The Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) organized an inception workshop on Strengthening capacity for monitoring environmental emissions under the Paris Agreement with the technical support of FAO on 10 February 2019 at Ban Bhaban, Agargaon, Dhaka.
Monitoring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is crucial to support climate change mitigation and adaptation in Bangladesh. But lack of capacity hinders Bangladesh’s effort to effectively monitor the GHG emission in different sectors including agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), energy, waste and industrial processes and product use (IPPU).  At COP 21 in Paris, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reached a landmark agreement (known as Paris Agreement) to combat climate change and to accelerate the actions needed for a low carbon development.
One of the key achievements of the Paris Agreement is the establishment of an enhanced transparency framework for tracking and reporting the progress countries commitments in GHG emission reduction. Hence, the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) was established at the request of Parties to strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of non-Annex I countries to meet the enhanced transparency requirements defined in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. The purpose of the CBIT is to strengthen national institutions for transparency-related activities in line with national priorities, provide relevant tools, training, and support and assist in the improvement of transparency over time.
The proposed CBIT project of Bangladesh aims to strengthen institutional and human capacities to meet the enhanced transparency framework (ETF) and track the progress against priority actions identified in Bangladesh’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). With the Department of Environment (DoE) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) as executing partner, the GEF-6 has entrusted FAO for the preparation and implementation of the project: Strengthening capacity for monitoring environmental emissions under CBIT program.
The project inception workshop was organized with a view to sharing the objectives and deliverables of the project with stakeholder, take opinion on the project activities, and improve awareness about the importance of climate change related data sharing, archiving and management.
Mr. Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) was present in the event as the Chief Guest while Mr. Mohammed Shafiul Alam Chowdhury, Chief Conservator of Forests, Mr. Md. Mozahed Hossain, Additional Secretary (Development) of MoEFCC, and Mr. Robert Simpson, FAO Representative in Bangladesh graced the occasion as Special Guests. Dr. Nurul Quadir, Additional Secretary, MoEFCC chaired the workshop.
Mr. Mirza Shawkat Ali, Director (Climate Change & International Convention) of DoE stated in his opening speech that, as a signatory of UNFCCC, Bangladesh has to submit biannual report on GHG inventory and national communication every five years. The CBIT project will play an imperative role through the technical capacity building of DoE, he opined. Ms. Yurie Naito, Programme Officer of FAO-GEF unit highlighted the overview of GEF-CBIT Programme and Dr. Henry Matieu, Chief Technical Advisor of FAO explained the objective, component and expected deliverables the CBIT project of Bangladesh.
Mr. Robert Simpson, FAO Representative in Bangladesh gratefully appreciated the commitment from Government, partners and stated this project to be the first capacity building initiative in GHG emission measurement and reporting and adaptation reporting to-date in Bangladesh. Mr. Md. Mozahed Hossain, Additional Secretary (Development) of MoEFCC remarked in this speech the lack of good databases related to the emission of AFOLU and waste sectors, the CBIT project will strengthen the institutional and individual capacities in Bangladesh to meet the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF). Mr. Mohammed Shafiul Alam Chowdhury, Chief Conservator of Forests expected that CBIT project will advance the integration of adaptation and mitigation activities at the operational level which will help meeting its overarching goal of NDC. Dr. Nurul Quadir, Additional Secretary, MoEFCC mentioned that transparency, monitoring and capacity are very important for Bangladesh where the CBIT project is based upon. He stressed for successful development of the CBIT project including all sectors responsible for GHG emission. Mr. Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, Secretary, MoEFCC uttered that strengthening individual and institutional capacities in Bangladesh is highly essential to meet ETF of Paris Agreement. He suggested to include transport, power and industry sectors in the CBIT project as highlighted in the Road Map and Action Plan for implementing Bangladesh NDC.
Through a group exercise, participants voiced their opinion about several key initiatives to make the successfully meet the ETF. For example, a common data sharing policy is required for the government entities and it was proposed that official agreements (MoU) and official request letters can be a better solution and remove many problems related to data sharing. All the group urged for a uniform data collection and archiving system which will help DoE to easily monitor, compile and report the GHG sectoral data.  Most of the group felt that the project should cover all the GHG emission sectors and in order to strengthen multisectoral coordination, there should be regularly arranged seminars and workshops to engage stakeholders.
Based on the outcome of the inception workshop the project proposal will be prepared and shared in a validation workshop. Then incorporating the final comments from GoB and stakeholder, the revised project proposal will be submitted to the GEF by the end of May 2019.