Challenges in environmental governance: Experiences from Bangladesh

In recent years, Bangladesh has done well in socio-economic sectors such as the garments sector, structural development, agro-industrial sectors, women empowerment, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector and other relevant sectors. However, the environment itself has been neglected in comparison and thus it has been deteriorating rapidly during the last couple of years. In the last 8 years, Bangladesh has lagged behind in the 40 steps in global environmental protection. The study primarily draws from established secondary sources of information. The paper attempts to evaluate the environmental function and identify its present challenges. Based on the findings, five future directives are advised: (1) proper execution of the Polluter Pay Principle (PPP), (2) enactment of policies and laws and their implementation, (3) political commitment, (4) build-up of the capacity and increasing the capability of the concerned administration in the extent of the execution of management, resources and other logistic support and (5) ensure coordination among different ministries, departments and concerned agencies.