Institutions Matter for Urban Resilience: The Institutional Challenges in Mainstreaming Climate Smart Disaster Risk Management in Bangladesh

Abstract

The core issues of this chapter are institutions, climate smart disaster risk management, adaptive capacity, and the institutional adaptation capacity. Our main focus is to review policies and strategies and institutional settings in order to identify institutional challenges to mainstream climate smart disaster risk reduction strategies in cities of Bangladesh. Therefore, the key contributions of this chapter are that we (a) identify possible entry points for mainstreaming climate smart risk management strategies, and (b) recognise some broad institutional constraints to address effectively climate change risks. Cities are at risk of the impacts of climate change on infrastructure, human lives, human health, and environmental quality. These effects will deepen in coming decades. Climate smart disaster risk management (CSDRM) approach can be considered as a holistic approach, because it provides guidelines to build adaptive capacities of local people and also local institutions. This chapter deals with some important core concepts such as institution, climate smart disaster risk management, adaptation capacity, and the institutional adaptation capacity. This chapter focuses particularly on the institutional challenges to mainstream climate smart strategies in cities of Bangladesh. For this, the chapter reviews policies, institutional settings, and legal frameworks underway in Bangladesh that respond to climate change, and discusses what currently constrains this. The review reveals that national as well as local level institutions in Bangladesh are already grappling with large deficits which limit capacity of these institutions to mainstream climate smart risk reduction strategies.