Planning for adaptation in Bangladesh: Past, present and future

This policy brief discusses the experiential learning that Bangladesh gained during more than a decade of climate change adaptation planning, its on-going process and what is next for achieving better effectiveness in this area.

Based on the lessons learned the next steps need to ensure that adaptation to climate change is now mainstreamed into national and sectoral development plans, instead of keeping adaptation planning as separate parallel process. At the same time specific vulnerabilities of agro-livelihood ecological zones warrant to be treated separately as their adaptation plans and actions remain different. These include the Sundarbans and Coastal areas, the Haor region, the Barind tract, Chittagong Hill tracts and urban cities. Funding adaptation activities in Bangladesh needs to be based on a blend of national budgetary resources and external climate finance.