How can civil servants help communities adapt to climate change? In Bangladesh, a new initiative is integrating local perspectives into national climate policy, ensuring that future adaptation strategies are better aligned with the needs of vulnerable communities.
Bridging national planning and local realities
Bangladesh has made significant progress in climate adaptation, but planning has often followed a top-down approach, leaving limited room for communities to influence decisions. As a result, measures do not always reflect local priorities or lived experiences. The Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC), which trains the country’s civil servants, provides a strategic entry point to address this gap. Working together, IHS, the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and the Center for Participatory Research & Development (CPRD) aimed to embed Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) principles into BPATC’s curriculum, helping administrators connect national policies with local realities.
Co-creation for institutional change
The initiative centred on a five-day workshop designed and delivered by IHS, with CPRD as the local partner, and facilitated by Somesh Sharma from IHS. It began with a visit to a community in Laksam, offering participants first-hand insights into local vulnerabilities and adaptive practices, highlighting the importance of locally informed decision making. The workshop followed a co-creation approach, where fifteen BPATC trainers worked together on developing the content. This process resulted in a new five-day module, Institutionalising Locally Led Adaptation Across Sectors in Bangladesh, now part of BPATC’s training offer and equipping future decision makers with practical tools to embed LLA principles into planning and policy processes.
From training rooms to national governance
By integrating this module, BPATC strengthens the relevance and responsiveness of civil service training, helping administrators across sectors to incorporate inclusive, gender-sensitive, and community-driven approaches. This approach fosters stronger links between national policies and local realities, supporting a governance system that is more collaborative and context-sensitive. Over time, it is expected to enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities across Bangladesh, while embedding locally led adaptation as a lasting principle in public administration.
