UPDATING OF THE NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGY (NCS) DOCUMENT WITH ATTENTION IN SOME RELATED SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Executing Agency: Ministry of Environment and Forests
Implementing Agency: IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Bangladesh
Project Period: October 2003-August 2004
Funded by: MOEF

BACKGROUND

Bangladesh’s endorsement of the World Conservation Strategy in 1980 was followed by its initiatives for developing a National Conservation Strategy. IUCN Bangladesh Country Office had been an active party to the process all through, which culminated in the preparation and subsequent submission of a draft NCS document with the Cabinet of in 1993. While the draft NCS awaited formal approval by the Cabinet, several milestone strategy documents related to sustainable development planning have been developed as national responses on several occasions, viz. the WSSD, MDGs, various COPs(conference of parties) of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and new agreements and protocols signed during the last decade. All these significant achievements have not been reflected in the draft NCS. Apart from these strategy documents, several national issues, which emerged after the NCS had been drafted, were also missing in the document.

Agenda 21, agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, called on all countries to introduce National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD). Since then two international targets have been set: a Special Session of the UN General Assembly (Rio+5) set a target date of 2002 for NSSDs to be introduced while the OCED Development Assistance Committee (DAC) has set a target date of 2005 for NSSDs to be in the process of implementation.

In November 2001, a UN International Forum on National Strategies for Sustainable Development was held in preparation for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, WSSD. In the conference it was agreed for as common guidance on the NSSDc for both developed and developing countries alike.

The Government after reviewing the situation has very opportunely opted for updating this ten-year-old document. It was suggested that the document should updated against the background of the various development so far taken place in the last decade. IUCN Bangladesh had thus proposed to update the National Conservation Strategy.

OBJECTIVE

The overall objective of this project was to update and fine-tune the decade-old version of the National Conservation Strategy in the light of the various development strategies—both national and international. It was also decided that current and latest data would be used in updating the sectoral profiles and analyses conducted so as to represent the present status.

APPROACH

Establishing Linkage
To render the NCS acceptable to the key stakeholders, namely, the sectoral ministries, local government etc, attempts were envisaged to determine the linkages between the strategy and existing sectoral activities. To achieve this particular objective, thematic studies were carried out centred on and around the following:

• The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
• Sectoral policies
• Activities of different ministries and departments
• The WSSD and the MDGs

Consultation at the thematic level
Several meetings were organised by the IUCNB Country Office involving the project team leader, consultants and the coordinator, wherein the participants provided systematic and technical inputs on various project activities including the methodology; sectoral issues identification, analysis procedure and action plan for the NCS document preparation.

ACTIVITIES

The following activities were carried out during the preparation and updating the NCS:

• Formation of working teams with experts in different sectoral issues
• Developing and assigning TOR for the team members
• Organising peer group consultation
• Collecting latest/current data for different sectors of the NCS (the NCS document discusses 17 sectors)
• Preparing a draft of updated NCS document
• Submitting the draft NCS document to the MoEF Secretary for approval

FUTURE ACTIVITIES EARMARKED

• Organize a National Level Workshop for sharing and finalizing the draft updated NCS with the stakeholders
• Publish the NCS document for submitting it to the Cabinet

OUTPUT

IUCNB along with other consultants working for the NCS project have successfully updated the NCS document and forwarded the same to the Government for review and approval of the draft. The draft has been approved and it is now to be presented in the National Level Workshop. The Final NCS Document will be modified in the light of feedback and comments to be received from the participants in the workshop.

For further information, please contact:

Country Representative
IUCN – The World Conservation Union
Bangladesh Country Office
Gulshan – 1, Dhaka – 1212
Bangladesh
Tel: 880-2- 9890395, 9890423
Fax: 880 –2 - 9892854
E- mail: nishat@iucnbd.org
Web: www.iucnbd.org