Overview
In Bangladesh, there have been wide range of investments and funding that attempt to reduce the vulnerabilities caused by climate change. In line with Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), government mobilized public funds from own and bilateral sources through Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF). Besides, many projects of international and national organizations that address climate change are also active. However, governance of such funding are not being monitored, especially by the non-state actors. The project recognized media as the most influential non-state actor and worked with them to strengthen the role of media to monitor climate change fund ensuring transparency and accountability. The project also encouraged the media to highlight climate change impacts and adaptation requirements in different parts of Bangladesh through promoting people’s participation in adaptation planning and its implementation in line with the national policy documents.
Objective
The project worked to increase the capacity of the national and local media to engage in national decision-making processes related to climate change and to influence policies. Specifically,the project worked:
- To increase the capacity of the local and national media in tracking climate finance and on mitigation/low carbon development in Bangladesh.
- To raise the voice and promote participation of non-state actors in ensuring transparency and accountability in utilization of climate fund in line with national climate adaptation plan.
- To establish at least an informal network of journalists working on climate change and establish their linkage to other advocacy initiatives.
Activity
- Conducted desk research on climate change reporting trends in the media particularly in the newspapers. The research also included climate change related scientific information, global and national initiates, climate financing initiatives (the government, UN and other bilateral organizations).
- Developed workshop materials and presentations, based on the research findings.
- Selected and communicated the participants in 24 districts.
- Delivered 24 sensitization workshops (each 1-day long) on climate financing in 24 districts reaching a total of 720 journalists.
- Delivered one national workshop for 40 journalists.
- Awarded fellowships to three journalists for reporting on climate financing while providing them guidance for preparing publishable news pieces for their respective media.
Project Period
January 2012 to March 2014
This project was funded by Oxfam under a European Union supported multi-country project namely “Strengthening the role of non-state actors in climate change policy formulation in South Asia and enhancing their capacities to influence global climate change negotiations”.
