FROM PAGE 3

He also said the updated Climate Change and Gender Action Plan lacks a designated “guardian authority” to institutionalise implementation across ministries. He also noted a decline in the effective representation of women in Bangladesh’s international climate negotiations.

Farah Kabir, country director of ActionAid Bangladesh, said while Bangladesh appears strong in climate and gender-responsive policy frameworks, implementation remains weak.

She stressed the need to move from budget tagging to outcome-based tracking, decentralised budgeting, and stronger engagement of local community women in adaptation and mitigation.

She questioned the effectiveness of gender focal points and gender budgets, asking whether funds are being spent on bureaucratic salaries and infrastructure rather than programme delivery.

Not the size of pans, rather, success should be measured by real improvements in the lives of climate-affected people, she added.

Tasnuva Zaman, gender focal point at FAO Bangladesh, said women make up 58 percent of the agricultural workforce in Bangladesh, but their participation in climate investment and decision-making remains low.

She said women hold sole or joint ownership of only 12 to 13 percent of land. As a result, they are often not recognised as farmers, which prevents them from accessing credit, insurance, and climate-smart technologies.

Sohanur Rahman, executive coordinator of YouthNet Global, said climate finance must move beyond documentation and reach the social protection mechanisms of marginalised communities.

He emphasised the need for a just transition that addresses unpaid care work and actively engages men and boys in the process.

Presenting the keynote, Sumaiya Siddiqui, gender analyst at UNDP Bangladesh, said while 12 out of 13 major climate projects carry a gender tag at the approval stage, only one Ministry of Women and Children Affairs-led project is fully gender-responsive by design, rendering the impact of a Tk 6,412 crore allocation largely invisible.

She also pointed out that despite a Tk 10,533 crore allocation for water resources and a plan to create 3.5 lakh green jobs in the FY 2026-27 budget, a dedicated gender lens is absent from these targets.

She proposed a shared monitoring system where the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs acts as custodian alongside other ministries to improve coordination and accountability.

Climate expert Dr Ainun Nishat, adviser at the Centre for Climate Change and Environment Research at BRAC University, said gender and climate strategies are well designed on paper but poorly implemented.

He criticised the tendency to reduce gender mainstreaming to mere representation in committees, stressing that the real challenge lies in translating national plans into measurable action on the ground.

“The time has come for the government to stop rhetorical commitments and bring policy plans down from documents into field-level implementation,” he said.

Md Abdul Hye Al Mahmud, national project director (additional secretary) of the Gender Responsive Coastal Adaptation (GCA) project, said empowering women drives broader national development and called for sustained policy support and stronger implementation.

Sarder M Asaduzzaman, assistant resident representative of UNDP Bangladesh, said the GCA project is a useful learning initiative, but its impact depends on government ownership and scaling.

Sharmin Islam, gender team leader, UNDP Bangladesh; Foyzun Nahar, programme policy officer, World Food Programme; Farhana Hafiz, gender expert, UN Women; Shakila Sattar, founder of The Earth; and Samira Yasmin, project manager, Asia Foundation, also spoke.

The event was moderated by Tanjim Ferdous, head of strategic partnership at The Daily Star.