In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Interventions will be required over a long time for adaptation and mitigation. They will need to adopt different approaches to programming, while the ongoing development initiatives will need to be sensitive to climate change. One such approach is Public Private Partnership (PPP).

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and while businesses are among the causes of climate change, they are also at risk from its effects. Photo by Srabani Roy.

Despite delays in staffing the PPP Unit and implementing the Policy and Strategy on PPP that was approved in 2010, the government took a timely step for the economic growth and development. The government has also been applauded globally as one of the pioneers to formulate the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). If applied properly, PPP can be an effective approach to reduce vulnerability. Such partnerships can also ensure “climate proofing” of other projects implemented through PPP in the country.

People in semi-urban and rural areas directly depend on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and businesses for their livelihoods. On the other hand, while some businesses are among the causes of climate change (e.g., emission of carbon dioxide and similar gases), they are also at risk from its effects.

Many, if not most, of the large scale “solutions” will continue to be undertaken by the government. However, the government cannot act alone as it may not have adequate funds, skills, and capacity. Also, some interventions (e.g., building and enhancing large infrastructures) may require long implementation time if they are implemented as public-only projects.

Due to the global scale of the challenge, we need multiple actors including private sector funding and diverse sources of expertise to deliver sustainable solutions. Public funding is likely to be restricted for years to come following the financial crisis, which makes exploring alternative funding and expertise more critical than ever.

PPP models can potentially address the challenges posed by climate change in sectors like housing, communication, infrastructure, health, agriculture, livelihood, water, and sanitation. The private sector can bring innovative solutions and scale to the models for climate change adaptation and mitigation shaped by the government and civil society organisations (CSO). PPP can allow large scale projects to go forward when public sector authorities might not be able to afford them.

Read the full article originally published in The Daily Star on Jan. 7, 2012.

Shameem Siddiqi is The Asia Foundation’s senior program director in Bangladesh. He can be reached siddiqi@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

My colleagues in The Asia Foundation’s Environment Program recently returned from Bangkok, where the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum they were scheduled to attend was canceled due to the worst flooding in Thailand in 60 years.

Bangkok residents evacuate flooded neighborhoods during Thailand's worst flooding in over half a century. Experts predict that massive floods will hit Asia’s coastal megacities even harder due to stronger storms and sea level rise. Photo: Voice of America.

The disaster resulted in over 600 deaths, approximately 10 million lives affected, $21 billion in lost revenues from major industries, and an estimated $24 billion dollars in damage to property, according to the World Bank. Technical specialists blame the disaster in part on an unusually wet monsoon period coupled with the bad timing of a seasonal high tide in the Gulf of Thailand, but also on the government’s inefficient watershed management and infrastructure for draining high floodwaters on the Chao Phraya river.

In October, the Foundation’s country representative in Thailand, Kim McQuay, blogged about the poor readiness of the recently elected Puea Thai government and the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority to protect communities and businesses and to coordinate recovery for flood victims. In November, In Asia interviewed McQuay about the lack of foresight and responsibility on behalf of a succession of Thai governments and other stakeholders to undertake necessary preventive and mitigation plans that build resiliency to natural disasters.

So it’s sadly fitting that a flood prevented a network of adaptation practitioners from meeting to discuss solutions on how to make watershed management, among other challenges for strengthening disaster preparedness, more resilient to climate change. In fact, it was in the script. According to a 2009 World Wildlife Fund report, massive floods – predicted to be even harder on Asia’s coastal megacities due to stronger storms and sea level rise – are bound to disrupt business-as-usual more frequently by 2050 as a result of missed investments in crucial urban infrastructure over the past few decades.

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For the last several days, the water level in Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River has been rising in virtual synch with the escalating worry that grips a city bisected by this great river and whose neighborhoods are crisscrossed by dozens of canals, or klongs. This growing concern drew me to the Chao Phraya, whose familiar defined banks had vanished beneath a broad expanse of water that lapped at the window frames of traditional wooden houses that ordinarily sit some distance from the river. Sunlight danced across the swollen river, the quiet scene otherwise offering little clue that communities a few kilometers upriver were contending with the most severe flooding in half a century.

