Received: 30 December 2020
DOI: 10.1111/grow.12482
|
Revised: 22 January 2021
|
Accepted: 2 February 2021
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Assessment of environmental governance in disaster
vulnerability context of rural Bangladesh
Md Nazirul Islam Sarker1
| Jing Wen2 | Bo Yang3,4
Shaheen Yusufzada4 | Nazmul Huda5 | Farzana Mahbub6
1
School of Political Science and Public
Administration, Neijiang Normal
University, Neijiang, China
2
Sichuan IOT Environmental Technology
Co. Ltd, Chengdu, China
3
Sichuan Radio and TV University,
Chengdu, China
4
School of Public Administration, Sichuan
University, Chengdu, China
5
Department of Humanities, Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology,
Dhaka, Bangladesh
6
Faculty of Business Administration,
Eastern University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Correspondence
Bo Yang, Sichuan Radio and TV
University, Chengdu, China.
Email: 275931659@qq.com
|
Abstract
Bangladesh faces many climate-­driven hazards due to its
geophysical position and is more vulnerable than most developing countries. The natural resources-­based livelihood
of the riverine island (char) dwellers is frequently hampered
by the adverse effect of environmental changes. This study
intends to assess the status of environmental governance
for protecting disaster-­prone communities in Bangladesh.
Geographically isolated disaster-­prone riverine island areas
of northern Bangladesh have been purposively selected for
this study. A qualitative method has been applied to explore
the extent of governmental intervention. The intervention of
environmental governance has been measured by assessing
the role of government in disaster management by engaging
with a state, market, and community for char community.
In addition, secondary data were used to substantiate the
argument. This study reveals that environmental governance initiatives are not enough to protect char dwellers from
frequent hazards and fail to ensure livelihood resilience.
The status of environmental governance in char areas is
very poor, weak, inactive, and unable to address the present problem and future challenges. The article suggests that
a comprehensive disaster management strategy should be
implemented in the char areas through strengthening local
government capacity.
Jing Wen is a Co-­first author.
Growth and Change. 2021;00:1–17.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/grow
© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
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SARKER et al.
IN T RO D U C T ION
Environmental governance is a key tool of public administration for ensuring better disaster management
in disaster-­prone areas in the world. Environmental governance means the system of decision making
focusing on the control and management of natural resources and environment. It focuses on rights like
public participation, access to information, and justice (Huq et al., 2020). It deals with the rules and practices related to the environment like use, conservation, exploitation, and protection of natural resources.
It also helps to coordinate the activities of various stakeholders and facilitates interaction among stakeholders through formal and informal rules and regulations. Bangladesh is known as disaster-­vulnerable
country due to its regular disaster events. The low sea level position makes Bangladesh vulnerable to all
types of natural hazards, particularly for coastal and riverine island (char) communities (Islam, 2018).
About 27 million people in Bangladesh are under risk due to rising sea levels by 2050 (IPCC, 2014). A
major part (67%) of Bangladesh has a low elevation (below 5 m) that makes it susceptible to natural
hazards. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), vulnerability focuses
on the “propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected” (IPCC, 2014).
Environmental vulnerability is the exposure to natural hazards due to its effect on millions of people
in the world (Adger, 1999). Sensitivity focuses on the ultimate result of dependency on the environment
for food, shelter, and livelihood, geographical isolation, limited access to social participation, and financial matters (Sarker et al., 2020). Adaptive capacity means the capability of an individual, group, or
community to make resilience to changing conditions by using livelihood capitals and resources. A vulnerable community is always under risk, threats, and challenges, while a resilient community can create
a sustainable future (Fan et al., 2018). Environmental governance can help to make the vulnerable community more resilient by utilizing resources like technological resources, knowledge, and governance.
