independent evaluation will be conducted by evaluators outside of the implementing team, lending it a degree of objectivity.For smooth and effective external evaluation, we will ensure a baseline study before the initiation of the project. There will also be a mechanism in place for mid-term review and final evaluation.

Lessons learned: For sharing progress and taking corrective measures, if any, of the project, M&E in collaboration with the project team will arrange quarterly review meetings to help management in decision-making and capturing lessons learned.

Partnership and collaboration

The Hunger Project-Bangladesh endeavours to work deeply with every union it serves. Our union-level coordinators are local residents who know their communities. Through our Vision, Commitment, and Action (VCA) workshop we mobilise entire communities including community leaders, youth, farmers, and other professionals. The VCA workshop changes the mindset of communities and creates a common purpose and commitment to work together for a stated goal; restores a sense of pride and dignity; and eliminates resignation by creating a spirit of partnership, ownership, participation and self-reliance of the people through actions taken in the community.

These mobilised groups work with each other and connect with local Union Parishad and Upazila Parishad governance structures, including government service-providing agencies at the local level. The CCRV model will succeed when whole communities are engaged and mobilised. To do this, The Hunger Project-Bangladesh will work with its already established networks of volunteers in the 4 unions of Sarankhola Upazila (approximately 1,19,084 people).

The CCRV model prepares communities to be active participants and leaders in climate resilience. With their vulnerabilities and action plans determined and recorded, the local need is captured and integrated into LGI planning, knowledge, and responses. This hyper-local expertise will make them ideal partners for any future needed interventions; humanitarian aid networks will have local partners with specialised knowledge and expertise.

To find out more, visit our website - https://thehungerproject.org.uk/

Photo by - Fakirhat Upazila - The Hunger Project-Bangladesh, 2019