Deadline: 21-Mar-2024
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking applications for a Cooperative Agreement from qualified International and/or Bangladeshi local entities to implement the USAID Enabling Environment for Climate Resilience Activity (EECRA) program.
Purpose
- This activity will support strengthening a policy environment and governance structure favorable for transformational changes in key systems aiming at net-zero emissions and a climate-resilient Bangladesh. This activity aims to catalyze long-term systemic shifts in Bangladesh’s economy, institutions, and governance structures through interventions such as enabling policy development, facilitating technology transfer, bolstering climate research, and catalyzing the scaling of climate actions.
- Fully addressing the climate crisis requires long-term, transformative changes that will affect every aspect of society and will be neither easy nor quick. USAID/Bangladesh will take a systems approach to these larger transformations in comprehensive and equitable ways that are locally led. USAID will seek to collaborate and coordinate with other developing partners to ‘solidify and scale relevant programs, initiatives, and results.
Funding Information
- Subject to funding availability, successful ongoing implementation, and at the discretion of the Agency, USAID intends to provide up to fifteen million ($15 million) in total USAID funding over a five (5) year period over two phases.
- The anticipated period of award is five (5) years. The start date will be upon issuance of the award.
Results Framework
- Goal: Support and Accelerate Bangladesh’s Transition to Net-zero, Climate-resilient Development Pathways
- Objective-1: Catalyzed Climate-positive Shifts in Policy Landscape
- Bangladesh has made impressive strides in creating a climate-action policy framework. Given the enormous scope of the climate challenge, this framework pursues a series of parallel goals, including resilience, adaptation, mitigation, capacity building, and climate finance. Despite these multiple goals, the policy framework demonstrates a reasonable level of coherence, particularly with respect to adaptation, by addressing multiple aspects of climate change and sustainable development. It integrates climate change considerations across various sectors, emphasizing the interconnectedness of climate adaptation and mitigation with social, economic, and environmental dimensions.
- Outcome (IR)-1.1: Supported Enabling Policy Development.
- Bangladesh has made significant and sustained progress on the development policy framework for climate action, and, as a result, policy gaps may be less pressing than the need to improve institutional capacity for the efficient implementation of existing policies and programs. Nonetheless, USAID Bangladesh’s needs assessment uncovered several areas of opportunity where additional plans and framework might further unlock the potential for climate action.
- Outcome (IR)-1.2: Strengthened Institutional Capacity.
- More than 25 national government organizations are now involved in climate change planning, with several GoB stakeholders coordinating those efforts. In recent years, Bangladesh has significantly strengthened its institutional capacity for national-level climate change planning. This includes establishing a series of dedicated units to address climate change, making significant efforts to reinforce human capacity, and working to mobilize, allocate, and manage financial resources for climate-related activities.
- Enhancing Local Government Institutional Capacity. The capacity to implement climate planning is supported by general institutional capacity, and as such, there is a need to support the institutional frameworks in which local governments operate. Critically, this activity will support local governments in strengthening their M&E systems to track the impact of climate finance investments.
- Access to Climate Finance. To support local public and private entities in climate finance, several measures can be taken to enhance their capacity to implement climate planning and access finance. One key intervention is to provide technical assistance and training programs to institutes on project design, proposal development, financial management, and reporting.
- Outcome (IR)-1.3: Advanced Climate Change Monitoring and Tracking
- A report for the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research highlighted the need to develop a detailed monitoring plan to track the implementation of the NDC and NAP at the national level16. In response, Bangladesh is working to establish a measurement, reporting, and verification system to maintain transparency in its mitigation efforts and outcomes.
- Bangladesh Climate Action Portal. To facilitate the objective above, the activity should assist the Department of Environment (DoE)/Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in establishing this repository of the country’s recent past, ongoing, and future conservation initiatives in line with national plans, existing funding pots, and future financing mechanisms.
- Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) System of Greenhouse Gas (GHG). To implement the NDC effectively, the activity should assist DoE/MoEFCC in updating the national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory system in Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), Agriculture, Forestry, and other Land use (AFOLU) and Waste sectors.
- Objective-2: Transformed Economic and Financial Systems
- USAID Bangladesh needs assessment identified three systems (agriculture, energy, and disaster risk management [DRM]) with an outsized potential to drive large-scale change in Bangladesh. Achieving systems change requires building an enabling environment for the financial and economic shifts that lead key sectors away from behaviors with negative externalities to practices, technologies, and behaviors that support climate resilience and low emissions.
- Outcome (IR)-2.1: Shifted Market Signals for Accelerated Adaptation.
- The MCPP and the BDP both articulate the goal of developing and using resilience bonds to promote accelerated adaptation. Resilience bonds have the potential to advance adaptation in several contexts, including by contributing to the transformation of the agricultural system by generating finance for climate-resilient infrastructure, incentivizing the adoption of climate-smart practices, enhancing risk management and insurance, and supporting research and development.
