Bangladesh signs deal over $40m Green Climate Fund financing for coastal districts

Bangladesh has signed an agreement with German development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau or KfW over $40 million or around Tk 3.24 billion funding from the Green Climate Fund or GCF for a project to fight climate change effects.

The Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Mainstreaming in Bangladesh is the first project to be funded by the GCF, according to the Economic Relations Division or ERD.

ERD Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam and KfW Management Committee Member Roland Siller signed the agreement at the National Economic Council or NEC in Dhaka on Thursday. Finance Minister AMA Muhith was also present.

The GCF signed an agreement with the KfW in November last year to transfer the fund for the project. 

The signing of the deal between KfW and Green Climate Fund. Photo courtesy of GCF website

After Thursday’s signing, the NEC cleared the project under which the Local Government Engineering Department or LGED will build and renovate infrastructures like cyclone shelters and roads in remote areas in coastal districts of Bhola, Barguna and Satkhira.

The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation is providing around $15 million and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Local Government the remaining $25 million for the $80 million project.

According to the GCF website, the project is expected to benefit over 10.5 million people in the coastal areas.

The GCF was established in the 16th Conference of the Parties or COP to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC in 2010 with an intention to be the main fund for global climate change finance in the context of mobilising $100 billion by 2020.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made no attempt to hide her displeasure several times as the developed countries were not fulfilling the pledges they made when the fund was set up.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate risk, especially to cyclones and floods.

Climate expert and environmentalist M Atiq Rahman has said Bangladesh should pay more attention to get help from the GCF as the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund established in World Bank initiative has become ‘ineffective’ while the government’s Bangladesh Climate Change Trust is not getting much fund.

He told Deutsche Welle recently Bangladesh only had GCF to rely upon in this situation.