The three-day National Start-Up Workshop aiming to offer climate adaption strategies in five haor districts covering 28 upazilas, began in the capital’s Agargaon yesterday.
With loan and grant from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Climate Adaption and Livelihood Protection (CALIP), a supplementary project of Haor Infrastructure and Livelihood Improvement Project (HILIP), will be implemented over a five-year period, Monzur Hossain, a senior secretary of local government division, said.
The workshop is jointly organised by Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) and IFAD at the LGED headquarters in the capital’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
Monzur Hossain said the execution of the project already began from July last year and will end within June, 2019. However, sources said the project is going to be implemented at field level after this workshop as related research was being conducted till now.
The five haor districts are Netrakona, Sunamganj, Habiganj, Kishoreganj and Brahmanbaria.
Around $15 million has been allotted for CALIP and the total cost of HILIP and CALIP is $134.84 million.
Addressing the programme, Monzur Hossain said: “Adaption strategies will require development and environmental goals intended to improve the livelihoods of the people living in the haor areas which are mostly affected by climate change.” “It will also require promoting resilence of natural systems,” he added.
He also said: “Agricultural, water, environmental and financing agencies need to act in a coordinated way to guarantee that the strategies are being implemented.”
The senior secretary said he was hopeful that the workshop will offer a new hope to the people.
Gopal Chandra Sarkar, project director of HILIP, Nicolas Syed, country program officer of IFAD, Shyama Prosad Adhikari, chief engineer of LGED, also addressed the inaugural session.
The CALIP project will enhance livelihood opportunities and reduce vulnerability of the poor and strengthen the community and ecological resilience to climate change in haor regions, according to an overview of CALIP by LGED.
Components of CALIP are community infrastructure, livelihood protection, capacity and knowledge for building and project management. The total estimated direct beneficiaries of CALIP are 240,624 persons, said booklet of IFAD.
This project will also introduce a Flash Flood Early Warning System (FFEWS) especially for the farmers who live in haor areas which will give warnings seven days prior to any disaster hits.
Bangladesh Meteorological department, Institute of Water Management (IWM), Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM), Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC) and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) will work together to develop the system.
Experts at the workshop claimed approximately 30 lakh farmers will be benefited from this agrometeorological and flash flood forecast.
In addition to developing FFEWS, the project will provide climate smart agricultural technologies to farmers and give training to 150,000 farmers.
Under the project 224 villages will be protected through various measures including constructing wave protection walls, planting trees like Vertiver and Koroch, providing internal services.
It will also construct five model villages resilient to climate changes, build 22 shelters and construct 50km of flood resistant roads.
There will be at least six to seven more working sessions today and tomorrow.