Bangladesh govt signs $55m loan with ADB for water resources management

By NNN-BSS,

Dhaka, Bangladesh : The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will extend a $55 million loan to support small-scale water services in Bangladesh that will help cut rural poverty, improve community involvement, and address the threat posed by severe floods and other climate change-related events.


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An agreement between the government and the ADB was signed today at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) in the city. ERD Secretary M Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and ADB Country Director Paul J Heytens signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.

The loan from ADB’s concessional Asian Development Fund will be used to finance 230 subprojects in the areas of flood management, drainage, water conservation, and irrigation.

The funds will also go to strengthen the capabilities of central and local government agencies overseeing the sector, and to develop water management cooperative associations – grassroots organizations responsible for day-to-day operations of small- scale water services.

About 1.7 million people are expected to directly benefit from the project, and special attention will be given to the needs of vulnerable groups, including women, with 30 percent of all management committee posts in the water management cooperative associations to be reserved for females.

The project will build on the lessons learned from two other successful ADB investments in the country’s small-scale (less than 1,000 hectares) water resources sector.

The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives will be executing agency for the project, which is due for completion in December 2017.

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