Bangladesh: Updating and Mainstreaming of National BD Strategy and Action Plan

Bangladesh is a party to the convention on biologcal diversity. Being a party, Bangladesh is globally committed to implement the obligations under the convention and decesions taken by the conference of the parties (COP). Bangladesh has developed its NBSAP during 2003-2004 and submitted to SCBD in 2006. Almost eight years have been passed, the country has developed the NBSAP and since then there are developments in terms of implementing some of the strategies defined in the NBSAP.

With the pace of continuous threats on our precious biodiversitydue to population pressure, unplanned urbanization and industrialization as well as climate change, there are knowledge and techonological developments how to conserve biodiversity. The conservation efforts implemented henceforth is not enough to address the rapid loss of Biodiversity. NBSAP once developed has not yet been mainstreamed in the development planning process of the country. The policy level is yet to be fully convinced about the contribution of ecosystem goods and services to the gross national economy and sustainability of the overall devleopment of the country. The knowledge and information gap on the biological resources or the natural capital is another striking area where the country needs energised efforts.

As there are changes in various dimensions with regards to biodiversity and its conservation, it is necessary to revisit the existing strategy and action plan on biodiversity and update the document in the line with the latest developments. This is also very important that the NBSAP earlier developed has not been mainstreamed into the development planning processes. It is well understood that if the NBSAP is not integrated into the planning process and mainstreamed into the policy level, it would not result in positive changes towards conservation of biodiversity. Moreover, Bangladesh has also to align NBSAP with the Aichi-Nagoya biodiversity strategic plan 2020 that has been undertaken in COP-10 of the convention on bilogical diversity. Keeping the view in mind, it is very essential that NBSAP has to be updated and mainstreamed with the policy level as well as planning system. Therefore, Bangladesh envisages to update all the elements of NBSAP and mainstreaming the same into the overall planning system.

In this backdrop, the project is envisaged to update the NBSAP with comprehensive participation of the stakeholders from every sector of developments which has interaction with biodiversity conservation. The project also seeks for developing Biodiversity Strategic Plan 2020 and mainstreaming the plan into the development planning process as well as at the policy level.