An aerial view over flooded Lokayasuttharam Buddhist temple in in Ayutthaya province. The situation in Bangkok's adjacent provinces has serious implications for the capital, with the Chao Phraya and other river systems that pass through and around the crowded city of 9 million serving as the only natural drainage course for the accumulated floodwaters. Photo: Associated Press

The 2011 monsoon and cyclone season has been particularly severe, prompting a combination of flooding and landslide risks in several Southeast Asian countries. Thailand and Cambodia have been especially hard hit. In Thailand, the flooding has submerged 27 provinces, with the death toll exceeding 300 and the economic consequences unfathomable. Three months of heavy rains have placed the lowlands of Ayutthaya, Nakhonsawan, and other provinces north of Bangkok at highest risk. Satellite images of the thousands of acres of flooded farmlands and industrial estates could easily be mistaken for a vast lake. The situation in these adjacent provinces has implications for the capital, with the Chao Phraya and other river systems that pass through and around the crowded city of 9 million serving as the only natural drainage course for the accumulated floodwaters. The situation is exacerbated by a seasonal tidal effect that resists the natural flow of water from the Chao Phraya to the Gulf of Thailand, which is expected to peak this week.

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s controversial off-the-cuff remarks made earlier this month on the influence of conservative Islamic groups on the Bangladesh polity, led the Indian government to announce immediately – quite contrary to diplomatic practice – his much-awaited visit to Dhaka on September 6-7. His visit was high on the agenda at the recent Dialogue on India-Bangladesh relations, sponsored by The Asia Foundation, between India’s Kunzru Centre for Defence and Research and the Center for Foreign Affairs Studies in Dhaka. At the dialogue, attended by international affairs experts on the region,  both sides agreed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit must lay down a vision and guiding principles for the harmonious development of India-Bangladesh’s relations in the future.

Since the last visit in 1997 by Indian Prime Minister Gujral, the relationship has moved forward in a spasmodic manner with little trust built between the two countries. Indeed, most of the problems present when Bangladesh was created in 1971 still remain, such as disputed maritime boundaries and water resources, and a lack of trade concessions and facilitation. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s January 2010 visit to New Delhi took concrete steps in finding solutions to these issues. Last year, India extended its landmark $1 billion line of credit to Bangladesh, primarily to upgrade its road and rail connectivity to India. In line with that agreement, Bangladesh has taken steps in countering anti-Indian insurgent groups along its borders. It now looks to India to meet its commitments on other outstanding issues. Only in the last few months following Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukharji’s visit have some of the projects from the credit loan started in real earnest. Only through speedy delivery of these projects will it be possible for the two sides to ward off the negativity in the relationship and encourage a more bipartisan view in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s population now stands at close to 150 million and will double in the next 50 years. At the same time, effects from climate change, such as rising sea level, threaten to flood low-lying delta land along the Meghna, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers, putting pressure on land and swelling economic migrants who continue to illegally enter India. According to latest census figures, India’s population is at 1.2 billion and growing. Both countries have a huge youth bulge.

Rising sea levels threaten to flood low-lying delta land along the Meghna, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers, putting pressure on land and swelling economic migrants who continue to leave Bangladesh for India. Photo by Srabani Roy.

To further improve the India-Bangladesh relationship, the governments will also have to address two important perceptions: that India gives too much attention to only one neighbor – Pakistan – to Bangladesh’s detriment; and second, the imperative that forward-looking relations require bipartisan support within the two countries. While in India this is not an issue, in Bangladesh it still remains elusive. The continuing feeling of neglect in the Bangladeshi psyche despite a discernable positive movement in the last two years is a matter for concern in New Delhi. Nevertheless, Indian Foreign Minister Krishna’s visit to Dhaka early this month was well received and started the process of changing this sentiment.

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Asia has fewer fresh water resources than any other continent in the world. The global average of fresh water per capita annually is 6,280 cubic meters. The only countries rich in water resources in all of Asia are Malaysia, Laos, Bhutan, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan, leaving the rest of Asia water-stressed.

