The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2022-2026 was launched on 21 November 2021 by the Economic Relations Division of the Bangladesh Ministry of Finance and the UN Country Team (UNCT). The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF/ “Cooperation Framework”) represents the UN development system’s collective response to support Bangladesh in overcoming the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and addressing key development priorities and challenges to the achievement of the objectives of the 8th Five Year Plan leading to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, its SDGs, and the Perspective Plan for 2041. It transforms the way the United Nations development system in Bangladesh will undertake planning and programming cooperation and is the basis for all agency activities, joint and individual, within the country. Considering the impacts of COVID-19 and the potential change in the development finance landscape due to Bangladesh’s transition from the Least-Developed-Country (LDC) category in 2026, the UN has placed a particular emphasis on development effectiveness through different instruments in the Cooperation Framework. Five interrelated, mutually reinforcing and multisectoral Strategic Priorities (SP) were identified for the 2022-2026 Cooperation Framework where the United Nations development system will concentrate its expertise to support transformational and accelerated progress in sustainable development and contribute to the achievement of the SDGs by 2030: Strategic Priority 1: Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Development
Strategic Priority 2:  Equitable Human Development and Well Being
Strategic Priority 3:  Sustainable, Healthy and Resilient Environment
Strategic Priority 4:  Transformative, Participatory and Inclusive Governance
Strategic Priority 5:  Gender Equality and Eliminating Gender-Based Violence Through these Strategic Priorities, the United Nations will support the Government and the people in Bangladesh to accelerate evidence-informed approaches to inclusive, equitable, and sustainable human, social, economic, and environmental development. The Cooperation Framework upholds the principles of human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, resilience, and accountability, ensuring that “no one is left behind”, the guiding principle for all UN development system programme cooperation. The Honorable Minister of Finance A.H.M Mustafa Kamal, and Honorable Minister of Planning M.A. Mannan attended the launching and offered remarks. Opening statements were delivered by Ms. Fatima Yasmin, Secretary, ERD, Ministry of Finance, the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and Ms. Mia Seppo, the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh. “This is a very important Framework that will guide our cooperation with the UN on a broad range of areas from LDC graduation to pandemic recovery and achieving the SDGs.” Said Ms. Fatima Yasmin in her opening remarks. Referring to the five Strategic Priorities of the Cooperation Framework, the UN Resident Coordinator said, “These Strategic Priorities identified are centred around the principles of universality, equality and equity in the protection and exercise of human rights. As Bangladesh strives to reduce inequality, the 8th Five-Year Plan recognizes that policy and programming must be better targeted at, and address the particular needs of, marginalized and vulnerable groups, many of which have been subjected to generational cycles of poverty and cultural, economic, political, and social exclusion. The United Nations and the Government of Bangladesh will today launch a Cooperation Framework, which is our agreement to reach those people.” Addressing participants, the Minister of Finance said, “UN agencies, funds and programmes have been Bangladesh’s longstanding and trusted partners from the onset of our independence and significantly contributed to our overall development achievements.” He added “…this Cooperation Framework will strongly support the country’s development aspirations and its medium-term strategy to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals building on past successes and create a sustainable trajectory towards a developed economy status by 2041.” The Minister of Planning said, “The Framework will support the Government on climate action – both mitigation and adaptation, inclusive and participatory governance, and it aims to ensure gender equality and strengthen the Government’s hand in eliminating the scourge of gender-based violence.” Read the full document from here:
United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2022-2026

The Humanitarian Coordination Task Team (HCTT) co-led by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR) and the UN, organized a special meeting on 22 August 2021 to launch the joint HCTT Nexus Strategy 2021-2025 to address the Climate-Related Disasters in Bangladesh. The Next five years HCTT members will jointly work to improve the Humanitarian-Development collaborations in humanitarian preparedness and response to support the National Plan for Disaster Management (NPDM) 2021-25 in the four areas of work- risk and impact analysis, priority preparedness actions, partnership for Institutional capacity and action plan for response. The HCTT Nexus Strategy for Climate-related Disasters 2021-2025 is a humanitarian preparedness and response strategy developed to support the National Plan for Disaster Management (NPDM) 2021-25 and to complement the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for Bangladesh in relevant areas. The document portrays an evidence-based estimate of humanitarian needs in the disaster situation combining existing analysis on climate-related risks with humanitarian conditions across high-risk districts in Bangladesh. The focus is on three types of climate related hazards: floods, cyclones and storm surges, and landslides. Based on this analysis and estimated humanitarian impacts, the Nexus Strategy outlines strategic objectives and key actions for 2021-2025 across the areas of risk and impact analysis, priority preparedness action, partnership for institutional capacity and action plan for response. Through these strategic objectives and corresponding actions, the Nexus Strategy provides a framework for coordinated activities for the HCTT and the wider humanitarian community, addresses gaps in current efforts, and complements efforts by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB). Special emphasis is placed on the importance of innovative financing mechanisms which are at the core of effective disaster management and promoting key actions to further strengthen consistent disaster risk financing and anticipatory action planning. Download the full HCTT NEXUS STRATEGY (2021-2025) from here For more information, contact Kazi Shahidur Rahman (shahidur.rahman@one.un.org)

