Cyclone-hit Bangladesh needs and deserves more direct assistance than pledges from the international community, the World Bank (WB) has said.
"I was shocked to see the devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr and its impact on the people," said the Bank's vice-president for South Asia, Praful Patel. "Even after one month, the damage remains evident. The experience was clearly dreadful and the challenge of recovery is enormous."
He made the remarks after visiting areas devastated by the storm which slammed into the country's coastal belt on 15 November, killing over 3,000 and leaving millions homeless. According to the Bangladesh Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, some 9 million people were affected by the cyclone.
The WB vice-president said it would make US$325 million available for post-cyclone rehabilitation, plus $205 million for post-flood rehabilitation that was already pledged.
"Seeing at first-hand the devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr is shocking. The challenge of reviving life is formidable," he said at a press conference on 16 December.
In the wake of the cyclone, the government has reportedly sought close to $2 billion from the international community.
Apart from commitments made by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as of 17 December the country had received pledges of foreign aid amounting to $241.7 million.
Photo: David Swanson/IRIN |
Men queue up for much-needed government relief in cyclone-hit Patuakhali District, southern Bangladesh |
Patel described Bangladesh's future as "trapped between the melting Himalayas in the north and the encroaching Bay of Bengal to the south"; he described Bangladesh as "the most deserving country to get international support for coping with climate change".
Patel urged Bangladesh to immediately mainstream the issue of climate change into its development agenda; a move he described as "Development Plus".
"There needs to be a long-run strategy because the natural disasters will cyclically occur more and more," the senior official said.
He suggested climate change could have a much bigger effect here because of the frequency of natural disasters in a densely populated country with high poverty rates.
Capacity-building
While indicating a significant increase in the WB's assistance in the near future, Patel emphasised the need for improving the capacity of the government, especially the civil service, to ensure proper implementation of development projects.
He said the floods of September-October 2007 had perhaps caused losses of $1 billion and the cyclone probably over $2 billion, dealing a huge blow to the Bangladesh economy in a year marked by spiralling international fuel and food prices.
Patel also said investments in infrastructure, human development, water-resources management, and improvements in the business environment could allow Bangladesh to achieve 8-10 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth and become a middle-income country by 2016.
He noted some constraints holding back the current caretaker government: lack of a clear constitutional mandate making the government rather "unwilling" to take tough decisions, and a capacity constraint caused by having only 10 advisers to run the affairs of the government.
He said the government had become better at dealing with natural disasters. The donors and the government now have a better response system too. Bangladeshi people and the country's economy are resilient enough to recover from the negative shocks, he said.
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