Green Financing [Some Random Thoughts]

The world continues to face twin challenges: of expanding economic opportunities for all in the context of a growing global population; and addressing environmental challenges that, if left unaddressed, could undermine our ability to seize these opportunities. In the face of pressing economic and environmental challenges, national and international efforts are needed to promote green growth. It could be achieved through green financing, a financing mechanism that will ensure sustainable use of natural resources, efficient and prudent use of energy, conservation of global biodiversity and ecosystem.

Green financing is a matter of both economic growth policy and sustainable environment protection policy. It is important to tackle two key imperatives together: the continued inclusive economic growth needed by developing countries to reduce poverty and improve wellbeing; as well as improved environmental management needed to tackle resource scarcities and climate change.

Bangladesh is an innocent victim of climate change and one of the most climate vulnerable countries where millions of people have already been affected. I would like to reiterate my gratitude to the Government of Bangladesh, in particular the Central Bank for promoting and supporting green finance initiatives. As you may know, Bangladesh Bank circulated a policy guideline for green banking to all banks back in 2011. Since then, they have been relentlessly working to promote green financing for sustainable growth in the country. There is a refinance window available at Bangladesh Bank for green financing. These all are positive initiatives from the Central Bank towards green growth. Bangladesh is preparing to undertake the challenges of achieving the targets of “Sustainable Development Goals” and will hopefully, do extraordinarily well as we did in achieving MDGs.

I would like to say few words about what Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) is doing to promote green financing. As you know, PKSF is an organisation, which was established by the Government of Bangladesh in 1990 for sustainable poverty reduction through employment generation and rural development programmes. We have taken a number of initiatives to finance climate-smart activities that will reduce carbon emissions and ensure sustainable development. For example, PKSF is helping farmers to have climate-sensitive agriculture practices like salinity tolerant crop cultivation, use of Pheromone sex trap and other integrated pest management methods. With PKSF finance they are using porous pipe model for irrigation, improved cooking system, solar energy for household use, rain water harvesting, solar irrigation pump, vermi-compost plants, homestead vegetable gardens etc. PKSF has around 200 active pro-poor financial institutions working all over Bangladesh, serve around 14 million poor families through these Partner Organisations (POs) and have been providing financial and non-financial services including training, capacity building and awareness services associated with sustainable poverty reduction. Climate change, environmental protection and green growth are the areas where PKSF is putting more emphasis. An independent Environment Unit was established within PKSF to deal with environmental issues.