The grant is by Reversing Environmental Degradation in Africa and Asia (REDAA), administered by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London and funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It funds an urban wetland stewardship program in Dhaka, Bangladesh, working with climate-impacted dwellers. The project has been selected from a pool of 1200 applications from around the globe and after a two-stage competition, 21 locally-led initiatives have been selected to receive a total funding of £5 million, taking place across 17 countries in Africa and Asia, these projects cover a diverse range of landscapes and ecosystems. See all the projects that won the funding, including ours: redaa.org/grantees.
The project consortium pulls together Efadul Huq (env policy) from Smith College, USA, Sifullah Khaled (climate finance) from Sheffield Hallam University, UK, and is spearheaded on the ground by Mohammad Azaz from the River and Delta Research Centre (RDRC) , and Dwip Unnayan Songstha (DUS) acts as local lead. Our consortium's climate activism is led by youth leader Sohanur Rahman MD Sohanur Rahman from YouthNet for Climate Justice and local engagement is facilitated by Ikram Uddin Abir from Prochesta Foundation. However, most importantly, the consortium includes the grassroots urban agroecological cooperative Nogor Abad, which has been operating in Korail, the largest "slum" in Dhaka, next to where this project's site is located.