$41.4 m ADB grant to help improve infrastructure, basic needs of Rohingyas

Authorities in Bangladesh and Asian Development Bank (ADB) has struck an agreement for $41.4 million in grant to help improve infrastructure and manage the basic needs of Rohingya refugees shaltered at different refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

The additional assistance forms the second phase of the ADB’s ongoing Emergency Assistance Project worth $100 million in grant approved in 2018, according to a release from the ADB, reports UNB.

Economic Relations Division Secretary Fatima Yasmin and ADB Country Director Edimon Ginting signed the agreement on behalf of Bangladesh and ADB, respectively, on Wednesday.

“The assistance will scale up the ongoing project by addressing the unmet basic and urgent needs identified for ADB assistance in 2018 but which remained unfunded due to grant funding constraints,” ADB Country Director Edimon Ginting said.

He said that Disaster shelter centers, health facilities, improved water supply and sanitation, and better waste management that will be provided with ADB assistance, will reduce disaster risks, strengthen the resilience against COVID-19, and serve basic human needs of the camp population until their repatriation.

The new assistance will build 200 water and sanitation facilities, three solid waste management facilities, and establish a piped water supply system at Ukhiya.

It will, among others, upgrade four health care facilities for severe acute respiratory infection, expand six primary health care and diagnostic centers in Teknaf, improve skills of health care workers in Cox’s Bazar district, and construct a multipurpose disaster-resilient isolation center to help with the COVID-19 response.

To strengthen disaster resilience and help protect displaced persons, six school-cum-cyclone shelters in local primary schools, and one multipurpose cyclone shelter, which will also function as a COVID-19 isolation center, will be constructed. About 13 kilometers (km) of rural access roads leading to the camp facilities will be upgraded.

In addition to the new grant assistance, an agreement was also signed today for a $30 million concessional loan to rehabilitate a 30.76 km section of National Highway-1 to improve the transportation of relief and essential goods between Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar.