In March this year, the Fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) made a very useful contribution to the Nature-based Solutions (NbS) discourse. Over the past few years, we have been noticing a lot of attention to NbS, but we did not have any UN-endorsed definition of NbS. The UNEA-5 filled in that gap.
The definition it adopted frames nature-based solutions as: “Actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use, and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic, and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services, and resilience and biodiversity benefits.”
This is essentially an elaboration of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s widely quoted NbS definition articulated back in 2016.
Another climate change-related approach that is increasingly receiving traction is Locally-led Adaptation ( LLA). Like any new concept, LLA is yet to have a widely-accepted definition. But we can say that LLA actions happen when the concerned local communities and their organizations, local government institutions, and other local stakeholders not only collectively identify, prioritize, plan, and implement adaptation actions, but also monitor, evaluate, and learn from these actions.
Of course, the local people and entities cannot work in isolation; their adaptation actions need to be supported by national governments, donors, civil society organizations, and other private sector agencies.
To ensure that NbS interventions are effectively designed and implemented, IUCN developed a global standard for NbS furnished with eight criteria and 28 indicators. The first two criteria talk about the importance of understanding societal challenges, like climate change, to be addressed by a properly designed NbS intervention.
Other criteria highlight the fact that NbS must help to achieve net biodiversity gain in an ecosystem, and be economically feasible to implement and follow inclusive governance which will also lead to a proper understanding of NbS-related trade-offs. Evidence-led adaptive management is another criterion, and so is sustainability and mainstreaming of a good NbS intervention in all possible locations.
Similarly, to make sure that LLA is making a real difference on the ground, last year the Global Commission on Adaptation, International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), and World Resource Institutions developed eight principles of LLA.
These essentially focus on the decision-making process, addressing structural inequality, ensuring sufficient fund flow, developing necessary capacities, ensuring knowledge based on climate risks, creating learning opportunities from programs, ensuring transparency and accountability, and facilitating wider collaboration.
BigstockSo, NbS and LLA approaches have many common elements such as participation, transparency, accountability, equity, capacity building, financing, flexible programs, knowledge and learning, collaboration, and of course sustainability. While implementing NbS interventions for climate change adaptation, LLA principles therefore could be very useful to take into account.
The Glasgow Climate Pact -- an output of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of climate change held in Glasgow, UK last November -- talks about NbS and LLA, of course without using these exact terms. For example, keeping in mind NbS, the Pact reads: “Emphasizes the importance of protecting, conserving, and restoring nature and ecosystems to achieve the Paris Agreement temperature goal, including through forests and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and by protecting biodiversity, while ensuring social and environmental safeguards.”
The Pact also repeatedly recognizes the “important role of indigenous peoples' and local communities' culture and knowledge in effective action on climate change,” thus incorporating LLA elements.
Bangladesh is not lagging behind in adopting the approaches and principles of NbS and LLA. The Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan is the first investment plan of Bangladesh where we describe how we want, not only to become a resilient nation but also a prosperous nation by investing $76.18 billion by 2030. This plan is also the first plan which explicitly outlines NbS interventions in a wide range of natural and modified ecosystems.
It is also the first national instrument that elaborately describes investing in LLA to reduce and prevent climate-induced losses and damages through locally-led adaptation hubs. It further aims to mobilize $1bn per year in LLA by 2030.
Over the last few years, Bangladesh has been preparing climate-relevant budgets to be allocated to its 25 ministries and agencies. In the current financial year (2022-2023), the climate budget is around $3.4bn, which is 4.5% of the national budget and 0.7% of the national GDP. Of course, how much is allocated to NbS interventions or LLA actions to build climate resilience is yet to be estimated.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh's development partners are already channeling funds to link NbS and LLA. The Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK has recently launched the Bangladesh Climate and Environment Program (BCEP) -- a GBP-120-million program to run from January 2022–March 2027.
Under the BCEP, the South Asia Office of the Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) in Dhaka has been working towards the output -- “scale-up of locally-led adaption, nature-based solutions, and financing for adaptation.” It is also expected that other projects would contribute to the BCEP output -- “increased climate resilience of vulnerable communities and protection and restoration of nature” which would further create an opportunity to align NbS and LLA together.
All concerned are now preparing for the COP27 to be held this November in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. While the COP27 Presidency is organizing the Biodiversity Day thematic dialogue on November 16 to discuss nature and ecosystem-based solutions, no exclusive time has been allocated yet for LLA.
But it is understood that discussions related to LLA principles will be held on several other days, especially on Adaptation and Agriculture Day (November12) and ACE (Action for Climate Empowerment) and Civil Society Day (November 15).
It will be crucial to see how NbS and LLA are translated into integrated, effective, sustainable, local to global actions to enhance local communities' resilience. These lessons and experiences should then be used as evidence to direct climate finance to NbS and LLA.
Dr Haseeb Md Irfanullah is a biologist-turned-development-facilitator with a keen interest in research and its communication. He is an independent consultant working on environment, climate change, and research systems.
His Twitter handle is @hmirfanullah .