Workshop urges greater coordination

Bangladesh, which is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, needs to have a greater coordination and an effective approach to address its increasing environmental challenges, speakers said at a workshop yesterday.

The workshop on the Country Investment Plan (CIP) for Environment, Forestry and Climate Change Sectors was held at a hotel in the capital.

Under a project titled “Strengthening the Environment, Forestry and Climate Change Capacities” of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and its agencies, the CIP is being developed to coordinate among all environment protection programmes in Bangladesh. The CIP will be prepared by the end of this year.

 Addressing as chief guest, Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmed, secretary to the ministry, said only developing the CIP was not enough rather there was a lot more to do for translating the policies into practices in order to get tangible results. But the CIP can help address the possible problems in this regard, he added.

Nurul Karim, additional secretary (environment) to the ministry; Mike Robson, representative of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN; Janina Jaruzelski, mission director of USAID; Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, the project director, and Dr Prabhu Budhathoki, chief technical adviser to the project, also spoke.

The ministry with assistance from FAO and USAID is implementing the project.