The World Bank (2006) considered Bangladesh as a victim of a degraded environment. Riverine
island (char) areas are the places in the river bed that have emerged due to frequent riverbank erosion and deposition of silt and alluvium. A char is a place of about 6.5 million resource-­poor people
who frequently face various natural hazards. The identification of location-­specific adaptation strategies requires knowing the extent of hazard vulnerability and its related governmental intervention
(Ehler, 2003). The major natural hazards in the char areas are recurrent flood, riverbank erosion,
drought, high temperature and heavy in summer season, crops, and livestock diseases infestation. It
damages livelihood assets of the char dwellers which make them vulnerable and reduce their resilience
against environmental effects. The initiative of environmental governance usually considers the local
adaptation strategies, local people's opinions, social justice, ensuring property rights, accountability
and transparency of service providers, and market and financial flows to address the vulnerability
(Bhuiyan et al., 2017; Li et al., 2018). Public administration, environmentalist, agriculture, and economics scholars usually considered climate vulnerability is a major problem in Bangladesh and ensuring environmental governance could be a best solution to address the vulnerability challenges and
ensuring resilience (Ansari, 2013; Sarker et al., 2020). Environmental governance in the char areas
was not focused properly in the existing literature. Due to the importance of the concept, especially in
the context of the vulnerability of the char area, this research considered it as an urgent matter to study.
1.1
|
Institutional initiative for environmental governance in Bangladesh
Environmental governance is a process to manage environment-­related policies, rules, regulations,
knowledge, decision making, and institutions. It is actually a set of institutional process, mechanisms,
SARKER et al.
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and management which managed by public and private actors (Sultana & Thompson, 2010). It focuses
on political–­economic relationships regarding environmental matters. The environmental governance
system varies from country to country on the basis of context. The major climate change effects in
Bangladesh are recurrent floods, riverbank erosion, drought, salinity intrusion, cyclones, and tornadoes
(Parvin et al., 2018). About 20% of the total area in Bangladesh is flooded regularly every year.
The char dwellers are the victims of the regular floods, riverbank erosion, and other natural hazards.
Environmental management is a prior issue of the government to protect the vulnerable people in
Bangladesh (Mattor et al., 2014). The government of Bangladesh has already introduced a national
environmental policy and plan. The policy and plan are regularly updated by the government for
proper implementation at field level. But one or two departments are not enough to implement the
environmental governance rather it requires cross-­sectional attention from various agencies of the
government and private sector. Table 1 shows the institutions of the government of Bangladesh which
are responsible for the environmental governance of the country.
1.2
|
Environmental policy framework in Bangladesh
The government of Bangladesh has a number of rules, regulations, and laws for managing environmental issues. The policy framework comprises plan, policies, and guidelines to implement, control, monitoring, evaluation, and management of environmental matters. The government has already
declared four successive Five-­Year Plan, for example, Fourth Five-­Year Plan (1990–­1995), Fifth
Five-­Year Plan (1997–­2002), Sixth Five-­Year Plan (2011–­2015), and Seventh Five-­Year Plan (2016–­
2020). The major environmental issues of the above Five-­Year Plan are pollution control, degradation
of soil, air, and water control, strengthening the capacity of public and private actors, eco-­friendly activities promotion, natural resource conservation, community-­oriented environmental resource management, and raising public awareness. The major environment-­related policies of the government of
Bangladesh are shown in Table 2.
Multiple Environmental Agreements (MEAs) are the key tool for implementing environment-­
related laws and regulations. It helps to manage the environmental-­related issues at a global level.
Bangladesh is already a member of some MEAs and has already adopted the international environment-­
related law, policies, and customized it in the country's context. The major principles of environmental
governance are as follows:
• Integrating the environmental policies in all stages of decision making and implementation.
• Considering all areas as a subset of the environment.
• Emphasizing the interrelationship between the ecosystems and people where they live.
• Encouraging the transformation from linear systems to circular systems.
Although few research works have already been done by some researchers on climate change-­
related issues in Bangladesh (Abid et al., 2016; Islam et al., 2014, 2020; Karim & Thiel, 2017; Miah
et al., 2010; Rahman, 2018; Sarker et al., 2003), scientific work on environmental governance in
riverine island (char) areas in Bangladesh is still lacking. The present study focuses on the role of
environmental governance on climate vulnerable community in Bangladesh by assessing existing
governmental measures. This study intends to assess the status of environmental governance in the
riverine island areas for protecting against the climate change vulnerability.
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SARKER et al.
TABLE 1
Responsible institutions for environmental governance
Sl no.
