The Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ( AIIB), Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the European Union and the European Investment Bank (EIB), as part of Team Europe, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Government of South Korea, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the United Kingdom  announced today a collaborative approach to support a package of measures for Bangladesh aimed at enhancing the nation’s ability to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.[1] This collaborative support will bolster Bangladesh’s efforts to address the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities.

This partnership, the first of its kind in Asia, takes place in the context of the $1.4 billion Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Executive Board in January 2023, the programmatic series of Green and Climate Resilient Development (GCRD) Policy Credits by the World Bank totaling $1 billion, and the ADB’s ongoing funding for climate projects in Bangladesh.

The RSF arrangement and the GCRD credits support reforms to strengthen Bangladesh’s resilience to climate change, advance the decarbonization of the economy, and manage transition risks.[2] Specific reforms supported by the IMF program and the GCRD aim to integrate climate and green dimensions into public procurement and public planning, incentivize locally led climate actions and scale up a national disaster risk financing strategy. Other reforms include adopting a periodic formula-based price adjustment mechanism for petroleum products, tackling air pollution and GHG emissions, enhancing the efficiency and resilience of water supply and sanitation services, and for Bangladesh Bank to update the Policy on Green Bond Financing. These reforms and the collaboration with partners are expected to create an enabling environment that will help attract additional climate finance.

Bangladesh’s climate reform agenda: an innovative approach to addressing climate change

Inter-ministerial and inter-agency coordination.  Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact of climate change and has been a forerunner in climate change adaptation and disaster risk preparedness. To enhance government coordination, the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has formed the National Committee for Environment and Climate Change (NCECC) as an inter-ministerial platform headed by the Prime Minister. The NCECC will monitor implementation progress of the national climate strategies, provide guidance on and solutions to the problems for implementing the strategies and consider implementation of decisions taken at the United Nations’ conferences on climate change.

IMF statement, Dubai, Dec. 3, 2023.