Corruption Possibilities in the Climate Financing Sector and Role of the Civil Societies in Bangladesh

Abstract

Climate governance has become a global issue, and it has proved difficult for any government to tackle this issue on its own. The role of civil society is most crucial, particularly in ensuring transparency and accountability in climate finance. Under certain international agreements, a huge amount of money is channeled in climate-vulnerable countries like Bangladesh through the climate financing mechanism. This is a tempting opportunity for a country routinely ranked first in the corruption index. This paper explores whether the growing involvement of various non-state actors in climate financing, under the dominant mechanism, creates a new ground for corruption together with the state actors. The paper aimed at helping ensure that climate finance decisions and actions are conducted with transparency, accountability, and integrity to prevent corruption and misuse of funds from undermining climate objectives. The main objective of the paper is to increase the capacity of stakeholders, particularly civil society, to contribute to the creation, implementation, and supervision of climate finance governance policies, with the participation of stakeholders, including government, fund managers, donors, Civil Society Organizations, non-governmental organizations, private sectors, and media analysis. Via content analysis, this study found that the Civil Society Organizations are getting caught up in the vicious circle of corruption in the climate finance sector in Bangladesh. Without having a separate mechanism for the Civil Society Organizations, there is little chance that their role will be positive in tackling corruption in this sector.