Obhijojon Odhikar

Pilot Assessment and Interventions to Avert, Minimize Displacement in Climate Stressed Districts of Bangladesh (Obhijojon Odhikar)

Time Frame: 15th December 2023 – 30th October 2024
Supported by: The Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), and Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad)
In partnership with International Organization for Migration (IOM) and International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)

Bangladesh is particularly prone to the various consequences of climate change, such as floods, droughts, rising sea levels, and cyclones, due to its geographic location. Its low-lying coastal areas and high population density make it a vulnerable target for the environmental effects of climate change. For the last several years and decades, Bangladesh has put in great effort to become better equipped for disasters with a successful early warning and evacuation system in place at both national and local levels. Despite this progress, there is still a need for improvement in the capacities for managing population displacement resulting from disasters, to reduce the damage and losses to people and communities in the future.

The project aims to support measures to avert, minimize, and address displacement and its impacts on vulnerable people and communities. RMMRU will form Climate-displacement Rights Protection Committees (CRPC) in areas most vulnerable to disasters. The committee will work to raise awareness of climate impacts and displacement in these key locations, as well as to promote preparedness and response efforts.

 

RMMRU will collaborate with ICCCAD to evaluate the essential policy sectors and identify any shortcomings in addressing displacement. Additionally, the collaboration will create suggestions and propose ways to integrate displacement into these policies. RMMRU will support the Government in creating a template for national strategies on displacement, based on global policy standards. This template and its instructions could be a model and useful to other countries, in line with UNFCCC and CVF priorities.

The specific objectives of this project are:

  • Strengthen preparedness for disaster displacement in Bangladesh;
  • Integrate displacement into relevant policies and plans in Bangladesh.