Name of the institution
Year of establishment
Major tasks
1
Ministry of environment
1989
Management of environment and ecology
Pollution control and conservation of
natural resources
Research and training of the related
persons
2
Department of Environment
1979
Suitable use of land, water, and
biodiversity
Connecting related stakeholders including
NGO, the private sector, and people
3
Department of Forest
1976
Forest resource conservation
Protection of biodiversity
4
Bangladesh Forest Research
Institute
1955
Bangladesh National
Herbarium
2006
6
Bangladesh Forest
Industries Development
Corporation
1992
Providing technical support to the private
sector for rubber plantation
7
Disaster Management
Bureau
1992
Holistic approach for disaster
management
8
Bangladesh Water
Development Board
2000
Implement state water policy for ensuring
water management
9
Water Resources Planning
Organization
2007
Act as a clearinghouse of water-­related
projects
5
Develop appropriate technology
Natural resource conservation
Develop plant genetic resources
Conservation of plant biodiversity
Source: Author's compilation, 2018.
The rest of this paper is divided into several parts. The second and third parts deal with the review
of literature and methodology. The fourth part describes the result and discussion and the final part
concludes the article with recommendations.
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L IT E R AT U R E R E V IE W
In the global context, the published scholarship on environmental governance in the aspect of climate
change is increasing but there is still lacking quality research on environmental governance from the
perspective of geographically isolated areas. Governance is a process of values, policies, and institutions by which a community can manage its affairs regarding social, economic, and political matters
by creating interactions among the state, civil society, and private sector (UNDP, 2016). The government of a country is the responsible authority to conduct the governance system. Environmental
governance is a key or priority sector of a government. According to Shinn (2016), environmental governance is directly related to coherent institutional integration and sustainable development.
Environmental governance deals with processes like rules, regulations, values, norms, procedures,
stakeholders, and organizations to manage and protect the environment (Vatn, 2018). It also provides
SARKER et al.
TABLE 2
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Environmental policies in Bangladesh
Sl no.
Policy name
Time
Major summary
1
National environment policy
1992
Management of ecological balance
and natural disasters
Control of pollution and
environmental degradation
Promoting environment-­friendly
activities and sustainability
2
National environment management Action
Plan
1992
Control rapid environmental
degradation
Coordination committee for better
action
3
Environmental Conservation Act
1995
Develop environmental standard
Control and migration of pollution
4
Environment Conservation Rules (ECR)
1997
Lunching pollution control plants
Initiating environmental quality
standard
5
Environment Court Act (ECA)
2000
Lunching court in every division for
controlling environmental offenses
6
Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and
Action Plan (BCCSAP)
2009 to 2018
Strategy for environmental
management
Area-­oriented action plan to control
pollution and environmental
degradation
Strengthening the capacity of actors
Source: Author's compilation, 2018.
Promoting resilience to manage
challenges of climate change
an institutional framework with different stakeholders so that they can easily manage environmental
matters (Plummer & Armitage, 2010).
Generally, governance focuses on the interactions between the public authority and other organizations, the interrelationship between citizens and government agencies, and decision-­making related
to public welfare. Generally, there are three main groups of actors who act for the proper governance
system: government, civil society, and private sectors (Ortmann, 2017). Since environmental issues
are large issues, environmental governance is a mandatory tool for a government system to conserve,
utilize, and protection of natural resources and environment (Bergsten et al., 2019). It helps to integrate the three main actors to the proper use of natural resources and protect the environmental
resources (Guttman et al., 2018; Islam, 2018). There should be a defined policy and guideline to
use environmental resources and coordination among the various stakeholders (van der Molen, 2018;
Shinn, 2016).
Public participation is one of the major elements of environmental governance for ensuring social
justice (Sarker et al., 2020). It is generally a two-­way relationship between the citizens and the government. Another stakeholder of the governance system ensures the practices of environmental governance. According to Li et al. (2018), climate change governance is not actually entirely new concept
and it exists with the governance system with other setting but needs to emphasize the environment
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sector for ensuring climate sustainable government. Environmental governance largely deals with an
adaptation of climate change and mitigation. The adverse effect of climate change may lead to complex societal problems especially in the geographically isolated areas like damages of house, assets,
infrastructure, and other communication means. The possible effect of climate change requires various stakeholders, localized policies, and strategy and coordination among various partners to mitigate
it (Vatn, 2018).
Rural development is the key to the sustainable development of a country. Environmental governance plays a vital role for rural development particularly for hazard-­prone areas (Deng et al., 2019).
