WB helps Bangladesh make urban areas resilient to COVID

The Bangladesh government on Sunday signed a $300 million financing agreement with the World Bank to strengthen the country’s local urban institutions to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and improve preparedness for future shock. The Local Government Covid 19 Response and Recovery Project will benefit 39.9 million people in urban areas of eight districts of Bangladesh, said the World Bank in a press release on Sunday. It will help its cities and towns to build back better as they recover from the pandemic and prepare for future shocks, including climate change, disasters, and disease outbreaks. In addition, 329 municipalities and 10 city corporations will receive funds bi-annually from the project to improve critical urban services and infrastructures to mitigate and respond to climate change impacts, disasters, and future disease outbreaks. 

World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan Mercy Tembon said that currently 36 percent of the people in Bangladesh live in urban areas. The city corporation and municipalities can play a critical role in helping the urban poor recover from the pandemic as well as prepare to handle future shocks. The project will carry out labor-intensive public works that in one hand will ensure water supply and sanitation, drainage, and other critical services benefitting the low-income areas, slums, and areas exposed to high disease outbreak and disaster risks and in other hand create jobs for the poor urban people. It will create 1.5 million days of short-term work as well as jobs for 10,000 women under the public works scheme. The credit is from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides concessional financing. It has a 30-year term, including a five-year grace period. Bangladesh currently has the largest ongoing IDA programme totaling $14.7 billion.