$16m Norwegian support for disaster risk cut, climate change

Norway will provide 100 million Kroner ($16m) to Bangladesh for Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (2010-14) to further reach community-level disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change.
Norwegian Ambassador in Dhaka Ingebjorg Stofring and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Stefan Priesner signed an agreement to this effect at the UNDP office yesterday. Economic Relations Division (ERD) Joint Secretary Dilip Kumar Das was present.
The Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme is a joint initiative of the Government of Bangladesh and UNDP, supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union, the Government of Sweden, the Government of Australia and now the Government of Norway.
It represents a harmonised approach to support Bangladesh strengthen the disaster management system to reduce risks, improve response and for recovery activities by adopting a comprehensive risk management culture.
Strengthened disaster response and management capacity is an important national objective for Bangladesh and the programme is designed to achieve this goal through interventions in six key areas. It will focus on marginalised and vulnerable communities in urban centres and in 2,000 Union Parishads of 40 high-risk districts of Bangladesh.
It will make major contributions to policy development of national risk reduction in 11 ministries to implement a range of risk reduction initiatives.
It seeks to reduce vulnerabilities and to empower rural and urban communities to plan for and adapt to hazards, including from the impacts of climate change.
The programme has a total budget of $69.47m(approx Tk 464 crore).
Of the total budget, $20m (approx Tk 137 crore) is contributed by the DFID, $17m (Tk 116 crore) from the European Union, $16m (Tk 116 crore) from the Government of Norway, $7m (Tk 48 crore) from the Government of Sweden, $1.84m (Tk 12 crore) from the Government of Australia and $750,000 (Tk 5.15 crore) from the Government of Bangladesh, in addition to UNDP's own resources of $6m (Tk 41 crore).
Speaking on the occasion, UNDP Resident Representative Stefan Priesner said, “Norway joins an established partnership between the Government of Bangladesh, UNDP and now five development partners working collectively to reduce Bangladesh's vulnerability to disasters and the adverse impacts of climate change through a nationally lead process.”
Norwegian Ambassador Ingebjorg Stofring said, “We are aware that Bangladesh has a lot to offer in terms of lessons learnt on prevention, adaptation and management of natural disasters.
“In this regard, the Norwegian Government would like to learn more from Bangladesh which can be fed into strengthening regional partnerships dealing with emergencies and through their physical presence, help to prevent humanitarian crises,” he added.