Capacity building: Achievements, lessons and policy recommendations

The Paris Agreement (PA) creates an opportunity to foster enhanced, strategic, and sustained approaches supporting transformational change and enabling all parties and stakeholders to build the capacities needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Capacity building can be considered as entry point and priority areas for mainstreaming climate change in development planning, programming, and successful implementation and operationalisation of the seventh Five Year Plan, Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (iNDC), upcoming National Adaptation Plan (NAP), and other relevant sectoral strategy and action plan.InternationalThree stages (individual, institutional, and systematic level) of capacity building have been outlined in Kyoto protocol. It must always be country-driven, addressing the specific needs and conditions of countries, and reflecting their sustainable development strategies, priorities, and initiatives. The need for additional human resource capacity to help adaptation to climate change impacts is indicated in Nairobi Work Programme. Bali Action Plan calls for a global shared vision and enhanced actions on four building blocks: Mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology transfer and development as well as capacity development. Cancun Agreement decided that capacity-building support to developing countries should be enhanced with a view to strengthening endogenous capacities at the sub-national, national, or regional levels, as appropriate, considering gender aspects, to contribute to the achievement of the full, effective, and sustained implementation of the convention. This agreement also emphasised on strengthening networks for the generation, sharing and management of information and knowledge, including through north-south, south-south, and triangular cooperation.NationalThe sixth thematic area of Bangladesh Climate Change Strategies and Action Plan (BCCSAP) is “capacity building and institutional strengthening” which focused on the program areas of capacity building that includes, (i) strengthening human resource capacity; (ii) strengthening gender consideration in climate change management; (iii) strengthening institutional capacity for climate change management. The fourth thematic areas: Comprehensive Disaster Management of BCCSAP also focused on “awareness raising and public education towards climate resilience). National Adaptation Programme of Action NAPA (2005) advocated on “capacity building for integrating climate change in planning, designing of infrastructure, conflict management, and land water zoning for water management institutions” and “inclusion of climate change issues in curriculum at secondary and tertiary educational institutions.”AchievementsBangladesh initiated its activity towards capacity building of the government officials by establishing a Climate Change Cell (CCC) in 2004, under the Department of Environment (DoE), with support from the first and second phase of Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme of UNDP. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) under the technical assistance title “Supporting implementation of BCCSAP” and “Climate change capacity building and knowledge management” project drafted capacity development action plan on climate change and identified priority areas, sectors, and some cross-cutting areas (climate negotiation, climate financing, legal and economic aspects of climate change, etc) where capacity building is immediately required. Under those TAs, ADB conducted several short training courses on various contemporary and country specific priority aspects of climate change. FAO has conducted situation analysis and capacity needs assessment of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and its agencies. The capacity need assessment report drafted by FAO focused on building capacity of MoEF and its agency in the areas of climate change coordination, ICT, knowledge management, etc. DFID have supported setup of International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) housed at the Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB) to build capacity toward adaptation to climate change in Bangladesh through conducting short training courses and academic courses. Some of the universities recently started Master’s Programs on climate change, disaster management, etc in the country. Recently, Dhaka University, Patuakhali University of Science and Technology, and BRAC University started Master’s Program on disaster management. In general, Ministry of Public Administration nominates the participants for those training. BPATC also organise other special type of training course upon requests by autonomous bodies. Recently, they jointly organised several special training courses with support from UNICEF, UNDP, JICA, KOICA, Australian National University, etc. The historical PA on climate change has highlighted the critical role of capacity building and education to accelerate climate actions by all countries. The PA aims to foster enhanced, strategic and sustained approaches supporting transformational change in climate change for which building the capacities especially in mitigation is necessary in developing country such as Bangladesh that has low capacity in switching to a low-carbon world envisioned by PA. Capacity building is a fundamental precondition for developing countries to implement their iNDC, NAP and other emissions-reduction efforts and building resilience. In the past, the country has mobilised considerable resources in capacity building on climate change through various projects which could be useful in designing future capacity building activities. Key lessons and recommendations include the following:1. Capacity building on climate change should be continued in the relevant ministries and line agencies with phased implementation approach, appropriate institutional arrangement, and tracking mechanism (with baseline, indicators, and target) for successful integration of climate change in development planning, programming and budgeting2. Continuous flow of support is required for capacity building, institutional strengthening, and knowledge management for promoting climate resilient development and green growth3. For transformational-driven capacity building program on climate change, both public and private sectors should work together, including engagement of public/private training institutes (eg BPATC, NAEM, ICCCAD) to develop individual capacity into institutional capacity with a focus on sustainability, and scale up activities through use of smart ICT tools and innovative mentoring processes4. Immediate, midterm, and long-term capacity building plans with appropriate institutional arrangements and effective coordination and tracking mechanism are required for implementing transformational-driven capacity building programs5. Universities will produce future leaders or champions on climate change, and hence both public and private universities should take lead on transformational-driven capacity building on climate change6. Special courses on climate change will be required to be included in the training programs of public servants7. Instead of standalone capacity building projects, components on capacity building should be included in all climate change or relevant development projects and programs to make a transformational change8. North-south, south-south, and triangular cooperation will be instrumental to enhance current and future initiative on capacity building on climate change.  The writer is a Program Specialist (Environmental Sustainability & Energy), UNDP Bangladesh