Bangladesh encounters diverse climate change impacts at different scales, which can severely affect rural communities and livelihoods. In response, the government of Bangladesh has initiated a number of institutional interventions through development plans to better support sustainable adaptation. There have, however, been relatively few assessments of how these interventions have impacted sustainable local adaptation. Focusing on the highly climate-affected north-eastern floodplain region of Bangladesh, this paper presents the results of a literature synthesis supported by primary field data to identify how existing policy barriers can threaten institutional responses to climate change impacts, while institutional rigidity and the non-inclusiveness of bureaucratic polity work to undermine efficiency, effectiveness, and equitability-some important considerations for sustainable adaptation. Our results point toward the need for public policy to better enable broader public participation in the design, implementation, and evaluation of adaptation plans.
Keywords: Climate change adaptation; Institutional responses; Sustainable adaptation; Sustainable development; Wetlands.