The Humanitarian Coordination Task Team (HCTT) co-led by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR) and the UN, organized a special virtual meeting on 11 July 2021 to overview the draft HCTT nexus strategy (2021-2025) that has been developed over last three months consultation with the clusters and working group members including GoB cluster lead. Also, consultation with Local and National NGOs through Localisation Technical Working Group (LTWG). The draft 2021-2025 HCTT Nexus Strategy for Climate-related Disasters in Bangladesh is developed in line with the National Plan for Disaster Management (NPDM) 2021-2025 as well as United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2022-2026 of Bangladesh. The nexus strategy focuses on three types of climate-related hazards: monsoon floods, cyclones and storm surges, and landslides. The strategy is supportive of global normative frameworks, international humanitarian policy, bearing in mind the Sendai priority to enhance disaster preparedness for effective response and the commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) and in line with the Grand Bargain commitments: (1) reinforce—do not replace—national and local systems (2) transcend the humanitarian-development divide and (3) Anticipate—do not wait for—crises. The draft strategy was developed with the funding support from Bangladesh Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Also, technical supports are extended by European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), Start Fund Bangladesh, Network for Information, Response and Preparedness Activities on Disaster (NIRAPAD), Asia-pacific OCHA Regional Office, UNDRR Asia-Pacific Regional Office.  Under the overall leadership of the MoDMR, the humanitarian community puts emphasis on strengthening disaster information management, increasing readiness level to respond to disasters including Environment Disasters, supporting national and local authorities as per the Standing Orders on Disasters and, on maximizing local engagement. Download the draft HCTT nexus strategy (2021-2025) from here.  For more information, contact Kazi Shahidur Rahman (shahidur.rahman@one.un.org)

INFF4SDGs successfully completed its first year of pilot phase in June 2021, meeting its required programmatic and financial delivery targets, through the contributions of each Partner UN Organizations (PUNOs), UNCDF, UNWOMEN, ILO & UNDP and under the political coordination of UNRCO. Moving forward towards the second and final year of this pilot phase, it was   crucial to reflect and take stock of all the past achievements, gaps and limitations of the project to consolidate the future goals and expectations. The main objective was  to strengthen the future approaches, anchoring the existing ongoing activities and coming up with a better coordination mechanism within and across the public and private sector actors. This would assist in implementing the new/updated  SDG financing strategy and DFA for the next five years alongside integrating the SDG Financing Road Maps for SDG 6, SDG 7 and SDG 13 at the macro level development policy system of the Government of Bangladesh with high-level engagement. Ongoing strategic tasks such as Development Finance Assessment (DFA) and Financing Strategy (FS) for SDGs formulation, private sector impact management study, investment mapping study, business needs assessment of SMEs and MSMEs, private sector engagement in Bankable Projects and some other activities will enhance scopes of facilitating the resource mobilization for SDGs.  In addition, some other crucial tasks such as establishing the governance mechanism, establishing and activating the multi-stakeholder platform with strong representation of the private sector are the key focus areas for the last year of this pilot phase. This internal workshop was organized for the innermost circle of the INFF4SDGs team, with the respective representatives from the PUNOs and the Joint Secretary, Ms. Baby Rani Karmakar from the Economic Relations Division (ERD), as the government representative.  The sessions were moderated by UNRCO’s Development Coordination Officer, Mr. Mazedul Islam. Each PUNO presented a progress of their work with updates on key issues like the 5 policy documents (updating the DFA and FS and 3 roadmaps for SDG6, SDG7 & SDG13 roadmaps), which will be shared with relevant government ministries for a review and validation. Gender responsive review of the DFA was part of this task. The ongoing agenda to establish Digital Trade Platforms, offering bankable projects in the 3 SDG priority areas (WATSAN, Renewable Energy, and Climate Finance) to investors, ready to be funded from blended finance opportunities (grants, debt, equity etc.)was also highlighted. Inclusive Digital Economy Scorecard (IDES) which is a policy tool to help set the priorities for the country's inclusive digital economy, will provide assessments to further strengthen DFA and FS providing a brief look at Bangladesh’s digital economy landscape and how it can be leveraged to achieve SDGs. ILO’s collaboration with UNDP for scaling up phase of the private sector impact management study on SDGs from ILO’s relevant programmatic units (Better Work and RMG), was also brought up. Ms. Karmakar specifically raised the issue of replicating or scaling up the 3 SDG roadmaps being prepared (SDG6, SDG7 & SDG13), for others sectors. She also enquired about whether reports like the private sector impact management study would add value to the international markets or exports of RMG. In response, ILO’s Programme Officer, Md. Nazmul Avi Hossain mentioned the combined efforts of Bangladesh going towards graduating from LDC status by 2026, and the default requirements towards greener production etc., along with the report findings, would affect overall exports.    The most highlighted topic within the sessions was the importance of the DFA and FS documents and their ownership by the respective ministries. Any delays in the final drafts of the DFA and FS documents were being permitted in order to receive a complete document that effectively captures all the elements required to providing the government with a workable SDG financing strategy. Going forward, the INFF Task Team planned cross validation workshops and knowledge sharing platforms for the DFA, FS and other ongoing studies, in the process of completion. Some key steps to ensure a quality document included the importance of presenting the document to a set of internal UN reviewers, incorporating their subsequent feedback. This would be followed by sending the finalized versions for further reviews to the ‘Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH)’, as BRH are providing technical assistance to develop DFA & FS in other countries. The third step involved wider consultations as many multilateral institutes (IFIs, WB etc.) are interested to support other SDGs; these documents could work as a benchmark to set the pace for similar SDG financing strategies. Validation workshops would eventually be the final stage before submitting finalized documents to the government.