IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

The time frame for this report comprises the third year of the project from January through December 2012. After its inception in 2010, activities in the first two years were focused on establishment of the decision-making space for the project, developing an active network of scientific and technical professionals, and the intiation of research activities. In 2012, the project focused on broadening engagement; scaling up dialogues and research; strengthening the knowledge base and most importantly, initiating steps towards policy engagement and stimulating a policy response in some of the thematic areas of the project.

India and Bangladesh face many common challenges. Even as their overlapping geographies force them to share a climate, with its associated vulnerabilities, their use of common resources like water means that actions in one country can profoundly impact the other. As the impacts of climate
change begin to set in, the commonalities in the former will lend greater urgency to the relationship in the latter.

Bangladesh and India share three major river systems: the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Along with their tributaries, these rivers drain about 1.75 million sq km of land, with an average runoff of 1,200 cu km. The GBM system also supports over 620 million people. Thus, the need for cooperation on trans-boundary waters is crucial to the future well-being of these millions.

This paper essentially designs a research agenda on environmental security issues concerned with India with respect to its trans-boundary water relations with Bangladesh at the critical interface of ecosystem services-wellbeing linkages.

Bangladesh and India share three major river systems: the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna. Along with their tributaries, these rivers drain about 1.75 million sq km of land, with an average runoff of 1,200 cu km. The GBM system also supports over 620 million people. Thus, the need for cooperation on trans-boundary waters is crucial to the future well-being of these millions.

The year 2011 was a crucial one for Ecosystems for Life: A Bangladesh-India Initiative. While in 2010 the activities were more concentrated on setting up the project and establishing the direction and course for the coming years, activities in 2011 focused on broadening and reinforcing the outreach of the project; scaling up dialogues and research; and strengthening the knowledge base. In the first two years, the major areas of interventions of Ecosystems for Life have been initiating and continuously updating stakeholder identification and mapping in relevant fields and sectors; engagement and consultations with stakeholders at different levels through various dialogues and meetings at the national and regional level; and generation of knowledge from facilitated discussions, situation analyses and joint research on the thematic areas of the project.

 This is the first progress report and highlights the progress made over the period February 2010 to December 2010. This Annual Progress Report documents the progress towards the objectives by outputs and activities and also reports the administrative and management actions and decisions taken in 2010. The main activities during this period were recruiting and putting in place the staff for the project, preparing the operations manual for the project, identifying and mapping various multi - stakeholders that are working in the region on the various issues related to the project, holding multi-stakeholder meetings to discuss the thematic issues and get relevant feedback from civil society from both sides as to determine the priority focus for the project, analysis of trans-boundary water issues within the region, setting up the Project Governance Structure which comprises of the National Advisory Committees at the country level and the Project Advisory Committee at the regional project level, starting the situation analysis studies in Bangladesh and India, starting of compilation of a document on all Regional Initiatives related to various themes of the project, preparing the outline for a manual on Trans-boundary Water Governance and conceptualizing a popular book on the Brahmaputra.