Action plan emphasises child-centred projects

Child-centred risk assessments and comprehensive school safety should be the main focus of climate change adaptation projects aimed at protecting children, according to recommendations made in a newly-drafted action plan.

The Bangladesh Centre for Advance Studies (BCAS), Unicef Bangladesh, and the planning ministry jointly prepared the five-year draft plan, based on the Saarc policy framework on Child Centred Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation.

The organisations and the ministry jointly organised a workshop in the capital's Bangabandhu International Conference Centre yesterday to unveil the plan.

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change that made the children the worst sufferers, said Dr Dwijen Mallick, a fellow of BCAS and one of the authors of the plan.

“If the plan is implemented properly within the timeframe, all children in the country will be protected from climate change risks,” he said, adding that the plan contained 22 tasks and 69 sub-tasks while 15 ministries were engaged to accomplish the tasks.

Sheema Sen Gupta, deputy representative, Unicef Bangladesh; Prof Shamsul Alam, member, Planning Commission; Dr Atiq Rahman, executive director, BCAS; Dr Mohammad Jahangir Hossain, director, Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, and Muzib-Ul-Ferdous, a project director of the ministry, were present among others.