Bangladesh

Capacity Building and Resource Mobilization for Sustainable Land Management in Bangladesh

Background

Land is a scarce resource in Bangladesh and development policies have not given adequate priority to this extremely important issue that has a direct link to country’s food security, economic growth and overall national development. Evidence of land degradation can be found everywhere, including in conversion of agricultural land and wetlands for other purposes, diminished productivity of agricultural land, deforestation, accumulation of pollutants in the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, sand deposition, riverbank erosion, biodiversity loss and diminished livelihood opportunities. Capacity building for implementation of the existing National Land Use Policy will be the central focus of this project. The project will improve policymaking, institutional coordination, and compatibility of relevant policy and legal instruments as well as institutional mandates. The project would act as a catalyst to integrate sustainable land management concept in the national development framework. In addition, it will contribute in enhancing compliance capacity leading to sustainable governance and institutional collaboration. An important component of the project would be to demonstrate sustainable land management through pilot initiative. Emphasis would be given to enhance monitoring and evaluation capacity, promote R&D on land degradation, and overall capacity building at the individual, institutional and systemic levels. This would also drive to leverage partnership and resource mobilization