Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund

The Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) was established to support implementation of the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). This plan was launched by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) in 2008 and revised in 2009 by GoB. The plan seeks to build a medium to long term program for enhancing resilience to climate shocks and facilitating low-carbon, sustainable growth. The BCCRF was designed to support the BCCSAP in two ways, through support to Investment Projects addressing climate change challenges and through analytical and advisory activities (AAAs) to help fill knowledge gaps affecting BCCSAP implementation. Five investment projects and five Analytical and Advisory Activities (AAAs) were funded by the BCCRF. The five investment projects financed by the BCCRF all achieved their objectives in full: 1. The Emergency 2007 Cyclone Recovery and Restoration Project (ECRRP) completed construction of 61 new multipurpose disaster shelters and the construction of 11.5 kilometers of roads meeting all its targets within the allocated budget. 2. The project to support the Secretariat for BCCRF closed on 31st December 2014 after completing its objectives. 3. The Community Climate Change Project (CCCP) supported community projects implemented under 41 grants.  By the end of December 2016 all field activities had been completed and all Project Development Objectives had been achieved or exceeded. 4. Under the Climate Resilient Participatory Afforestation and Reforestation Project (CRPARP) over 17,500 hectares of land were restored or reafforested, over 2,000 kms of strip plantations were and support was provided to over 60,000 direct project beneficiaries.  Project implementation and achievement of development objectives are judged to have been Highly Satisfactory, an impressive achievement for an innovative climate change initiative. 5. The Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development Project II (RERED II), Solar Irrigation Project installed 489 pumps covering 35,062 acres of land and serving 11,453 farmers by the end of 2016  meeting its targets in full. The five BCCRF-funded Bank-executed AAAs have all completed their planned activities.  At the end of 2016 four had submitted their final reports.  The fifth was funded jointly by another Trust Fund, and  completed its Final Report during 2017. Overall the BCCRF’s achievements have been less impressive than had been hoped when the Fund was established.  The individual Investment Projects financed by the Fund have generally achieved or exceeded their own specific objectives and these achievements and the five AAA activities have helped in progress towards achieving BCCSAP objectives.  However it had been hoped that the Fund would move from a World Bank supported programme to a Resilience Fund owned and fully managed by the GoB.  A Secretariat was created by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and this Secretariat was expected to propose capacity building of an institution (either within or outside the government) that would subsequently be responsible for the administration of the BCCRF.  However this did not happen and at the closure of the BCCRF the Secretariat was no longer operational. The pre-mature closure of the BCCRF resulted in a substantial amount of re-fund to all the donors of the fund. In total approximately 132.2 MUSD was invested in BCCRF by seven different donor countries (UK 66,4 MUSD; Sweden 19,3 MUSD: EU 18,5 MUSD: USA 9 MUSD: Switzerland 8,5: Australia 7,1 MUSD: Denmark 1,8 MUSD). Sweden was refunded 6 026 653 USD in 2017 and a final re-fund is expected in May 2018 of 1 138 985 USD. In conclusion the Swedish contribution to the BCCRF was approximately 12,1 MUSD.