Editorial
Managing climate fund
Strong oversight bodies needed
Transparency International (TI) last Saturday called upon all countries to ensure transparency in utilizing climate funds for fighting the impacts of global climate change.
In a seminar held in Dhaka the TI boss Huguette Labelle launched globally a TI report on research findings of risks in the management of climate funds. She made it clear that climate change governance will face old corruption risks like policy capture, conflicts of interest, mismanagement of public resources and creative accounting. She in particular emphasized on the necessity of strengthening the governance system to tackle corruption risks.
Broadly speaking, there are two aspects of the climate fund issue. The international community who promised funds to the affected countries should make it available without unnecessary delay. Funds which were pledged almost two years ago have not been received as yet. The promised fund should be immediately disbursed as new and additional amounts and not under any regular development assistance programs. These are funds to compensate damages faced by the countries that are least responsible for climate change. There should be no strings attached, plain and simple.
The obligation to properly use this fund by the recipient is no less important. Management of fund is a huge task. This demands full attention of the departments responsible for fund utilization. The TI has appropriately suggested monitoring of climate funding by oversight bodies comprising of independent professionals and access to information by public.
Our government should take necessary measures to have a sound management system in place to ensure proper handling of the fund. This can be done by involving the members of the civil society, climate experts and financial professionals in oversight bodies to play their due role in local government decision making and spending to ensure transparency in the management of funds. Not only that, the oversight bodies will have to ensure reporting on climate projects systematically at every step from planning to implementation.
Since there is a genuine concern over risks of corruption involving the climate financing, strong and transparent management all the way is the only answer.
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