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Policy Briefs

Ensuring Livelihood Security for Climate Vulnerable Communities in Coastal Bangladesh

September 2019.

The policy brief has been prepared under the Panii Jibon (Water is Life) project 2018-2020. This project is a HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation led initiative being implemented in collaboration with its local partners.


Loss and Damage in the Paris Agreement’s Transparency Framework

June 2019. Daniel Puig, Fatemeh Bakhtiari, Elisa Calliari, Md. Fahad Hossain and Saleemul Huq

The document consists of two main sections. The first section provides contextual information on loss and damage, and includes an overview of approaches to manage extreme events and slow onset events. The second section provides suggestions about key issues of direct relevance to reporting on efforts to manage loss and damage. This text focuses on four issues: measurements, costs, policies and financing. The document closes with a number of considerations that cut across these four issues.


Introduction to The Circular Economy

October 2018. Anne-Laure Pilat, Dr. Samiya Ahmed Selim

This paper is Introduction to The Circular Economy and relation with Climate change .


Mobilizing Knowledge To Enhance Adaptive Capacity

September 2018. Casey Williams, Danielle Falzon, Saleemul Huq

This paper discusses about how to use knowledge to enhance adaptive capacity.


Building Climate-Resilient, Migrant-Friendly Cities and Towns

July 2018. Sarder Shafiqul Alam, Saleemul Huq, Faisal Bin Islam and Hasan Mohammed Asiful Hoque

Building climate-resilient, migrant-friendly cities and towns in Bangladesh has become an urgent need in order to tackle the adverse effects of future climate change. Infrastructure which can not only absorb shocks, but also attract rural people providing services and livelihood opportunities will ease the population pressure on major cities.


The Role of Universities in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

February  2018. Joy Bhowmik, Samiya A Selim, Saleemul Huq

This Policy brief summarizes the significant benefits universities can gain from engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), how universities can contribute to implementing the SDGs and steps to help universities engage with the SDGs.


Bridging Climate Action and Sustainable Development Goals in Bangladesh

August 2017

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) introduce a holistic and integrated framework that spans across social, economic and environmental dimensions. While the 17 goals with 169 targets range from tackling poverty to creating meaningful global partnerships – which are all equally important issues – the goals need to be prioritised according to country-specific needs.


Planning for Adaptation in Bangladesh: Past, Present and Future

August 2017. Saleemul Huq, Mizan R. Khan

This paper discusses the experiential learning that Bangladesh gained during more than a decade of adaptation planning, its on-going process and what is next for achieving better effectiveness in this area of vital national importance.


Loss and Damage Livelihood Resilience

November 2016. ICCCAD

This Policy Brief first frames the challenge and then introduces the Resilience Academy, highlighting 5 key insights that both feed the debate and inform action. Finally, it provides 5 recommendations to the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM ExCom) for its 5-year work plan.


The role of universities in capacity building under the Paris agreement 

July 2016. Victoria Hoffmeister, Marilyn Averill, & Saleemul Huq

This paper discusses how empowering universities to educate students on climate change could create systems that continue to build countries’ capacities to tackle climate-related problems for decades to come.


Climate change induced loss and damage in Pakistan: An investigation of impacts on society and economy

June 2016. Hina Lotia, Basharat Saeed, and Areej Riaz from LEAD Pakistan.

This paper aims to raise awareness about Loss and Damage (L&D) and ignite conversation about how Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Loss & Damage (L&D) can be linked in order to ensure more sustainable resiliency strategies for Pakistan.


A brief overview of Community-Based Adaptation

April 2016. Patrick Kirkby, Casey Williams, & Saleemul Huq

This briefing paper seeks to fill that gap by providing an overview of CBA, its core principles and challenges.


Impact of climate change on Least Developed Countries: are the SDGs possible?

April 2016. Helena Wright, Jonathan Reeves, & Saleemul Huq

This briefing summarises the projected impacts of climate change on the ability of the LDCs to achieve each SDG, based on evidence primarily from the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.



Loss and Damage in INDCs: An investigation of Parties’ statements on L&D and prospects for its inclusion in a Paris Agreement

December 2015. Victoria Hoffmeister and Saleemul Huq.

This paper discusses individual nations’ experiences with Loss and Damage (L&D), their plans to respond, and their calls for international support, as expressed in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). It also considers the developed-developing nation divide that persists in support for addressing loss and damage within the COP and the importance of including L&D in a Paris agreement.


The Green Climate Fund accreditation process: barrier or opportunity?

September 2015. Neha Rai and Bowen Wang.

As the largest pot of climate funding available to developing countries, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) holds huge promise. As it enters into operation, national institutions, including government, can apply to access GCF’s resources ‘directly’. But the rigorous accreditation process appears a barrier to many, which coupled with unclear benefits is likely to undermine the zeal for direct access in developing countries. But experiences from another key climate fund, the Adaptation Fund, show that preparing for direct access has inherent co-benefits beyond accessing finance. The trials of accreditation may involve vital growing pains that also strengthen national institutions, and even improve country systems. Though cumbersome, the GCF direct access accreditation process presents an opportunity to improve a nation’s future bargaining capacity to access climate finance ‘at scale’, creating a positive cycle of funding success.


 Defining Loss and Damage: Key challenges and considerations for developing an operational definition. August 2015. Saleemul Huq and Alexis Durand.

L&D has historically been a very contentious issue with an ambiguous definition. As L&D becomes more mainstream, we need to reach an agreement on an operational definition that will inform approaches to the issue and catalyze appropriate action.

