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Mr. Md Saifur Rahman
Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products, Technische Universität Dresden, 01069 Dresden, Germany

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Research Keywords & Expertise

0 South Asia
0 Qualitative analysis
0 Forest and climate development policy
0 Governance of forest and climate change
0 Bureaucratic politics, power and interests of development actors

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Journal article
Published: 02 August 2021 in Sustainability
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Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to extreme climate events. With over 60% of its population living in rural areas, over a third of which lives under the poverty line and depends on agriculture, these climate stresses constitute a major challenge. The traditional financial instruments, e.g., microcredit and relief programs, continue today. However, how climate risk can be tackled through innovative financial instruments focusing on agriculture farms and farmers is crucial. Considering this issue, the Sadharan Bima Corporation and the Bangladesh Meteorological Department joined forces in 2014 to launch a $2.5 million three-year pilot project on weather-index-based crop insurance (WIBCI) executed by the Financial Institutions Division of the Bangladesh government’s Ministry of Finance. This study examined the basic strategy of this pilot project, the major challenges confronted, and possible solutions for creating a successful weather-index-based crop insurance scheme in Bangladesh. We relied on key informant interviews, informal discussions, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews with the major stakeholders of the WIBCI pilot. These showed the WIBCI pilot to be a promising initiative that still faces problems from limited weather data, a costly business operations system, farmer insurance illiteracy, and fatalism, as well as problems with designing insurance products and recruiting qualified personnel. We compared this WIBCI pilot against the challenges of other projects, recommending best practices for a viable weather-index-based crop insurance system. The insurance mechanism of this study may apply to other vegetation sectors of Bangladesh, e.g., forest plantation or agroforestry for protecting natural resources from natural disasters.

ACS Style

Abdullah Al-Maruf; Sumyia Mira; Tasnim Rida; Saifur Rahman; Pradip Sarker; J. Jenkins. Piloting a Weather-Index-Based Crop Insurance System in Bangladesh: Understanding the Challenges of Financial Instruments for Tackling Climate Risks. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8616 .

AMA Style

Abdullah Al-Maruf, Sumyia Mira, Tasnim Rida, Saifur Rahman, Pradip Sarker, J. Jenkins. Piloting a Weather-Index-Based Crop Insurance System in Bangladesh: Understanding the Challenges of Financial Instruments for Tackling Climate Risks. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (15):8616.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Abdullah Al-Maruf; Sumyia Mira; Tasnim Rida; Saifur Rahman; Pradip Sarker; J. Jenkins. 2021. "Piloting a Weather-Index-Based Crop Insurance System in Bangladesh: Understanding the Challenges of Financial Instruments for Tackling Climate Risks." Sustainability 13, no. 15: 8616.

Research article
Published: 08 June 2021 in Climate and Development
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State bureaucratic settings and associated governance patterns have an enormous impact on the planning and implementation of a country's climate development policy. Contextually, a typical superior bureaucratic framework with its decision-making power centred on climate adaptation projects funding prevails in Bangladesh. This paper deploys the concepts of Weberian bureaucracy and super-bureaucracy and its governance pattern to explore the power attributes of climate bureaus and associated bureaucratic practices and decision-making behaviour regarding adaptation funding in climate adaptation governance. The study employs all climate adaptation development projects (n = 573) financing in Bangladesh. The analysis finds that the general administration cadre employees rather than technical professionals are involved in multiple decision-making processes, including appraisal and approval and monitoring and evaluating projects holding powerful pivotal positions both centrally and locally. These super bureaus also expand their power resources in climate adaptation policy by governing big adaptation projects, keeping the project director position, and approving the said position. The power capabilities and interests of the super-bureaus accrue by creating new climate institutions too. The decision-making behaviour and governance pattern underpin a state of super-bureaucracy, which are not supportive enough of innovative policy-making through inclusive participation and collective decision-making for governing dynamic climate adaptation policy.

ACS Style

Saifur Rahman; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Lukas Giessen. Super-bureaucracy in climate adaptation governance in Bangladesh. Climate and Development 2021, 1 -13.

AMA Style

Saifur Rahman, Pradip Kumar Sarker, Lukas Giessen. Super-bureaucracy in climate adaptation governance in Bangladesh. Climate and Development. 2021; ():1-13.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Saifur Rahman; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Lukas Giessen. 2021. "Super-bureaucracy in climate adaptation governance in Bangladesh." Climate and Development , no. : 1-13.

