Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods

Bangladesh hosts a civil society organizations' network called Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL) with a membership of almost 200 national and community based organizations. It has been operating for the last 3 years and had great success in terms of climate change campaigning across the country. In 2009, it organized 60 hearings of climate victims in different hydro geophysical locations, where almost 1 million people (in gross) were present. The attendance of several female climate victims attracted global attention. CSRL members can influence policy makers and climate change negotiators in a major way. Their demand was reflected in Bangladesh’s Prime Ministers' speech at COP 15. The campaign has always been vocal against World Bank interventions in managing the Climate Change Multi Donor Trust Fund. Bangladesh’s government recently accepted the fund oh which only 1% will go to the World Bank.

In its last general body meeting in February, CSRL decided to form a women’s group and CGC as the focal point of GenderCC is responsible for the coordination. This year the focus activity is on agriculture, trade and climate change. We are organizing capacity building activities of women-led organizations on these issues. One of the main focuses of this year's activities is the review of Bangladesh’s climate change action and strategy plan and the recently reviewed NAPA. CSRL is trying to assess these documents in terms of a gender perspective. The network is also in the process of setting up a monitoring mechanism for gender gaps of the government's allocated adaptation fund In terms of setting an example of transparency and accountability by the government, the network is trying to cooperate with government through lobbying for proper gender sensitive adaptation. This year CSRL will organize a number of rural agriculture fairs in different regions, where agriculture adaptation by women will be show cased.