DS and YPSA Urge Bangladesh Government to do More to Assist Climate Displaced Communities
Displacement Solutions (DS) recently completed its fourth visit to Bangladesh in conjunction with its Bangladesh Climate Displacement and HLP Rights Initiative. Working closely with Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), DS met with a range of senior Government officials and representatives including Sree Nani Gopal Mondol, Member of Parliament, Khulna-1, Dr. S M Munjurul Hannan Khan, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forest and Mr. Mohammad Abdul Wazed, Director General, Disaster Management Bureau, urging the Government do be more pro-active in its efforts to protect the HLP rights of climate affected communities throughout the country.
In addition, DS and YPSA discussed the climate displacement crisis in Bangladesh with senior media figures, academics, UN officials and other stakeholders to discuss the work that DS and YPSA have undertaken on climate displacement to date and to advocate for a rights based approach to developing and implementing solutions for climate displaced persons.
In response to these discussions, DS was directly requested by a number of senior Government officials to provide further technical expertise and cooperation in resolving climate displacement across the country. In response, DS is currently preparing a number of proposals for further engagement on this issue.
DS and YPSA will shortly be published three major research projects carried out during the past year that look at the land dynamics of resolving growing climate displacement in Bangladesh.
During the remainder of 2013, the DS Bangladesh HLP Initiative will carry out research identifying government factors responsible for the resolution of climate displacement in the country, provide growing legal assistance to local organisations to better support climate affected communities and a range of additional measures with our civil society partners and the Government of Bangladesh to find urgent housing, land and property rights solutions for the current and future millions of climate displaced people across Bangladesh.