- Resilience Bonds. The activity should conduct financial and market analysis (e.g., market demand assessments, cost-benefit analyses, identifying potential investors) to assess the feasibility and attractiveness of resilience bonds, building on the recent experience of green bonds, in association with Bangladesh Bank/Sustainable Finance Department.
- Outcome (IR)-2.2: Incentivized Low-Carbon Economic Development.
- Bangladesh’s contribution to global GHG emissions is insignificant at just 0.4 percent. However, with its large population and fast economic growth, GHG emissions are expected to increase substantially. The country has shown increasing interest in pursuing a low-carbon development pathway in this context. Despite Bangladesh’s progress towards mitigation objectives, limited financial resources, weak enforcement of environmental laws, and a lack of awareness within both the public and private sectors limit progress.
- Carbon Market. Creating a domestic carbon market would incentivize low-carbon energy investments, encourage energy efficiency measures, foster renewable energy development, promote technology transfer and innovation, and shift investment patterns toward clean energy. As such, it could significantly impact the transformation of the energy sector.
- Outcome (IR)-2.3: Reinforced Disaster Risk Financing
- Despite significant efforts to advance DRM, it is still in the early stages of initiating risk-financing approaches for catastrophic events like cyclones, storm surges, and floods. As climate change affects Bangladesh, innovative financial solutions will increasingly be needed to build climate resilience and enable impacted individuals to rebuild their livelihood strategies immediately after a shock.
- Index Insurance. Bangladesh’s Index-based disaster risk insurance is evolving, and development partners piloted them in only a few sectors.
- Objective-3: Enhanced Governance and Citizen Engagement
- In Bangladesh, the power of decision-making for climate change policy largely rests with a small number of national-level actors. Several analyses described the context as marked by “elite pluralism” in which power, while somewhat dispersed, largely rests with a few national-level actors. Some describe this decision-making and governance of climate issues in Bangladesh as a state of “super-bureaucracy,” finding that the current arrangement does not sufficiently support innovative policymaking, inclusive participation, and collective decision-making.
- In general, women, youth, the rural poor, and indigenous groups may face challenges in participating in the climate change decision-making process due to limited access to information, limited time set aside for public consultation with these groups, limited capacity to engage effectively, and limited influence.
- Outcome (IR)-3.1: Improved Participatory and Inclusive Climate Sensitive Development Planning.
- Climate change planning in Bangladesh is top-down and not inclusive. This activity will facilitate prioritizing and elevating the voices of historically excluded communities, including marginalized and underrepresented groups disproportionately affected by climate change.
- Annual Development Planning (ADP). The primary opportunity to integrate inclusion and climate considerations into the development planning of Bangladesh is at the local level through the ADP process. The ADP lists projects to be implemented during a particular fiscal year. The
- Outcome (IR)-3.2: Facilitated Space for Coordination and Collaboration
- As shown by global experience, including in Bangladesh, operating spaces for collaboration and coordination can reduce gaps of knowledge and understanding among the stakeholders involved, guide dialogues based on evidence, increase trust among the concerned entities, and create opportunities for effective bilateral and multilateral climate change cooperation.
- Community of Practice. To advance climate change governance, the activity should strengthen Bangladesh’s selected communities of practice by supporting local institutions and facilitating collaboration with international entities.
- Outcome (IR)-3.3: Increased Transparency and Accountability of Climate Efforts
- Governance of climate efforts in Bangladesh, in terms of transparency and accountability of climate spending, could be significantly improved, despite increased efforts by the GoB and non-partisan organizations like Transparency International Bangladesh to track and monitor climate-relevant spending.
- Climate Change Trust Fund (CCTF). Bangladesh’s CCTF mobilizes and manages domestic resources to finance climate-related activities and acts as a catalyst for attracting additional investments. Given the important role that the CCTF plays as an engine for climate action in Bangladesh, the activity should support the evolution of a robust policy framework for the CCTF.
Eligibility Criteria
- This funding opportunity is open to all eligible U.S. and non-U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) entities (other than those from foreign policy restricted countries), including educational organizations and universities, and public international organizations, etc.
- Pursuant to Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 2 CFR 200.400(g), the non-Federal entity may not earn or keep any profit resulting from Federal financial assistance. While for-profit firms may participate, pursuant to 2 CFR 700.13(A)(1), Prohibition against profit, no funds will be paid as profit to any for-profit entity receiving or administering Federal financial assistance as a recipient or subrecipient, and as such, for-profit organizations must waive profits and/or fees to be eligible to apply.
- USAID welcomes applications from organizations that have not previously received financial assistance from USAID.
- Individuals are not eligible to apply.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.