RAISING >2 BILLION HUMANS INTELLIGENCES BY 25 YEARS. After helping with recovery 1970 cyclone killing half a million of his compatriots, Fazle Abed was nearly assassinated by his employer Royal Dutch Shell and the Pakistani army. Fortunately he spent his remaining 50 years celebrating intelligence development of the poorest 2 billion parents notably growth of 1billiongirls. For over quarter of a century all networking was done by word of mouth and sight of book because in Asia 20th c village life still meant no access to electricity grids or telephone lines. Fortunately both Computing Whizs Jobs & Gates were both partly dis-satisfied with western apps of pc networks which they had begun in 1984. Around 2001 they both hosted silicon valley 65th birthday wish parties for Abed as global village tech envoy. Partners in life critical challenges had begun to bring abed's village mothers solar and mobile to co-create with. Abed changed the way Jobs saw tech futures of education (see ) and how Gates saw global health fund foundations and overall the valley's university stanford started to see as far as intelligence of Women and Youth goes the most life critical knowhow for 2 billion humans wasnt directly measurable in 90 day monetary flows; it was measurable in increased life expectancy by over 25 years during Abed's community servant leadership. Probably the greatest lift in intelligence until celebrations of what Fei-Fei Li opened the worlds eyes to in 2012, and Melinda Gates and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were first to helped AIforall lift since 2014.

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

5.5 brac worlds largest ngo adaptability collaboration - state as at madrid cop end 2019

 Liakath Ali, Director of the Climate Change Programme in BRAC [image by: Joydeep Gupta]

Going by the number of people involved as members or partners, BRAC is the world’s largest NGO. At the December 2-13 UN climate summit in Madrid, it announced that it will now tailor all its development programmes to minimise climate risk in Bangladesh. thethirdpole.net spoke to Liakath Ali, Director of the Climate Change Programme in BRAC, about the new plans of the organisation.

Excerpts:

Incorporating or mainstreaming climate change in development is the responsibility of governments; Why is BRAC taking on this responsibility?

The magnitude of the challenges posed by climate change needs action from all parties – both government and non-government – to solve the crisis and continue existence on the only planet we have got.  To make resilience mainstream is the key.

Since its inception BRAC has been working with the government of Bangladesh. The organisation has a reach of over 120 million people in Bangladesh and 11 other countries. We think mainstreaming climate resilience not the responsibility of governments only. It is our collective responsibility to face the biggest threat in human history.

What are the expected impacts of your new approach?

Conventional and business-as-usual approach in the development sector is not effective in overcoming the climate challenges. A comprehensive drive is a must. To do this in quick time and to cover more vulnerable people, mainstreaming is necessary. The concept of resilience talks about not only adaptation. It covers adaptive capacity, anticipatory capacity, adsorptive capacity and transformation. Through its various programmes, BRAC can do it faster than others.

For example, if we think of providing livelihood support without considering future climate change impacts, the support may not attain its objectives. If the climate change impacts are considered from the very beginning then the support could be more effective.

How are you mainstreaming climate resilience in your projects?

The most important initial action in mainstreaming is to assess organisational readiness, followed by proper capacity building, appropriate activity designing and allocating resources. BRAC has done an in-depth assessment of its readiness in mainstreaming climate change, formulated related policies such as BRAC climate change strategy, environmental and social safeguards, and an environmental policy. It also tries to align with governments’ policies, strategies and plans to deal with climate change.

The organisation has been doing capacity building of its staff. Right at the project design stage, we screen programmes through a climate lens. All programmes are made climate smart so that they are sustainable.

How many people have you reached? What is your target?

In 2018 alone, we reached 1.7 million people in around 336,000 households through integrated climate-resilient solutions. In 2020, the figure will reach 2.65 million.

Can you explain the services through which you are reaching people?

We support people with adaptive and climate resilient water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, low cost resilient housing in urban and rural contexts, adaptive agricultural technologies, and livelihood options. We also provide climate information in our education curriculum, plant trees and provide solar home systems. We connect people to access finance, build capacity of our staff and create awareness. We are building capacity among the communities we work. We focus on working with the youth, our future leaders who will have to tackle climate change.

What are the challenges you face?

We are working in a dynamic situation. Sea level rise, salinity, frequency and magnitude of the climate-related disasters like floods and cyclones are increasing. Finding appropriate technology in every context is a big challenge. Another big challenge is to find money for climate-resilient projects. Yet another is the absence of long-term climate impact projections at a local scale. Due to this, it becomes more difficult to plan climate-resilient projects. For example, the Haor (wetland) areas in [north-eastern] Bangladesh usually experience flash flood in mid-May. But in 2017, the region had flash floods three weeks earlier, when around a million farmers were waiting to harvest their only crop. Two million tons of foodgrains were damaged. If we had known about this possibility, we may have advised farmers to sow crops that mature faster.

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