Another ADB-funded project to monitor from October and beyond

The people of Bangladesh should stay alert as another ADB-funded water project gets under way. Bangladesh Resident Mission Country Director Paul Heytens on 10 September signed a loan agreement for $55 million to support small-scale water services in Bangladesh. The project is claimed to help cut rural poverty, improve community involvement, and address the threat posed by severe flooding and other climate change-related events. The International Fund for Agricultural Development is providing project co-financing of $22 million.

 

The Asian Development Bank has been notorious for leaving detrimental impacts on people and the environment with its water projects, and has early this year in fact been judged by various civil society groups as guilty of causing destruction. In Bangladesh alone, the Khulna Jessore Drainage Rehabilitation Project (KJDRP) which began in 1996 is just one example of ADB-funded water project that has left the southwestern coastal districts of Bangladesh an ecologically damaged zone.

Taking this and many other similar or worse cases, the need for NGOs and civil society organizations (CSOs) to mount a sustained campaign on ADB investment in the water resource management projects, including engagement with ADB on Water Policy, is increasingly being seen as an urgent task.

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