Turning national climate targets into local action in Bangladesh (LOCAT)

Institutional Component

• Inception workshops in Chapai Nawabganj and Sirajganj: engage municipal staff, citizen committees, political leaders, and representatives of vulnerable communities to align visions and priorities with assignment objectives
• Establishing and facilitating CCAP Steering Committee meetings to ensure governance continuity and accountability
• Conducting orientation sessions on CCAP methodology to build foundational institutional understanding
• Defining roles, responsibilities, and accountability mechanisms for implementing entities through workshop-based processes and standardised reporting formats
• Delivering CCAP capacity development sessions for each partner city, building long-term local ownership and institutional sustainability

Technical Component

• Reviewing data sufficiency and existing sources, including historical climate data, socio-economic indicators, and environmental and biodiversity datasets
• Conducting ward-level consultations to capture community-level climate vulnerabilities
• Assessing biodiversity and ecologically significant areas, mapping exposure hotspots, ecological zones, and sensitive population groups
• Evaluating air, water, soil, and noise quality and assessing solid waste, water, wastewater, food, and energy management
• Preparing Climate Change Vulnerability and Risk Assessment reports, integrating climate risk mapping, adaptation and mitigation inventories, biodiversity profiles, and socio-economic vulnerability analysis
• Developing prioritisation criteria (cost, urgency, feasibility) and cost-benefit analyses for selected adaptation actions
• Conducting participatory planning workshops, explicitly involving women, youth, and vulnerable groups in co-design processes
• Facilitating validation and scenario-planning sessions to stress-test city-wide climate risk management strategies
• Developing detailed CCAP Implementation Plans with timelines, division of labour, budget estimates, and funding strategies
• Designing Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) frameworks and indicators, incorporating adaptive management and feedback loops
• Producing finalised CCAPs for both partner cities, including all annexes, in both Bangla and English, with full handover of source data, visuals, and databases in editable formats
• Organising national-level and city-level sharing workshops to disseminate final CCAPs, lessons learnt, and recommendations

Impact

• Stronger Institutions: National and local administrations in two Bangladeshi cities, Chapai Nawabganj and Sirajganj, will have enhanced capacity to develop and implement CCAPs aligned with the NAP, contributing to a measurable improvement in sub-national climate governance.
• Community reach: Ward-level consultations will engage up to 1,500 community representatives across 30 wards, ensuring that local adaptation priorities reflect the needs of the most vulnerable groups, including women and youth.
• Policy coherence: The project directly advances Bangladesh's NAP implementation, contributing to national commitments under the Paris Agreement and supporting progress on four UN SDGs.
• Long-term sustainability: By embedding MEL frameworks, adaptive management mechanisms, and local ownership processes, the project ensures that climate action planning capacity persists beyond the project cycle.
• Nature-positive approach: The integration of nature-based solutions (NbS) and ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) into CCAPs supports biodiversity conservation alongside climate resilience, reflecting international best practice in urban adaptation planning.