Water

Promotion and Awareness
ADB National Media Workshop on Water - Bangladesh

5-8 June
Gazipur, Bangladesh

Session Descriptions

• Setting the Scene
• Towards Integrated Water Resources Management in Bangladesh
• Bringing Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation to the Urban Poor
• Water and Floods in Bangladesh
• Issues and Prospects in Bangladesh
• Water and the Rural Poor

The opening series of presentations will provide attendees with an overview of the workshop; its purpose and what it is hoped will be achieved over the next two days. Attention will also be paid to the essential role of the media and an overview of some of the key water issues affecting Bangladesh and South Asia. Following the opening session, the rest of the sessions will consist of a set format with two main presentations followed by extended discussion.

Top

Whether it be drinking or sanitation, irrigating crops, manufacturing or India's proposed river-linking project, there are multiple demands and perceived threats on Bangladesh's water resources. In addition, the floods during the monsoon season and the scarcity of water during the dry season cause extreme misery and hardship to millions of people.

There are many challenges in developing an integrated national and transboundary approach towards the managing of water resources in Bangladesh. Bangladesh's Water Development Board (WDB), for example, estimates that more than 170 of Bangladesh's 230 large and medium rivers are suffering from pollution and poor water management. The Bangladeshi government also predicts that India plans to divert water from major rivers, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra, threatening the livelihoods of more than 100 million people downstream in Bangladesh. The country's position as the lowest riparian country also means that, all too often, it has little control over the huge cross-boundary flows of water.

And, despite the Government embarking on a series of water sector reforms including the adoption of the National Water Policy (NWP) in 1999, and preparation of the 25-year National Water Management Plan (NWMP) in 2001, areas of weakness remain - particularly at an institutional level. These include a lack of formal arrangements for water allocation, fragmentation of water issues and responsibilities across several ministries, lack of capacity especially at local government levels, and the limited involvement of local communities.

This session will examine how successfully Bangladesh is in moving towards an integrated approach to water management, will look at some of the competing issues over water resources and whether decisions should be devolved to lower levels. The session will also look at how to exploit synergies between government, civil society and the private sector - in particular small local entrepreneurs.

Areas, that will be highlighted, will include:

• The growing need to adopt a basin-wide approach to the management of the waters of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna Rivers
• The need for institutional strengthening and the potential role of water sector apex bodies
• The importance of water decision-making at the district and local level
• How to incorporate IWRM into water resource planning
• And the sharing of transboundary river water

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Bangladesh's urban population is increasing at alarming rates with it being predicted that more than 50 percent of the country's population will live in urban areas by 2025. With many people from rural areas migrating to the city and often settling in squatter communities, acute poverty, overcrowding and unhealthy disposal of waste are all playing a major role in the water and sanitation challenges facing urban Bangladesh.

In Dhaka, water supply is being constrained by severe pollution in all of Dhaka's main rivers, an expanding slum population (about 40 percent of the population of Dhaka live in illegal settlements) and little attention paid by the local utility towards cost recovery and network expansion.

Furthermore, the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) will not provide water to the people living in slum areas, such as Pallabi, Demra, Uttra, and Kamrangir Char Slums, because they live outside the service area. The result is people have to rely on a number of unsafe alternative sources, such as illegal connections to the city's water supply and often paying up to 10 times the price of the water sold to legal connections

And sanitation continues to be a major issue too with sanitation coverage having dropped from 71 percent to 56 percent since 1990 - mainly due to unplanned urbanization.

This session will look at measures that need to be taken to bring safe drinking water and sanitation to the urban poor. Areas, that will be examined, will include:

• What financial incentives can be used to optimize water use, such as metering, tariff reforms, and cost recovery
• The potential role of the private sector
• The need for a regulator
• Land reform
• And means of reducing the dependence on groundwater

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August 2004 saw some of the worst flooding in the country's history with billions of dollars in damages, two thirds of the country submerged under water and over 800 people dead. So great was the flooding that the Asian Development Bank downgraded gross domestic product (GDP) projections for Bangladesh from 6.0% to 4.8% for FY2005. Areas affected by the flooding included small and medium enterprises, in particular the export-oriented knitwear industry, standing crops and the output of poultry, livestock, fisheries, and forestry.

And with most of the country lying within the flood plains of three great rivers-- the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna rivers - such flooding is now almost an annual phenomenon. And almost invariably it the poor who suffer most with destroyed crops and still-flooded lands leaving many with no income, no shelter and vulnerable to disease.

However there are many benefits to the floods as well. With Bangladesh's economy largely agricultural, the waters help to regenerate soil and increase agricultural productivity, replenish groundwater, and rejuvenate wetlands for fish and aquatic plants.

This session will look at how to develop a flood management strategy that moves away from 'crisis management' and focuses on a long-term management strategy that recognizes the benefits of floods but mitigates the damage. Areas that will be covered in the session will include:

• A historical perspective on attempts to control floods in Bangladesh
• The importance of controlling flooding along the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River
• How to counter riverbank erosion
• The case for greater regional co-operation among the countries in the basins of the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna Rivers
• Whether wetlands can be restored as temporary flood storage areas
• Pre-emergency activities, such as flood forecasting, flood warning, evacuation and sheltering
• And the importance of non-structural measures, such as the education and training of local communities to better manage flooding. Measures could include planting trees along embankments, constructing earth platforms close to flood-prone villages and a greater provision for storing safe drinking water above flood level

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The opening presentation by Kenichi Yokoyama, Senior Water Resources Specialist at the Asian Development Bank, will tie into many of the themes discussed on the first day taking a wide-ranging approach to issues surrounding the water sector in Bangladesh, integrated and sustainable water resources management and the framework for a national water management plan. Kenichi will also provide an overview of the Asian Development Bank’s sector review 2003/04, sector agency reforms and the establishment of a framework for a national water policy.

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Since 90 percent of the poor in Bangladesh live in rural areas, agricultural and rural development are critical for a reduction in poverty in Bangladesh. And, yet, whether it be safe drinking supply to rural communities, an effective irrigation system or the threats of floods and droughts, Bangladesh's rural sector continues to be under considerable pressure.

Health in rural areas is a major issue. Much has been talked about arsenic contamination with an estimated 20 million of the country's 126 million people assumed to be drinking arsenic- contaminated water. And the bacterial contamination of water - especially surface water that is used for bathing and other purposes - is one of the main sources of child illnesses and deaths.

And, in agriculture, Bangladesh faces many challenges too. Many experts are beginning to worry about the exploitation of groundwater and the long-term future of tubewell irrigation, which provides more than 60 percent of irrigated area and has been the main catalyst of growth in rice production.

The intensive and increased use of shallow tubewell irrigation has led to a lowering of the water table in many areas of the country's north and northwestern parts and, in periods of drought, many tubewells have began to dry up totally. The quality of groundwater is also deteriorating and in the coastal areas of southwestern Bangladesh, increased salinity is being seen.

Furthermore, it is estimated that more than 170 of Bangladesh's 230 large and medium rivers are suffering from pollution and poor water management; Over 50,000 acres of arable land which depended on the Brahmaputra river for irrigation now require ground water; and river-based irrigation is some northern districts is now almost unheard of.

This session will look at how to develop a sustainable approach to water management in rural areas looking at the twin challenges of water for the rural population and water for agriculture. The session will look at alternative sources to arsenic contaminated ground wells, the role of women, community-based rural activities, such as Water Management Associations (WMAs) and community-managed, small-scale infrastructure projects, such as embankments and sluice gates.