Community Based Adaption Conference in Bangladesh

ECA, News Desk, Dkaha, 29th march, 2011



At a time when global climate change debates are on the pick, there are efforts to bring the community concerns in the forefront of such policy discussions. The 5th International Conference on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change taking place in Dhaka, Bangladesh (24-31 March 2011) has been expected to be a milestone towards brining community perspectives within the broader global climate debate. The Conference is organized by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), and the Ring alliance of policy research organizations, is being held at the Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

According to IIED, the Conference theme is "Scaling Up: Beyond Pilots." Participants heard an inaugural speech by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, took part in an interactive plenary discussion re-establishing the importance of continuing discussions on the key concepts and terms of CBA, and participated in technical sessions on adaptive capacity, gender and water governance and climate change adaptation.

The conference aims to share the latest developments in adaptation planning and practices, priority sectors and measures at different levels and disseminate knowledge among stakeholders and communities.

Different stakeholders and practitioners have been part of the interactive sessions. One of the participants of the conference shared, "the venue has been strategic for the conference which will help to highlight issues around Bangladesh which has been worst affected by climate change. But it will also help to understand broader issues and practices across."

At a time when climate change is becoming one of the major development debates, the important questions is, are we producing more technical experts to deal with climate change or are we de-technicalizing climate change and helping communities to learn how to cope up with the emerging crisis. Communities over the time have definitely learnt to cope up with the emerging crisis, thus it will be extremely important to find a community niche in community based adoptions if the efforts have to be sustained. Similarly, climate change debate which also requires some technical knowledge should be able to reach to common people's mind; otherwise, it will be business as usual.