Vulnerable coastal communities in BD lead climate action

A national workshop in Dhaka on Sunday, showcased the Peoples Adaptation Plans for Inclusive Climate-Smart Cities initiative. UNB

Dhaka, Sept 21 – Vulnerable communities in Bangladesh are taking the lead in climate action—designing their own adaptation strategies and reshaping how cities build resilience amid escalating climate crises.

The outcomes of this pioneering, community-driven approach were unveiled at a national workshop in Dhaka on Sunday, showcasing the People’s Adaptation Plans for Inclusive Climate-Smart Cities initiative.

For the first time, residents of climate-affected towns such as Laksam, Feni, and Mirsarai have developed comprehensive roadmaps to tackle recurring challenges like flooding, heavy rainfall, waterlogging, and heatwaves, according to a media release.

The initiative is funded by the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), supported by the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), and implemented by Save the Children Bangladesh and Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), with technical support from Jahangirnagar University (JU).

It is designed to empower low-income groups who are disproportionately impacted by climate change due to inadequate infrastructure and services.

ABM Firoz Ahmed, deputy team leader of the Climate Change and Environment Team at the British High Commission, and Golam Md. Baten, Deputy Director (Local Government) of Feni and Administrator of Feni Sadar Municipality, highlighted the importance of scaling up the bottom-up approach and turned the initiative into a turning point in community-driven urban development.

“Every monsoon, our homes go underwater, and we face a severe crisis of safe drinking water. A proper drainage system could solve this,” said a community representative from Laksam. “Through this project, we have finally found a voice to express our needs.”

A defining feature of the initiative has been the integration of advanced scientific tools, such as GIS mapping, with community knowledge gathered through household surveys and focus group discussions. This blend has produced People’s Adaptation Plans (PAPs) that are both scientifically sound and rooted in local realities.

Abdullah Al Mamun, director at Save the Children International, said the PAPs are their (the international community's) plans, not ours and our role has been to facilitate their vision for a safer, more resilient future.

Key achievements to date include reaching more than 2,100 direct beneficiaries across 27 low-income communities, training Community Mobilizers to sustain adaptation work, and establishing Local Adaptation Committees (LACs) to strengthen community governance.

Rita Lohani, Country Representative for the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), said the people-led model we see here has the potential to transform urban climate resilience across Bangladesh and serve as a template for other developing countries facing similar crises.

Panelists from the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) and the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) called for integrating PAPs into municipalities’ Annual Development Plans and aligning them with Bangladesh’s Smart Cities agenda to ensure long-term sustainability.

Among others, senior government officials, representatives from the British High Commission, BMDF, and development partners, attended the programme.

The event concluded with strong consensus that scaling up this bottom-up model is vital for building climate-smart cities in Bangladesh — with those most at risk leading the way. - UNB