The Mekong River serves as a source of food security and livelihood for approximately 70 million people on mainland Southeast Asia. Photo by Bart Verweij.

Asia has 47 percent of the global average of fresh water per person, but has 65 percent of the world’s population. The situation in China is most severe, with people having only one-third of the global average of fresh water per person at 2,100 cubic meters. China has 22 percent of the world’s population, but only 5 percent of the world’s water resources and 7 percent of the planet’s arable land.

Whereas oil helped to shape geo-politics in the 20th century, water may define many inter-state relationships in the 21st century. However, unlike oil, there are no substitutes for water. Some analysts speculate whether nations will go to war over lack of water resources. While such a scenario cannot be ruled out as a possibility, competition for water resources – at a minimum – will be keen. But is this really the way to approach the issue?

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Sri Lanka is no stranger to water-related disaster; the 2004 tsunami was only one such threat to livelihoods in the vulnerable island nation. In January and February 2011, Sri Lanka’s Northern, Eastern, and Central provinces were deluged by severe floods. Though flooding during the country’s bi-annual monsoon is a recurrent problem, the rains in the hardest-hit district of Batticaloa, flanked by the ocean and a lagoon, were the heaviest in nearly 100 years. Flooding destroyed paddy fields and irrigation systems and closed schools and hospitals. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Batticaloa was the worst hit – roughly 420,000 people were affected, and thousands of houses damaged.

Humanitarian agencies joined OCHA’s rapid response to the disaster, providing food and other supplies to families in a district still recovering from three decades of civil war. While the Sri Lankan government spent over $7 million to aid these areas, a resurgence of heavy rains in February overwhelmed the water infrastructure and thwarted the return of displaced persons to their homes.

Despite this situation, one Grama Niladhari (village-level division) in Batticaloa escaped the brunt of the disaster, thanks to the new Vannankulam water tank. Residents and local officials in Ariyampathy One, a village-level division of Manumunai Pradeshiya Sabha (PS), reported less damage and flooding even in comparison to previous monsoons. They attributed this to the tank project completed in early 2010, and planned and carried out jointly by the local government and community-based organizations with facilitation and financial support from The Asia Foundation.

Vannankulam Tank has served as a natural water catchment pond in Ariyampathy for decades. But due to instability in the province and lack of resources, the neglected tank eventually became polluted with refuse, at left. In 2010, The Asia Foundation staff teamed with community members and local officials to rehabilitate the tank and convert the pond into a recreational area.

Vannankulam tank has served as a natural water catchment pond in Ariyampathy for decades. As early as 1982, local citizens hoped to cultivate the tank as a community resource and park. In the intervening years, due to instability in the province and lack of resources, the neglected tank eventually became polluted with refuse. The PS only instituted a formal solid waste management program after receiving funding and vehicles from international aid organizations which inundated the area following the 2004 tsunami. While solid waste management improved, the tank remained an informal dump and mosquito breeding ground and a source of contamination for nearby household wells. Though the local authorities recognized the state of the tank as a health risk, they lacked the funds, coordination, and technical capacity to undertake rehabilitation.

Asia Foundation staff teamed with community members, PS officials, and the divisional secretariat (a representative of the national government working at the sub-district level) to rehabilitate the tank and convert the pond into a recreational area. The Foundation also supported a needs-assessment, technical assistance (such as an engineer who ensured sound construction), and necessary construction funding. The PS contributed the largest portion of funds to the project, as well as the vehicles and equipment necessary to clean, deepen, and reinforce the tank, while citizen volunteers dug out and carried debris, and removed the noxious salvinia plants that filled the pond.

