Economy of climate change: Food security, social protection and health

�Food security, social protection and health' are the strategic areas of those 44 programmes which are set by The Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). These programmes are set to be executed by Bangladesh over the short, medium and long term within six strategic areas.

The poorest and most vulnerable people in society including women and children have to be protected from climate change to ensure that. All those programmes focus on the needs of this group for food security, safe housing, employment and access to basic services, including health. Food security, social protection and health are the first pillar among 6 pillars of climate change action plan which consists of 9 programmes.
Analysis of budget allocation for climate change:
The climate related allocation was TK.14,323.1 crore in absolute terms in FY2016-17 which stood at TK.24,225.7 crore in FY2020-21. It is observed that climate allocation has increased in development budget by around 146%. The government's commitment to use climate allocation during this period clearly has been reflected here.

The distribution of allocation as per the BCCSAP thematic areas in FY2020-21 is further distributed across six thematic areas where the largest share of 41.25% goes to food security, social protection and health. The decline of budget allocation in BCCSAP thematic area of food security, social protection & health after 2016-17 can be observed but again it increased in the FY2020-21.

Now let's analysis the 9 programmes under the implemented projects by trustee board from 2009-10 to 2019-20. In this writing, we have tried to estimate an approximate costing of all the approved projects since 2009 which are linked to each of the 9 programmes of food security, social protection and health which include or aimed to target the 9 programmes mentioned in the figure.

Around 120 projects are detected under these programmes. The highest cost can be observed in 37 projects taken under Water & Sanitation Programme in climate vulnerable areas. According to the World Bank, Bangladesh has made significant progress in reducing open defecation. It decreased from 34 per cent in 1990 to just one percent of the national population in 2015. But the current rate of improved sanitation is 61 per cent, which is growing at only 1.1 per cent annually. Ensuring both safe water and sanitation successfully is one of the major achievements of Bangladesh Government.

But on the other hand, lowest cost is observed in only 2 projects taken under adaptation against draught. In a study, it was calculated that the highest loss due to drought is faced by paddy. The result indicated about 53.33% production of paddy was reduced significantly whereas the production of potato, jute, onion and bean were decreased 13.33%, 26.66%, 6.66% and 4% respectively due to drought in the north-western region of Bangladesh. Droughts cause annual damages of 2.32 million hectares crop production.

That study shows that the drought in Rangpur division is incurring a loss of TK 10,000 (USD 150) every year in only three unions. If we observe all the 9 programmes, adaptation in health sector is one of the most important programmes. Only 5 projects have been taken under it and also, cost is much lesser as well.

In that case, WHO provided the most concerning news, that is, climate change can lead to approximately 2,50,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress and the direct damage costs to health(excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as agriculture, water, sanitation etc). It is estimated that around USD 2-4 billion/year by 2030 is required in health infrastructure - mostly for developing countries (i.e. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal). Undoubtedly it will be hard to cope up with.

All the programmes and projects under this pillar mainly focus on to overcome agricultural& other challenges that come across to ensure food security, social protection and health for climate change effects. But problems arise when the presence of asymmetric information is found in the market system. Government food subsidies may fail to reach the poor. The privatization of the seed sector becomes meaningless in relation to food security if it can't ensure that the public-private partnership is able to provide quality seeds to the farmers at affordable prices.

The lack of agricultural governance may create a dominant group in the "water market", which can lead to the exploitation of small farmers. Privatization of irrigation without control or regulation of the market or lack of governmental monitoring may produce a very costly irrigation system in Bangladesh. So, these are some of the root problems that become obstacles in the programmes and projects to be executed properly for achieving optimum outcome. To face the climate change effects, ensuring the efficiency of projects and programmes are very important to save the people from hunger by ensuring food, nutrition and social protection.
The writers are students, Department of Environmental and Resource Economics, Dhaka School of Economics