Poor budgetary funds for climate criticised

12 June 2010, 18:00 PM

Bss, Dhaka

Leaders of several civil society bodies hailed the budget for making the highest allocations to education and chalking out a long-term plan to mitigate the power shortage. Equity and Justice Working Group, (Equitybd), an umbrella organisation of about a dozen NGOs, has however sounded critical to poor allocation to climate fund in the budget. The NGO leaders hoped that the government would increase subsidy to farmers instead of reducing it this year from the level of last year. It has important bearing on attaining food security, they said. They also sounded highly critical about the way the budget is prepared and approved without much bothering to realities in different regions. They emphasised the need for more involvement of the lawmakers in making budget to reflect the expectations of their electorate instead of giving blind support to the government budget. They said the allocation remained unchanged this year at Tk 700 crore belying expectations that more allocation to this fund would bring recognition to growing risks that the country is facing from climate change challenges. They emphasised the quick enhancement of the utilisation capacity of the climate fund saying from last year's allocation the government had used only Tk 235 crore through official channels keeping NGOs out of using this fund at a time when cyclone Aila and Sidr affected people are still on waiting for rehabilitation. Allocation is not enough, access to it by NGOs is also important to bring its benefits to the people. They said the budget should have separate allocations for coastal zones similar to district based budget system that the government is thinking to introduce starting from next year. The budget lacked clear directions, they said about how to establish linkages between development planning by different ministries and their agencies with climate change issues and adaptation methods. Moreover all funds relating to climate change issues need to be taken under a single authority with full national ownership and having participation of stakeholders in using the fund, they said.