In developing countries, rural areas are facing a number of natural hazards caused by the adverse effects of climate change (Bennett & Satterfield, 2018). Governance has a vital role to manage hazards
by context-­specific policy decision and implementation of necessary project to reduce vulnerability of
people living in disaster-­prone rural areas (Martens et al., 2020). Natural hazards cause a huge loss for
resource-­poor char dwellers who are living in char areas surrounded by rivers (Saha, 2017). They also
disrupt social networks and make char dwellers vulnerable. As a regulatory process, environmental
governance can intervene to reduce char dwellers' vulnerability (Lemos & Agrawal, 2006). Since it
encompasses various actors like the state, community, and market, it can trace the responsible factors
of vulnerability and take necessary actions to enhance resilience of char dwellers against hazard vulnerability (Keune et al., 2014). Many researchers have already used various indicators of environmental governance to explain vulnerability related to climate change (Souza, 2017) and natural hazards
and recommended suitable indicators (Corral & Acosta, 2017; Lemos & Agrawal, 2006; Pillay &
Buschke, 2020; Shinn, 2016; Vatn, 2018). This study finds that a significant number of published
papers emphasizes main three domains of environmental governance such as state, community, and
market domain that are largely connected to the natural hazard-­prone riverine island areas. Similarly,
a large number of studies also mention few components of environmental governance such as people's
participation, justice, accountability and transparency, land rights, market and financial flows, risks,
and integration of various sectors and institutions. This study uses all the available domains and components to assess the intervention of environmental governance in the char areas.
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3.1
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M ATE R IA L S A N D ME T HODS
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Locale of the STUDY
The riverine islands (chars) were purposively selected due to their geographical features and representative nature of other hazard-­prone areas (Figure 1). Respondents were interviewed from two local
administrative units (upazila) comprising 17 villages under Gaibandha district in Bangladesh. The
study areas are situated in one of the largest rivers (Jamuna River) in Bangladesh where about 45% of
the total char dwellers live. The physical, social, and cultural heritages of the char dwellers of these
areas are similar to the people living in other char and coastal areas.
3.2
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Population and sampling procedure
This study considered all the households of the study areas as population. It also selected few community leaders, NGO workers, and local representative as key informants for cross checking of the
data obtained from focus group discussion and face-­to-­face interview. This study obtained an updated
list of 5,666 households from local administration during the survey period. A multistage sampling
SARKER et al.
FIGURE 1
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Two local administrative units of the study areas in Bangladesh
approach was applied to select the samples. The number of sample was calculated by following
Yamane (1967) as follows:
n=
N
1 + Ne2
where n = sample size, N = population, and e = confidence interval.
n=
n=
N
1 + Ne2
5666
1 + 5666 × (0.05)2
n = 373.62.
Therefore, 374 households were selected as the sample in this study.
3.3
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Data collection
Data were collected from the household heads by using different types of data collection tools like
questionnaires and FGD and PRA checklists. The data were collected from 374 riverine island (char)
household heads, 16 community leaders, and 8 NGO workers. A qualitative method was employed
for the collection of data from January to August 2017. Necessary pretesting of data collection instruments was made for obtaining reliable data for the study. A questionnaire was designed and piloted in
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order to generate information on environmental governance (Fielding, 1993). The questionnaire was
contained questions related to various indicators of environmental governance. Accordingly, 17 FGDs
were done covering all of the study villages consisting of 10–­12 household heads in each FGD, and
two PRA exercises were carried out with the same FGD participants for getting the status of environmental governance situation in the study areas. Institutional capacity and governance challenges were
obtained from key informant interviews of 24 key informants.
|
3.4
Approach to measure environmental governance
This study considered the policy options, service delivery process, power dynamics, and process of
inclusiveness and related governance matters in a holistic perspective for assessing the extent of environmental governance. According to Pandey (2015), governance challenges and intervention should
be measured by analyzing policy options, implementation, and inclusiveness consisting of accountability, transparency, and peoples’ participation in the governing process. This study follows these three
measures in light of the knowledge of public administration for assessing the governance challenges
and institutional response related to environment in the char areas. The current domain of environmental governance addresses political challenges, social challenges, and environmental challenges.