Journal article
Published: 19 October 2020 in Climate
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Policy action is visible in national and international climate governance. However, policy-making and its implementation often fail to generate the desired outcomes that aim to adapt to the adverse impact of climate change in a developing nation, such as Bangladesh—a country highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Against this backdrop, the study aims to analyze the implication of development cooperation and bureaucratic politics on the policy-making and implementation of climate change adaptation policy in Bangladesh. In doing so, the research uses national and international climate adaptation funds and the existing state administrative framework of the climate adaptation regime. Methodologically, it follows a mixed qualitative–quantitative research approach. The study discusses the following key findings: (1) the general cross-sectoral nature and thrusts of domestic and external climate adaptation funding; (2) how Bangladesh technical departments, such as that for water management, have reacted successfully to ensure the utilization of the funds is for implementing adaptation policy; (3) simultaneously, how Bangladesh bureaucracy, made of the elite, together with politics, have maintained their traditional values, practices, and structures in responding to the administrative requirements of climate adaptation funders, especially bilateral and multilateral development agencies, and (4) what changes should be brought to the bureaucratic cadre and added to the administrative setup in Bangladesh to provide a better overall impact of the adaptation policy and funding.

ACS Style

Saifur Rahman; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Ryokichi Hirono; Lukas Giessen. Implications of Development Cooperation and State Bureaucracy on Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Bangladesh. Climate 2020, 8, 118 .

AMA Style

Saifur Rahman, Pradip Kumar Sarker, Ryokichi Hirono, Lukas Giessen. Implications of Development Cooperation and State Bureaucracy on Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Bangladesh. Climate. 2020; 8 (10):118.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Saifur Rahman; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Ryokichi Hirono; Lukas Giessen. 2020. "Implications of Development Cooperation and State Bureaucracy on Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Bangladesh." Climate 8, no. 10: 118.

Journal article
Published: 18 April 2016 in Forest Policy and Economics
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The influence of foreign actors on domestic policy change is a major question in political and development studies, involving issues of sovereignty as well as major methodological challenges in its analysis. This study analyses the influence of donor aid for development projects on domestic policy change, particularly on community-based forest development policy in Bangladesh. With our analytical framework, we combine concepts from development policy analysis, the international relations theorem of direct access, and the adapted correlation of variable approach to policy change analysis. We build on own, existing, and longitudinal findings on forest policy changes in Bangladesh over three decades. We contrast this data with data on forest Development Project Aid from 1980 to 2014. First, we identify multiple links between the two parallel data sets. We subsequently corroborate selected links through qualitative in-depth analyses. The results indicate a link between donor funding and domestic policy changes towards community-based forest policy. This link is further specified by different temporal relations, as policy changes are being observed prior to, in response to, or simultaneously with donor funding. We conclude that donor funding for forestry projects has a strong influence on the recipient country's forest policy.

ACS Style

Saifur Rahman; Nazmus Sadath; Lukas Giessen. Foreign donors driving policy change in recipient countries: Three decades of development aid towards community-based forest policy in Bangladesh. Forest Policy and Economics 2016, 68, 39 -53.

AMA Style

Saifur Rahman, Nazmus Sadath, Lukas Giessen. Foreign donors driving policy change in recipient countries: Three decades of development aid towards community-based forest policy in Bangladesh. Forest Policy and Economics. 2016; 68 ():39-53.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Saifur Rahman; Nazmus Sadath; Lukas Giessen. 2016. "Foreign donors driving policy change in recipient countries: Three decades of development aid towards community-based forest policy in Bangladesh." Forest Policy and Economics 68, no. : 39-53.

Journal article
Published: 07 April 2016 in Sustainability
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The last two decades of forest policy discussions have been dominated by calls for sustainable management of forest resources. Consequently, multiple international and domestic policies, supporting sustainable forest management (SFM), have evolved in numerous jurisdictions. Policies in developing countries often rely on foreign donors’ projects, which supplement domestic SFM policy. These policies assign various policy tasks to specific public bureaucracies, who then compete for these very tasks, as well as the related staff and budgets. Therefore, project and policy task assignment greatly influences bureaucratic power. This article analyzes the distributive effects of SFM policy on power (in terms of coercion, incentives and dominant information) among relevant domestic and foreign donor bureaucracies in Bangladesh. Concepts from power theory, bureaucratic politics theory, and concepts of policy and policy process were combined to analyze 121 Bangladeshi SFM policies from 1992–2013, which assign a total of 1012 policy tasks to specific public bureaucracies. Using qualitative content analysis, inferences about power were assigned to specific competing bureaucracies by the totality of SFM policies made. Results identify domestic and foreign bureaucracies whose power distribution benefit most from the SFM policies viz. their competitors. It is concluded that bureaucracies gaining the most power set the limits and directions in designing, implementing and evaluating various elements of any national SFM policies.

ACS Style

Lukas Giessen; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Saifur Rahman. International and Domestic Sustainable Forest Management Policies: Distributive Effects on Power among State Agencies in Bangladesh. Sustainability 2016, 8, 335 .

AMA Style

Lukas Giessen, Pradip Kumar Sarker, Saifur Rahman. International and Domestic Sustainable Forest Management Policies: Distributive Effects on Power among State Agencies in Bangladesh. Sustainability. 2016; 8 (4):335.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Lukas Giessen; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Saifur Rahman. 2016. "International and Domestic Sustainable Forest Management Policies: Distributive Effects on Power among State Agencies in Bangladesh." Sustainability 8, no. 4: 335.