City Desk :
The Embassy of Sweden has signed a grant agreement with Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) for the implementation of a 4-year long programme titled “Defending Environmental Rights and Promoting Justice”.
The grant agreement was signed at the Embassy of Sweden by Maria Stridsman, head of Development Cooperation and Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bela, on Thursday, reports media.
The program aims to defend citizen’s rights to the environment, increase awareness and strengthen networks on environmental justice issues, promote compliance and also contribute to progressive, equitable, effective global legal orders.
“The cooperation with Bela offers opportunities for positive contributions to an environmentally sustainable development for Bangladesh,” said Maria Stridsman.
“Bela plays an important role as a legal advocate for the protection of Bangladesh’s natural resources, including land, forests, water, air and biodiversity.
These are the same sectors that are also under definite threats from climate change impacts and fast pace economic and spatial growth,” she added.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan said: “Bela will implement activities that aim to promote sustainable consumption and energy, traditional living, cleaner cities and rural settlements, cleaner production patterns and to prevent exploitative development causing irreparable damage to ecosystems.
“We will continue to empower people to assert their environmental rights.
We will also continue to provide specialized training and technical assistance to other environmental actors,” she added.
Bela and the Embassy of Sweden began their cooperation in 2019 by signing a 5-year agreement to implement the first phase of this program.
Maria Stridsman stressed the fact that Bela is a trusted partner and an important actor in the field of environmental protection.
Therefore, the cooperation is not to finance a project, but is intended to support Bela as an organization as it continues its work of promoting environmental law compliance and natural resources protection in Bangladesh.
Also present to witness the signing were Alexandra Berg von Linde, Swedish Ambassador to Bangladesh, and Nayoka Martinez-Backstrom, First Secretary for Environment and Climate of the Embassy of Sweden.