A 'climate sensitive' budget
With a goal to ensure accountability and transparency in climate-related expenditure, the government has introduced climate performance audit to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of climate relevant projects.
The government has embedded 20 ministries with climate dimensions in order to make the budget “climate sensitive”, the finance minister said in his budget speech on Thursday.
The government has allocated Tk 18,978.76 crore, in total -- to be spent in climate-related operations and projects -- for 20 ministries or divisions. Out of that, Tk 9,315.91 crore has been allocated for climate-related operating budget and Tk 9,632.83 crore for climate-related development budget.
With the proposed budget, the finance minister submitted a report titled, 'Climate Financing for Sustainable Development' to determine the climate expenditure for relevant ministries.
The ministries or divisions involved are: Environment and Forests, Water Resources, Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock, Disaster Management and Relief, Housing and Public Works, Women and Children Affairs, Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs, Primary and Mass Education, Land, Industries, Food, Social Welfare, Roads and Highways Department, Rural Development and Cooperative Divisions, Secondary and Higher Education Division, Power Division, Health Service Division, Energy and Mineral Resource Division and Local Government Division.
The finance minister said the ministry has provided training to the relevant officials of the Finance Division and line ministries so that officials may develop an expertise on the guidelines developed for climate dimension in the budget.
Analysing the report submitted with the budget, it was found that in percentage the climate-related expenditure has reduced this year compared to last year's as the government has allocated huge funds in non-climate change related sector.
This year, the climate relevant fund was allocated for 20 ministries or divisions, 8.82 percent of total allocation for those ministries; it was 19.20 percent of total funds allocated for six ministries last year.
The minister said in light of Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), 44 activities under six thematic areas are being implemented for mitigating and adaptation of the effects of climate change. These activities have been brought under government budget classification to capture total expenditure on climate change.
With a commitment to fight climate change, the government is implementing various programmes under "Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund" created with own funds.
The minister said the government was conserving and expanding forest land by adopting sustainable forest management strategies including raising seedlings, creating block strip forests, and afforestation in coastal areas. The government has a plan of creating mangrove forests on 28,526 hectares of land covering 512km coastal area by 2021.
Regarding the necessity of protecting rivers, the minister said, against the backdrop of the recent achievement of meeting the LDC graduation criteria, it is necessary to strengthen the country's competitive edge in international trade. So the government is putting special emphasis on infrastructure development of all ports and other relevant ancillary matters.
“In order to restore and maintain navigability of water-routes, procurement of dredger including other equipment and accessories together with dredging of rivers is going on,” the minister said while explaining the importance of river navigation.
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