Mongla Port Municipality's People's Adaptation Plan

The People’s Adaptation Plan for Mongla Port Municipality is a community-driven blueprint for building a climate resilient, and migrant friendly coastal town. Piloted by the Global Center on Adaptation and BRAC with technical support from ICCCAD and SPARC and funding from the UK Government– the process brings together Mongla’s citizens and local government to turn local knowledge into practical climate solutions. By putting the most vulnerable in the driving seat of planning for urban resilience and climate planning, this People’s Adaptation Plan seeks to ensure that their needs are prioritized by climate investments, and that scare resources are used efficiently to address their vulnerabilities.

Mongla faces worsening climate impacts from more frequent cyclones and floods, alongside slow-onset risks such as sea-level rise, salinity intrusion, river erosion, irregular rainfall, and rising temperatures. These changes are reducing freshwater availability, damaging agriculture and infrastructure, disrupting livelihoods, and increasing health risks, while accelerating displacement of poor and marginalized communities. Salinity and shrimp farming are degrading land and ecosystems and deepening inequality, and rising heat and erratic rainfall are intensifying water scarcity, food insecurity, and overall vulnerability.

By putting Mongla’s most vulnerable citizens in the driving seat of planning for urban resilience and climate planning, this People’s Adaptation Plan seeks to ensure that their needs are prioritized by climate investments, and that scare resources are used efficiently to address their vulnerabilities. It draws on methodologies developed over decades by Slum Dwellers International and BRAC, to support the co-production of responses to climate change by vulnerable citizens in genuine partnership with their governments. The methodology was developed with support from the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD). It draws heavily on the People’s Plan process implemented by SDI affiliates in the informal settlement of Mukuru, Kenya, and documented in this Guide.