ADB provides $157m loan to mitigate flood risks in Bangladesh

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the government of Bangladesh on Tuesday signed a loan agreement for $157 million to mitigate flood and riverbank erosion risks in Bangladesh.

Fatima Yasmin, Secretary, Economic Relations Division (ERD), and Edimon Ginting, Country Director, ADB, signed the loan and grant agreements on behalf of Bangladesh and ADB, respectively, said a press release.

"The program reflects ADB's commitment for climate resilience and green growth while reducing poverty, improving livelihoods, and managing water-related disaster risks", said Country Director Edimon Ginting.

"This program supports the government's road map for long-term stabilisation of the river system in central Bangladesh through development and implementation of holistic planning strategies. It will directly benefit lives and livelihoods by reducing land losses caused by riverbank erosion, mitigating flood risks, increasing agricultural production, and developing reclaimed char lands." Ginting added.

The funding will also strengthen climate resilience through structural and non-structural interventions, and promote knowledge-based solutions along the Jamuna, Padma, and Ganges rivers in central Bangladesh.

The government of the Netherlands will provide $17.89 million in technical assistance grant, to be administered by ADB, to help finance the second tranche of the program, and promote innovations, and capacity building.

The loan from the second and final tranche of the Flood and Riverbank Erosion Risk Management Investment Program (FRERMIP) was approved in 2014.

The program adopts a strategic and systematic approach to longer-term flood and erosion protection management planning, as well as building central-level institutional capacity.

Successful and innovative features developed under the first tranche of the FRERMIP and the ADB-financed Jamuna-Meghna River Erosion Mitigation Project, such as low-cost geo-textiles and-filled bag revetments, will be expanded by combining them with dredging, bioengineering, nature-based solutions, and climate-resilient flood embankments.

It will also follow flexible and phased interventions that are technically appropriate to cope with the highly dynamic morphology of this large and complex river system.

The program aims to protect 15,400 hectares of land from inundation and 0.5 million people from inundation damages and recover 8,000 hectares of char land from the river for development, the release said.

Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) will be the project executing agency, and Department of Disaster Management is the implementing agency.

Appreciating the initiative, Anne van Leeuwen, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Bangladesh, said: "Exchanges among international river experts, including those from Bangladesh and the Netherlands, are vital for designing effective interventions in dynamic deltas and for increasing resilience of river systems as well as the population, which rely on rivers".

"The River Stabilisation Plan, developed under FRERMIP Tranche 1 in cooperation with the Netherlands, provides an adaptive approach to future and uncertain climatological conditions, and can be applied in upper and lower river reaches of the Jamuna and Padma rivers." added Anne van Leeuwen.