In the case of char areas, this study focuses on the state, community, market, and climatic issues with
their possible indicators to assess the overall environmental governance status. The political domain of
environmental governance emphasizes the local people's participation in any decision-­making process
for disaster managements (Xie, 2016). The social domain focuses the social safety net program, food,
health, and social security, and livelihood and social networks (Pillay & Buschke, 2020). Similarly,
the market domain considers char dwellers' access to the market, finance, agricultural inputs, renewable energy, and government resources (Keune et al., 2014). A 4-­point scale was developed that ranged
from 0 to 3 denoting a no, low, medium, and high level of government intervention to enhance the
resilience of char households against vulnerability. A zero level indicates almost no intervention given
by the local agencies while lowlevels indicates 1 to 2 times every 2 months, medium indicates 3 to 5
times, and high means frequently based on necessity. This type of scale is popularly applied by other
scholars for assessing the extent of extension works by public agencies in rural areas (Oloruntoba &
Adegbite, 2007; Nwabugwu et al., 2019; Ugwuoke & Attamah, 2017).
|
3.5
Data analysis
The data obtained from 17 FGDs and 2 PRAs along with face-­to-­face interviews were summarized
carefully and sorted according to the objective of this study. SPSS was used to analyze the data
obtained from survey. The perception, opinion, and suggestions of the respondents were carefully
summarized and sorted according to the elements of environmental governance, major indicators, and
challenges of environmental governance in the char areas. The recommendations of solving environmental problems in the study area were also taken from the data obtained from respondents.
4
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R E S U LTS A N D D IS C U S S ION
The findings of the analysis are interpreted in four sections. The first and second section deal with
major domains and the element-­wise status of environmental governance in the char areas. The third
SARKER et al.
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section presents challenges and the fourth section focuses the possible ways for ensuring better environmental governance in char areas.
4.1
|
Interventions of environmental governance in char areas
The assessment of governance intervention has been done on the basis of several statements under
three major domains such as state, community, and market. The respondents were asked to give their
opinion and experience on statements related to environmental governance (Table 3). The summary
of the focus group discussions shows that there are almost no and low level of state intervention of environmental governance in the char areas. State-­level intervention comprises nine statements such as
flood management system, construction of road and dam, prevent unhealthy brick field, ensuring solar
energy, vehicle for transportation, training, agricultural input, and forestry that enhances transformative capacity of the char community (Mattor et al., 2014). The findings indicate that the transformative
capacity of the char community is poor and should be enhanced by state-­level environmental governance (Field & Kelman, 2018).
The community domain of environmental governance comprises 10 statements that usually show
the adaptive capacity of a community. The results indicate that only road and dam construction has a
moderate-­level intervention for ensuring protective measures for flood management. But other components have almost no or low level of intervention. There is no intervention by the government to
enhance community forestry by avoiding planting harmful trees like Eucalyptus. Some other components like community awareness of environmental issues, crop intensification, intercropping, weather
forecasting, access to local representative, and disaster preparedness have obtained low level of attention from government and private agencies (Lawless et al., 2020). The market domain comprises
nine statements that are related to resource allocation, eco-­friendly agriculture, access to solar energy,
planting materials, selling crops, fruits and timber to near market, tools of disaster management, and
availability of boat (Paul & Islam, 2015). The findings indicate that access to solar energy, selling
crops, fruits, and boats have moderate levels of intervention, while no access to get planting materials
for community forestry and resource allocation, eco-­friendly agriculture, selling timber, and tools
for disaster management have low levels of attention from public and private agencies (Kadfak &
Oskarsson, 2017). The overall condition of environmental governance intervention is not expected
level that shows the vulnerability situation of the char community. The government and private agencies should take initiative to develop the essential components of environmental governance through
char-­specific project to strengthen the resilience of char dwellers.
4.2
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Elements-­wise status of environmental governance in char areas
The respondents and key informants were asked to mention the major elements of governance for a
sustainable environment. They mentioned the following elements in the focus group discussions, all
the elements are not available in the government policy implementation. If the elements are considered for future program implementation, the program will be succeeded. All of the elements connect
various stakeholders to each other for better understanding, decision making, and proper implementation of the environment-­related program (Vatn, 2018). The major elements of climate vulnerable areas
are shown in Figure 2.
The key components of environmental governance are peoples’ participation, institutions and law,
justice, accountability and transparency, land rights and tenure, market and financial flows, risk, and
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FIGURE 2
Environmental governance in Riverine Island in Bangladesh
relationship with other sectors. The summary of the FGDs are presented in Table 4. The findings
reveal that most of the components obtain low status indicating char dwellers poor access to environmental governance process. Although public agencies have good institutions and law, its implementation is very poor in char areas. Similarly, other components also suffer due to poor implementation
strategy of government as well as corruption (Zhang et al., 2019).
