Dhaka, 14th August 2012. Today seven civil society climate networks and ten non government organizations (NGO) in a human chain in front of national press club has demanded full transparency and policies in NGO funding from Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF). They have also criticized government for a top down and bias process in this regard. The human chain has moderated by Mustafa Kamal Akanda of EquityBD, other speakers of the rally were Prodip Kumar Roy of Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihood, Badrul Alam of Bangladesh Krishok Federation, Mahbub Haque of Bangladesh Centre for Human Rughts and Development, Mizanur Rahman Bijoy of Network on Climate Change Bangaldesh, and Rezaul Karim Chowdhury of EquityBD.
Participating seven networks are BAPA, CSRL, CCDF, EquityBD, CFGN, NCCB, BIPNetCCBD, and other ten organizations are OKS, BKF, Arpon, Kishani Sohva, DCI, VOICE, Prodip, Bangladesh Bhumihin Somiti, Manush Manusher Jonno and United People Trust.
Prodip Kumar Roy of CSRL has said that during March 2011 government has declared to give climate financing to 53 NGOs, whom has been widely criticized by media and civil society, later government has postponed the disbursement and declared that it will be reviewed. Later during September 2011 in a circular government said it will form a committee to review the decision. But so far there are confusion, he apprehend that government might has already distributed money to the NGOs from the trust fund, civil society groups tried as best to know the details, but hardly any body giving information.
Mizanur Rahaman Bijoy of NCCB, criticized government that in fact it has no criteria and policies for NGO selection. He demand a concrete policy declaration in this regard, which should be bottom up, i.e., government must select NGOs based on fair governance, existence and proven commitment, then in next stage they should be trained and given time to go to grass root to discuss on project formulation. He criticized government as the present process like giving “contractor ship” to NGOs, he term the process is to make the NGOs corrupted and thereby to benifit bureaucrats and corrupt politicians.
Badrul Alam of BKF demanded that the NGOs who got the funding they must declare their detail project information in public domain especially to media. Rezaul Karim Chowdhury of EquityBD said that government must not loss the opportunity to set good example in NGO climate finance, he demand all the climate fund especially both BCCTF and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilenc Fund (BCCRF) should be through a single channel which should a autonomous foundation with democratic ownership, where board will be represented by both government and opposition representatives including civil society and media.
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