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Over 40 years ago, the effort to raise political and public awareness about mounting environmental issues in America took hold, and in 1970, the first Earth Day was held. Inspired by the anti-Vietnam War movement seizing the United States at that time, millions of Americans from coast-to-coast marched in the streets and organized rallies to raise awareness about deteriorating environmental conditions. The first Earth Day was a landmark event, and 1970 also saw the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the bi-partisan passage of some of the fundamental environmental laws in this country – the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Then Wisconsin Senator and founder of Earth Day Gaylord Nelson said, “Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.” By 1990, the Earth Day movement had gained global momentum and spread to more than 140 countries; the first U.N. Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Next year, in 2012, marking the 20th anniversary of that Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations will hold the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, or “Rio +20.”

Climate change affects the poorest and most vulnerable in the world most severely – and Asia stands to face the brunt of its impact. In countries like Bangladesh, above, people are already facing the consequences of rising sea levels. Photo by Srabani Roy.

Indeed, since the first Earth Day, which focused on the need to protect and conserve our natural resources, the movement has evolved to encompass the goal of “sustainable development” in an increasingly interconnected world threatened by the impact of climate change. Having just returned from Vietnam myself, it is hard to imagine that such a terrible conflict a mere 35 years ago devastated the country. Today, Vietnam has a GDP growth rate of 6 percent per year, and high-end luxury cars are a common sight amid the thousands of motorcycles careening through the streets of Hanoi. The country has transformed itself from a net importer of rice to being the second largest exporter of rice in the world. For the socialist government of Vietnam, economic growth, industrialization, and poverty reduction are major priorities, which often come into conflict with environmental protection. But Vietnam, like many middle-income countries, has come to realize that economic development can no longer come at the price of environmental degradation, and that the need for sustainable growth and development, particularly in light of the threat of climate change to coastal areas, forests, water resources, infrastructure – indeed, the entire economy – is essential. Climate change will have a significant impact on Asia and threatens to place additional pressure on already scarce resources across the region, and to undermine many of the gains in economic development and poverty alleviation that Asian countries like Vietnam have experienced over the last several decades.

We still need to enforce environmental protection of our air, water, and finite natural resources, but with ever increasing global temperatures, it is evident that people all over the world are already feeling the impact of climate change. It is not something that will happen to us in a hundred years – it is happening now. Undoubtedly, climate change affects the poorest and most vulnerable in the world most severely – and Asia stands to face the brunt of its impact. In countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, and the Pacific Island states, people are already facing the consequences of higher temperatures – increased intensity and frequency of cyclones, sea level rise, “hundred-year floods” that are happening every five to 10 years, as well as droughts that significantly damage infrastructure and people’s livelihoods. But while emerging Asian economies like Vietnam, China, and India – which are increasingly becoming large emitters of greenhouse gases themselves – now have greater resources for reducing their greenhouse gases through “low-carbon growth,” less developed countries in Asia are not standing idly by.

Developing countries are no longer simply waiting for the wealthy nations to agree on caps to their greenhouse gas emissions, even though it is now commonly recognized that developed countries have an obligation to reduce and pay for their unabated greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution – one of the main causes of global warming that leads to climate change. Instead, they are actively pursuing adaptation and/or mitigation strategies themselves. With the help of international donors, NGOs, national and international scientists, and climate change experts, developing countries’ national, provincial, and local governments, their civil society, their businesses, and their citizens are increasingly aware of and committed to finding innovative ways to adapt to the consequences of climate change. Some are also committed to mitigating their own greenhouse gas emissions, even though their emission levels are far lower and they are not responsible for the climate change we are seeing today. As seen in the posts in this special Earth Day edition of In Asia, even the poorest and most vulnerable populations are attempting to address the impact of climate change: whether by changing the type of crops they grow, and the fish they farm or catch in order to adapt to drought or more saline conditions;  or by increasing capacity of governments and communities to prepare for disasters; or by recognizing that climate change adaption, mitigation, and disaster preparedness require sound technical knowledge combined with planning, leadership, and good governance. As in the early days of Earth Day, there is a slow but growing realization – at the local, national, and global level and across developing and some developed counties – that addressing climate change and protecting the environment and our finite natural resources must be integral to sustainable development and economic growth.

Srabani Roy is director of The Asia Foundation’s Environment Programs. She can be reached at sroy@asiafound.org.