4.3
|
Challenges of environmental governance in char areas
Char dwellers were asked to mention the challenges of ensuring better environmental governance in
the char areas. Most of the char dwellers mentioned that there were so many major institutional, economic, technical, and social barriers. In considering institutional aspects, it was revealed that there are
also major barriers in the allocation of the task, internal interactions, legislation, and staff sufficiency
in the government agencies. It was also found that the budget was not sufficient at the national and
international level. In considering technical aspects, the educational level, data availability, technical efficiency, and planning ability were not up to mark to deal with the governance issues related to
disaster management (Rahman, 2018). Similarly, it was also revealed that peoples’ social networks,
participation, awareness, and access to various resources were limited, which create a major barrier at
the char dwellers’ side (Table 5).
SARKER et al.
TABLE 3
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Major Interventions of environmental governance in char areas
Status
No
Low
Major dimensions
Indicators
State
Government's intervention to develop char's flood
management system
√
Construction of dam to protect riverbank
√
State's intervention to stop unhealthy brick field
√
Local administration's initiative to ensure solar electricity
√
Electricity-­based charging vehicles for transportation
√
Training for government agencies on environmental
protection issues
√
Training on disaster management by government agencies
√
Awareness building program for social forestry
Supplying plant material by local administration for
making green environment
Community
√
√
Community-­based initiative to create awareness about
environmental issues
√
Community-­based work for road and dam construction
Community initiative to make community forestry
particularly crop field border forestry or farm forestry
√
√
Crop intensification
√
Intercropping
Avoiding harmful plantation for society like Eucalyptus
tree
Market
√
√
Weather foresting
√
Availability of community radio
√
Community access to local representative for emergency
management
√
Usual community preparation for disaster management
√
Ensuring resource allocation by the government
√
Availability of environmentally friendly inputs for
agriculture
√
Availability of renewable energy sources like solar panel
for electricity
Availability of planting materials for community forestry
√
√
Access to selling crops to near market
√
Access to selling fruits to near market
√
Access to selling timber to near market
√
Availability of the tools for disaster management
Boat making facility to near market
Source: Based on focus group discussions, 2017.
Moderate
√
√
High
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| TABLE 4
SARKER et al.
Status of environmental governance in the char areas
Extent of intervention
Major indicators
No
Low
Peoples’ participation
Moderate
High
√
Institutions and law
√
Justice
√
Accountability and
transparency
√
Property/ land rights and
tenure
√
Market and financial flows
√
Science and risk
√
Integration into other sectors
√
Source: Based on focus group discussions, 2017.
TABLE 5
Institutional capacity assessment for environmental governance
Implementation aspect
Major barrier
Partial barrier
No
barrier
Institutional aspects
Allocation of tasks
√
Internal interaction
√
Legislation
√
Staff efficiency
√
Economic aspects
National funding
√
International funding
√
Technical aspects
Educational level
√
Data availability
√
Technical efficiency
Planning ability
√
√
Social acceptability
People's awareness
√
People's participation
√
Access to resources
√
Social network
Source: Based on the focus group discussions, 2017.
4.3.1
|
√
Institutional challenges
Bangladesh has yet to develop a coherent system of government and people-­centered development. The administrative system is cannot systematically handle all the climate-­related challenges
SARKER et al.
| 13
(Clemett, 2006). There is a local administration at the grass root level but it fails to handle the challenges due to lack of a lack of power to make rapid decisions. Most of the climate-­related challenges
happen in the rural, coastal, and riverine island areas. But the policy is made in the capital, Dhaka,
in a ministry of the government. That is why it is not a practical problem-­oriented approach. Due to
lack of focal institutional framework at the grass root level, most of the policy failed to achieve the
goals (Wakjira et al., 2013). The decision-­making procedure is top-­down. All the decisions, policies,
and project are planned and designed at the central level by some high level of officials (Koontz
et al., 2015). But the high-­level officials are not aware of the situation of the local level. They make
decisions hypothetically and most of the policies and decisions are not practical and problem oriented
(Toufique & Islam, 2014). That is why it fails in most cases.