Urban climate change resilience: Role of multi-stakeholder collaboration June 2015. Sarder Shafiqul Alam, ATM Jahangir Alam, & Sowmen Rahman

The paper summarizes the impacts of climatic hazards on water and sanitation infrastructure and services, overview of stakeholder activities and collaboration and ways to improve multistakeholder collaboration for Urban Climate Resilience in water and sanitation sector in the low income settlements of Dhaka.


 What does the IPCC say about Bangladesh? – ICCCAD Briefing. October 2014. Helena Wright.

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (2014), is the fifth in the series of IPCC assessment reports and provides an update of knowledge on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body established to provide a scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its impacts. Working Group I covers the Physical Science Basis, Working Group II is on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, and Working Group III is on Mitigation of Climate Change. In this report, we have focused on Working Group II (WG2) of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for relevance for Bangladesh and we will now present our findings. The objective of this report is to provide a guide for stakeholders and decision makers in Bangladesh.


 Mainstreaming and Decentralizing Climate Change Adaptation Finance, September 2014, Mizan R. Khan.

We already live in a climate changed world. Such is the conclusion reached by the IPCC AR4 and the latest findings of Working Group I of the AR5. The impacts are manifest already in different parts of the world in varying degrees of sea level rise and greater frequency and severity of climate disasters. The LDCs are particularly vulnerable to these impacts, which have very weak adaptive capacity. Climate change tends to undo their hard-won development gains. Their vulnerability is a joint product of cumulative development and adaptation deficits. Obviously, mainstreaming of adaptation makes common sense, since it is difficult to differentiate between development and adaptation in these countries.


Combating Climate Change: The Case of Knowledge Management. August 2014. Dr. Chowdhury Saleh Ahmed.

The objective of this policy brief is to inform Members of Parliament (MPs) about adverse effects of climate change on the economy of Bangladesh and outline their role in using research-based information in advocating policy changes that would institutionalize, build capacity and raise efficiency in knowledge management system for combating adverse climate change effects.


Transparency and Accountability in Climate Finance Governance for the Most Vulnerable in Bangladesh: A Focus on Local Level Governance. July 2014, Farah Kabir.

The objective of this policy brief is to inform the decision makers and the wider stakeholders about the importance of improving and in some cases introducing transparency and accountability mechanisms for managing the climate funds available in Bangladesh. Efficient, effective and equitable use of the climate funds is the key to improve the governance of climate change initiatives in Bangladesh. This policy brief has special focus on financing local adaptation and governance of climate change activities in the local level.


Local Adaptation to Climate Change: The Gender Perspective. June 2014, Farah Kabir.

This document is the result of an almost two-year engagement with the issue of loss and damage in Bangladesh. By providing an assessment of the first comprehensive process to better understand loss and damage at the national-level and presenting key research findings, we hope to inform policy makers in other countries, who might be planning to undertake a similar process. To that end this summary for policy makers summarises the key messages of the document. It must be noted that this document is based on research that is still in progress and there is still a lot that needs to be understood. In addition, we acknowledge that context matters and thus national research must be tailored to the individual needs of each country, taking into account not just the climate change impacts but the political situation and socio- economic realities.


National Funding Entities for Local Adaptation: Lessons Learned from Bangladesh. May 2014, Dr. S M Munjurul Hannan Khan

The Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF), supported by national budgetary endowment and the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF), a multi-donors trust fund have started their journey in 2010 as National Finding Entities (NFEs). Bangladesh, among the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), is the first country that has established and operationalized NFEs to address adverse impacts of climate change within the scope of strategic direction articulated in the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP)-2009. The BCCSAP-2009, as policy document, has identified six thematic areas to reduce climate vulnerability that include I) Food Security, Social Protection & Health, II) Comprehensive Disaster Management, III) Infrastructure, IV) Research and Knowledge Management, V) Mitigation and Low Carbon Development and VI) Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening (BCCSAP-2009) by short and medium actions.


 Planning and Financing of Community Resilience in Bangladesh. April 2014, A.K.M. Mamunur Rashid and Md. Rafiqul Islam.

The objective of this policy brief is to explore opportunities and challenges to planning and financing community (local) resilience, which demands strengthening of the governance of climate change finance at the local level. It provides a critical review of the major trends, main challenges and opportunities and proposed ways forward in relation to the local delivery and management of climate finance (intended as all climate-related finance, and not only as the provision of international climate-specific funds) in Bangladesh.


 Loss and damage: from the global to the local. November 2013, Saleemul Huq and Erin Roberts.

At the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) in Doha a landmark decision on loss and damage was reached to establish institutional arrangements to address loss and damage at COP19. Though the form these arrangements will take is still being debated, a consensus is developing. Research in Bangladesh, for example, has highlighted the need to address loss and damage in comprehensive risk management frameworks, facilitate cross- sectoral collaboration and integrate disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation agendas. Local-level research in nine developing countries suggests targeting adaptation support better, providing policymakers with signals about the limits to adaptation and involving communities in decision- making processes. At COP19 in Warsaw, parties must have these and other needs in mind if they are to establish institutional arrangements to mobilise the necessary action and support.


A brief overview of Community-Based Adaptation, Patrick Kirkby, Casey Williams and Saleemul Huq.

Many consider Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) to be a ‘vital approach to the threat climate change poses to the poor.’1 However, no concise yet comprehensive overview of CBA exists. This briefing paper seeks to fill that gap by providing an overview of CBA, its core principles and challenges.