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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.
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 StyleAbdullah 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 StyleAbdullah 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.
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.
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 StyleSaifur 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 StyleSaifur 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.
Forests are governed by a combination of sub-national and national as well as global and regional regimes. Comparing the institutional variation of regional regimes, including their degrees of formalization, is gaining attention of studies on regionalism in International Relations. This study attempts to analyse the ways in which the selected cases of the forest-related Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and forest-focused Montréal Process (MP) regional regimes may have synergetic overlaps or disparity in their institutional design and forest policy development. For this, we combined IR’s ‘rational institutional design’ theory and a policy analysis approach. Using a qualitative data approach, we analyzed key structure-related historical regime documents (e.g., charters) issued since the inception of both regimes, and their latest forest policy initiatives for the periods 2016–2025 (Strategic Plan of Action for ASEAN Cooperation on Forestry) and 2009–2015 (Conceptual Framework for the Montréal Process Strategic Action Plan) with all relevant policy documents since the adoption of current policies. Based on that, we pose the empirical questions of how both regimes illustrate governance structure (i.e., institutional design), and on the other hand how to explain regime forest policies coherently and consistently in terms of their high versus low degree of formality. The results show that institutional design is highly explanatory based on treaty and non-treaty regime formation as well as forest-related/focused regime formation with the synergistic sustainable forest management (SFM) issue that embraces deforestation and forest degradation, biodiversity, timber certification, and greenhouse gas emission. Additionally, the results suggest that the policy goals adopted by both regimes are coherent and consistent based on the full set of policy elements. Concerning the remedy for fragmented global forest governance arrangements, both regimes would be an example of practicing SFM-focused policies with the incorporation of forest-related policy elements into a larger governance assemblage dealing with issues such as biodiversity conservation or climate change mitigation.
Sohui Jeon; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Lukas Giessen; Jeon; Kumar Sarker. The Forest Policies of ASEAN and Montréal Process: Comparing Highly and Weakly Formalized Regional Regimes. Forests 2019, 10, 929 .
AMA StyleSohui Jeon, Pradip Kumar Sarker, Lukas Giessen, Jeon, Kumar Sarker. The Forest Policies of ASEAN and Montréal Process: Comparing Highly and Weakly Formalized Regional Regimes. Forests. 2019; 10 (10):929.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSohui Jeon; Pradip Kumar Sarker; Lukas Giessen; Jeon; Kumar Sarker. 2019. "The Forest Policies of ASEAN and Montréal Process: Comparing Highly and Weakly Formalized Regional Regimes." Forests 10, no. 10: 929.
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.
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 StyleLukas 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 StyleLukas 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.