Honourable State Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Environment, Forests, and Climate Change
GUEST & SPEAKER STRUCTURE
Chief Guest: Shaikh Faridul Islam, MP — Hon'ble State Minister, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Chair: Dr. Md. Saimum Parvez, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Environment, Forests, and Climate Change
Moderator : Tanjim Ferdous, Head of Strategic Partnership, The Daily Star
Participants: Senior representatives of government, development partners, climate researchers, green industries, financiers and resilience innovators
CONTEXT & BACKGROUND
Bangladesh consistently ranks among the world's most climate-vulnerable countries (Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index), and the World Bank's Groundswell report warns that internal climate migration could reach 13.3 million people by 2050 without decisive adaptation. Yet the same exposure has made Bangladesh a global reference point in resilience: cyclone deaths have fallen more than a hundred-fold since 1970 through early-warning systems and community preparedness, the country has pioneered locally led adaptation approaches; and it has established dedicated domestic climate-financing mechanisms to support resilient investments. The opportunity now is to convert this hard-won adaptation experience into an innovation and export agenda.
SYNOPSIS
Bangladesh is globally known for climate vulnerability, but it holds deep, field-tested experience in adaptation, disaster preparedness and community resilience. This high-level roundtable repositions climate action as an innovation, competitiveness and market-development agenda. Working with the session's patron organizations — The Earth, the British High Commission, the Netherlands Embassy and The Asia Foundation — it explores how climate-smart agriculture, water systems, coastal and urban resilience, green manufacturing and community solutions can be connected with finance, validation and scalable deployment, with the proposed Innovation Hub converting climate needs into investable solution pipelines.
OBJECTIVE OF THE SESSION
Identify how Bangladesh can transform climate vulnerability into innovation leadership by connecting resilience needs with technology, green industry, finance and scalable deployment — and position Bangladesh as a global supplier of adaptation solutions.
