| Improving Environmental Governance for Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in Bangladesh (NRG Project)
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| Around 80% of the population of Bangladesh depends to some extent on natural resources. Over the last decade there have been many attempts to introduce community-based wetland and fisheries management through several initiatives by the Government of Bangladesh. However, one of the challenges of these community-based projects is to ensure the sustainability of the various forms of local institutions that have been established through these projects and also to establish statutory rights on the resources. Therefore, there is a serious need to develop a governance regime for sustainable resource management at the local level in Bangladesh through which community-based resource management will be linked up with the local governance structure. It will thus form the basic fabric of environmental governance at local, regional and national levels.
Against this backdrop, "Improving environmental governance for sustainable management of natural resources in Bangladesh" (NGR project) has been initiated under the "Improving Natural Resource Governance for Rural Poverty Reduction" project of the Environment and Development Group at IUCN HQ. The project is being supported by DFID-GTF.
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| Goal |
- Improving environmental governance for sustainable management of natural resources in Bangladesh.
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| Purpose |
Linkages between community-based organizations and local authorities are strengthened and local communities, with a special emphasis on women, are empowered so that they can take part in decision-making, thus promoting fair and equitable access to natural resources, as well as improved livelihood strategies. |
| Stakeholders |
The whole work will be accomplished by involving all relevant stakeholders and on a participatory basis. The major stakeholders are
• Local communities
• Community Based Organizations
• Local government representatives
• NGOs
• Government service providers
• Local government representatives
Major outputs
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- Enhanced capacity and skill of both local communities and local government to manage natural resources
- Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) for negotiation and dialogue set up to improve linkages between local civil society institutions and local government authorities
- Lessons learned from project widely disseminated
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| Major activities |
- Study customary practices and rights and conduct review of local institutions
- Legal review of co-management system
- Provide technical assistance and training on natural resource management for livelihood benefits to local communities
- Build capacity of communities, CBOs, local government and apex body in participatory planning, implementation, reflection and learning, financial management, local leadership, local customary and statutory rights and function of service providers.
- Build understanding and capacity of local governance stakeholders to support the operation of CBOs and various users groups through Training of Trainers, advocacy, workshops, and public discussions
- Establish networks of functioning Community Based Organizations (CBOs)
- Form apex body at the landscape level to mainstream CBOs with local government structure
- Networking with partners and defining collaboration at national (Ministries, LGRD, UP forum) level by creating multi-stakeholder platforms
- Networking with partners and defining collaboration with Upazila, Union Parishads, NGOs and other projects
- Share experience nationally to influence policy and practice through electronic forums and various local media
- Share experiences regionally and globally through IUCN’s media channel
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Timeframe: 1 February 2009 - 31 March 2011
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| Progress/ Status |
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