There are some administrators doing their job at the local level by specifying a set-­specific department. Due to the lack of a legal framework, they are not bound to do the climate change vulnerability-­
related works. There is a tendency to avoid the task among the local administrators. On the other hand,
the planning commission is the sole authority to do plan but they have no local office to deal with the
matter (Hossan, 2014). A legal mandate is necessary to activate the local administration for proper
implementation of the government climate-­related project.
4.3.2
|
Economic challenges
Most of the private sector organization is profit oriented, they do not want to invest for local people
due to no benefit. There is no binding from the government to enforce them to invest in the climate-­
related project. Without legal binding, they do not invest in climate change-­related activities. The
government can make a rule or law to enforce them to provide a certain percentage for corporate
social responsibility (CSR), which would be helpful for execution of the project. The government of
Bangladesh is largely dependent on external donor fund. This kind of funding is not always fruitful,
sometimes donor pushes some conditions which are usually irrelevant, costly, and useless. As a result,
the project fails to achieve the desired output.
4.3.3
|
Technical challenges
It is observed that the implementation of the climate-­related program is very poor. Bureaucratic inefficiency is the main reason to fail the proper implementation. Besides, there is no coordination among
the actors in the local-­level actors. The evaluation and monitoring are almost absent on the local level.
Without proper monitoring and evaluation, no program can be implemented. The land use planning is
almost absent at the local level. The char dwellers are not aware of land use system because they have
no knowledge of it. There is no initiative from government agencies or other agencies to deal with the
matter (Toufique & Islam, 2014). It is not possible to protect land degradation and riverbank erosion
without proper planning and practices of land use.
4.3.4
|
Social challenges
Since the policy and decision are made at the central level, so local people have no access to give their
opinion. A successful plan is not made possible without bypassing a large number of people. People's
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| SARKER et al.
participation is almost absent in planning, monitoring, and evaluation (Bhandari, 2013). Local people
are usually used as laborers in the implementation stage of the climate-­related projects.
|
4.4
Pathways for implementing environmental governance
1. Environmental governance can empower and support community-­
based organizations to implement local-­
level accountability through:
a. Engaging with the related institutions among the public agencies, private sectors, and civil
society.
b. Addressing informal administrative decision-­making power structures at the local administrative
level.
c. Encouragement of the institutionalization of knowledge in local administrative organizations.
2. Environmental governance can facilitate horizontal and vertical placement by supporting the implementation of state environmental policies and regulation and improving the riverine island areas
through:
a. Strengthening the capacity of knowledge-­brokering agencies and initiatives to fill the gap between research, strategy, and practice and policy action in rural areas.
b. Engaging all related stakeholders working in char areas.
c. Establishing the frameworks for ensuring accountability and transparency at national and local
levels.
3. Environmental governance can strengthen the resilience of institutions in terms of extending their
decision-­making horizon through adopting a program-­based and impact-­focused approach as instead of a project-­based or output and outcome-­centered approach and supporting the integration of
up-­to-­date environmental and climate information. Collaboration is necessary among donors, civil
society, the private sector, and national and international institutions with the national government.
5
|
CO NC LUSION
The environmental governance system can provide a holistic solution for climate change vulnerability by bringing all the stakeholders in one platform. The assessment of the government intervention
at grass root level can help policymakers and public administrators plan their future in a sustainable
manner which can help them to avoid the adverse effect of climate change. This assessment will also
help the policymakers make a problem-­solving oriented policy. The study reveals that environmental governance in the riverine island areas is very weak, inactive, and unable to solve the existing
and future challenges of climate change. The study suggests that special attention be given by the
government to the hazard-­prone riverine island (char) in Bangladesh for improving food security,
health, water, sanitation, and shelter through enhancing adaptive capacity and reducing hazard sensitivity. Coordination is necessary among all stakeholders for effective environmental governance in the
char areas through ensuring access to information, local people's participation, and access to justice.
A comprehensive disaster management strategy should be implemented in the char areas through
strengthening the capacity of local government.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
SARKER et al.
| 15
DATA AVAILABILIT Y STATEMENT
Research data are not shared. Data will be available on request.
ORCID
Md Nazirul Islam Sarker
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8887-521X
Bo Yang
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2103-9310
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How to cite this article: Sarker MNI, Wen J, Yang B, Yusufzada S, Huda N, Mahbub F.
Assessment of environmental governance in disaster vulnerability context of rural Bangladesh.
Growth and Change. 2021;00:1–­17. https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.12482