Coastal greenbelts have long been seen as an important strategy for reducing the vulnerability of coastal populations to climate-related hazards in Bangladesh and the country has over five decades experience of coastal afforestation and reforestation. Over 140,000 ha of mangroves have been planted along the coast since the 1960s. However, the success of afforestation and reforestation efforts has been highly variable due to a range of institutional, technical and socio-economic factors that have affected their long-term sustainability. A number of barriers currently prevent the realisation of the full adaptive potential of coastal greenbelts, including an underlying incentive structure that drives people to exploit and degrade coastal forests rather than preserve them. LDCF support will be used to help the Government of Bangladesh overcome these barriers through a suite of complementary measures to achieve the projectÔÇÖs objective of reducing the vulnerability of communities to the adverse impacts of climate change in the coastal zone through participative design, community-based management and diversification of afforestation and reforestation programmes. The project has been designed to complement a major new programme on coastal afforestation and reforestation funded by the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF). Project Component 1 addresses existing barriers relating to lack of livelihood diversification and lack of coastal forest diversification, both of which adversely impact coastal forest sustainability. Thus Component 1 seeks to reduce the vulnerability of local communities in new afforestation and reforestation sites through livelihood diversification more effective greenbelts, by a) linking livelihood diversification interventions to improved coastal forest stewardship and b) diversifying coastal plantations to increase their ecological and social sustainability by, respectively becoming more heterogeneous and dense and by increasing the range of tangible benefits the forests can provide. Component 2 seeks to strengthen community engagement and ownership of forestry-based adaptation and climate risk reduction programmes by developing and demonstrating effective co-management and benefit-sharing for coastal greenbelt plantations. Finally, while mangrove greenbelts are a vitally important adaptation measure for coastal areas, there will always remain a need for complementary measures to further protect human lives and livelihoods assets in the face of extreme climate events. In recognition of this, the third Project Component focuses on protecting communal livelihood assets in afforestation and reforestation sites from extreme climate events through effective early warning and preparedness planning. Altogether, over 60,000 vulnerable people will benefit from a range of LDCF-supported interventions. Capacity development of local communities and key government actors is central to the project approach and will enhance the long-term sustainability of project impacts. Furthermore, the project will leverage strategic partnerships with the BCCRF project, USAIDÔÇÖs Climate Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods project (CREL) and the GoBÔÇÖs Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, also supported by UNDP, to promote scale up and replication of successful strategies.