DHAKA, April 4 (Xinhua) -- The Adaptation Fund, for the first time, has approved 10 million U.S. dollars for Bangladesh, aiming to enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities of small islands and riverine charland.
The allocation would be spent through a project jointly implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) titled "Adaptation Initiative for Climate Vulnerable Offshore Small Islands and Riverine Charland in Bangladesh."
The fund, established under the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has committed 532 million U.S. dollars to climate adaptation and resilience activities since 2010, including supporting 80 concrete adaptation projects, said a UNDP statement.
However, Bangladesh, despite being one of the most climate-change-vulnerable countries, will receive the fund for the first time. The allocation was made at a board meeting of the Adaptation Fund held in Bonn, Germany in March this year.
A total of 32.5 million U.S. dollars were approved for new projects in Armenia, Dominican Republic, Bangladesh and Western Balkan to serve the Paris Climate Agreement smoothly.
"Despite a very full agenda, it was great to see the progress in new projects funded to benefit vulnerable communities across a variety of adaptation sectors including adaptation in small islands in Bangladesh, " said the Fund's Manager Mikko Ollikainen.
"UNDP was a pioneer in supporting the Government of Bangladesh's transformational change through providing policy recommendation and thought leadership during formulation of policies and strategies to address climate change," said Sudipto Mukerjee, the UNDP's resident representative in Bangladesh.
"It has provided innovative solutions for community-based adaptation and ecosystem-based adaptation to enhance the resilience of climate vulnerable communities, helping Bangladesh move closer to attaining SDG13 (sustainable development goals 13) by 2030," he added.
"We will continue to extend our full support to the Government of Bangladesh in this regard and keep putting emphasis on climate resilient and green development."
The project will head towards achieving national priorities set in the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan and Nationally Determined Contribution.
This new initiative will be part of UNDP's continuous efforts to achieve sustainable development goals, eradicate poverty and inequality, and tackle the dual threats of climate change and natural disasters.
