Bangladesh has signed an agreement with a German development bank over around Tk 3.24 billion funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for a project to fight climate change effects.
The agreement will support implementation of the “Climate Resilient Infrastructure Mainstreaming” project in Bangladesh
According to the GCF website, the project is expected to benefit over 10.5 million people in the coastal areas.
The Economic Relations Division (ERD) said this is the first project to be funded by the GCF.
The GCF signed an agreement with the bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), in November last year to transfer the fund for the project.
ERD Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam and KfW Management Committee Member Roland Siller signed the agreement at the National Economic Council (NEC) in Dhaka on Thursday.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith was also present at the signing ceremony.
The GCF was established in the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC in 2010.
It was established 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.
According to bdnews24.com, he told Deutsche Welle recently Bangladesh only had GCF to rely upon in this situation.