As news spread about the recent earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, there was immediate concern about the effects to the people living on small islands and atolls belonging to more than 22 Pacific Island Nations and scattered across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean.

Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change and disaster risks, due principally to their geographical, geological, and socio-economic environments. The catastrophic event that unfolded for Japan last month was a reminder for these island states not only of their vulnerability but also of their recent experiences with disasters.

Over the past decade, Pacific Islands have experienced weather patterns with devastating effects. Above, damage from cyclone Heta, which hit Niue in 2004. Credit: NOAA / Earth System Research Laboratory

Over the past decade, Pacific Island Nations have experienced unusual weather patterns with devastating effects from climate-related hazards, or hydro-meteorological events, as they can be commonly referred to by disaster specialists:

• Cyclone Heta, which hit Niue in 2004, generated immediate losses that exceeded the 2003 value of GDP by over five times;

• In 2005, Cook Islands experienced five major cyclones crisscrossing its islands with unprecedented damaging effects;

• High surf affected the northern Pacific countries of Micronesia and Marshall Islands in 2009, creating food shortages and health and sanitation concerns for the low-lying atolls;

• Massive flooding in the districts of Nadi and Ba, Fiji, in 2009 caused economic losses for families and businesses estimated at more than $185 million;

• 2009 Solomon Islands flooding in Guadalcanal Province affected hundreds of villagers creating serious disruption to food supply and communal livelihoods, and causing secondary health hazards.

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On March 26, Bangladesh celebrated its 40th year as an independent nation. That same weekend, over 350 participants from over 60 countries gathered in Bangladesh for the 5th “International Conference on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change” to discuss opportunities for new, community-based approaches to adapt to climate change. In order to gain perspective on the way that communities in coastal Bangladesh are experiencing climate change and their initiatives to adapt, 24 climate change and development experts from international NGOs, multilateral organizations, and universities, with the support of local NGO Rapuntar, drove seven hours from Dhaka along a narrow, busy road to visit the coastal village of Chila Bazar.

Small houses made of mud and wood atop eroded banks along the Ganges in Bangladesh. Photo by Srabani Roy.

Bangladesh is a country situated at the confluence of three of the largest rivers in the world: the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna – and their tributaries. These rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal’s 580km coastline, which is exposed to cyclones, and where some of Bangladesh’s poorest communities live. The country experiences significant variability in water availability, with flooding during the monsoon season from June to October and droughts and salt water intrusion during the long, dry season from November to May. Bangladesh is a country that has been grappling with these issues throughout its short history as a nation. Now, with the worsening impacts from climate change, these challenges are becoming increasingly magnified as temperatures rise and water variability increases.

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Bangladeshi communities – living in a nation recently dubbed “climate change ground zero” – have been quietly innovating and adapting to climate change in their backyards for some time. In coastal areas, floating gardens supply families with fresh vegetables in once dry, but now water logged areas. Concrete jars around houses capture and store rain water for times of potable water scarcity, a reality that’s becoming more and more commonplace for Bangladeshis vulnerable to an encroaching, rising sea.

Bangladesh's communities are adapting to climate change by developing new innovations, such as concrete jars, above, to capture rain water during dry periods. Photo by Srabani Roy.

Two-thirds of Bangladesh is located just 5 meters above sea level, and a recent Center for Global Development paper predicts Bangladesh will be the second most at-risk population to sea level rise in 2050 (it ranked third in 2008). Such rises have caused massive flooding of villages, and, in some cases, have eliminated traditional livelihoods. It’s estimated that 60 percent of the country suffers from severe flooding every 4-5 years.

Communities are adapting by taking on new trades, such as growing saline-tolerant reeds to make mats to sell, and cultivating saline water crabs. As the Bay of Bengal’s salty waters continue to encroach on more and more of Bangladesh’s land, it’s critical that community-based adaptation efforts such as these be adopted in all sectors, including agriculture, fisheries, livestock, health, education, and water. The government, donors, and scientists here are showing positive, increasing interest in such initiatives.

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