Climate Change and Migration in Bangladesh: Enhancing The Local Government’s Adaptive Capacity Throughout A Participatory Budgeting Process
- August 14, 2019
- Posted by: RSIS
- Category: Geography
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue VIII, August 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186
Abul Kasem Mohammad Muksudul Alam
Department of Geography, Environment and Population, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, The University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Abstract- Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Due to the geographical location and being a riverine country, it faces various natural disasters. Migration has become an adaptation and survival strategy when natural disasters strike and peoples’ livelihoods are damaged or threatened. Black et al. (2013) predicted that in Bangladesh alone, 26 million people would be likely to be displaced by 2050 as a result of floods and storms induced by climate change. In coastal and river bank regions, poor citizens rely on government support and assistance after losing their livelihoods. The Bangladeshi local government’s lowest tier Union Parishad is closest to the poor and vulnerable people. Union Parishad is the only service delivery institution in Bangladesh where impoverished people can easily access help and support. But historically, the Union Parishad has not provided adequate support to the vulnerable citizens during natural disasters. This research aims to support climate migrants and locally resettled victims of climate change by applying the Union Parishad budgetary intervention. Participatory Budgeting is a very successful method to establish financial democracy. The Brazilian intervention has been widely exported from Latin America all over the globe. This process is exceedingly beneficial to citizens as it requires their participation and involvement in the budget planning and formulation process. Thus, the budget is people-oriented. Since Bangladesh’s budget figures are hidden within unseen documents, the introduction of Participatory Budgeting within the Union Parishad budget cycle will allow the figures to be more transparent. This research paper also reveals how the Participatory Budgeting process will have an active role in reducing climate migration through the efforts of the Union Parishad and its citizen’s active participation. The study attempts to understand this topic and tries to establish Participatory Budgeting in Bangladesh in order to reduce poverty and climate migration.
Keywords- Climate Change, Migration, enhance, local government, Adaptive capacity, participatory budgeting process.
