Bangladesh cuts funds for science research, education

Syful Islam

5 July 2012 | scidev.net

[DHAKA] Bangladesh has cut its funds for science research and education by about a quarter — 27 per cent — compared to last year while hiking up allocation for atomic energy in its latest annual budget.

Funding for key scientific organisations, such as the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) and the National Institute of Biotechnology (NIBT), have suffered cuts.

In the 2012–2013 annual budget announced last week (28 June), Bangladesh’s finance minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith announced US$ 46.25 million for the science and technology ministry, down from the US$ 63.75 million allocated in 2011–2012.

The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission received the largest chunk of the science budget pie with US$ 15.57 million – up from US$ 14.28 million in the previous year. In contrast, the NIBT will get US$ 662,500 against the US$ 737,500 allocated last year.

In the new fiscal year some US$ 1,750,000 have been allocated for science and technology programmes against last fiscal’s US$1,875,000.

BCSIR will get US$120 million against last year’s US$ 128.75 million. However, BCSIR’s member for finance, Dilip Sharma, told SciDev.Net, "This year’s allocation reduction may not hamper our research activity to a large extent, since the cut was not high."

Scientists say the lower allocation for science could have a negative impact on research(http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/r-d/ ) in science and technology and education.

Khandaker Siddique-e-Rabbani, professor at the department of physics at the University of Dhaka, told SciDev.Net: "….you can’t downsize allocation of (science) funds if you really want expansion of the sector."

Ainun Nishat, vice-chancellor of BRAC University, one of Bangladesh’s largest private universities, described the government’s allocation for research and science education as "very meagre". However, Yafes Osman, junior minister for science and technology, contended that the overall allocation for science has not decreased since other ministries are also engaged in science-related programmes.

Osman cited the example of ‘Digital Bangladesh’, a government initiative under the ministry of information and communication to provide free computers to schoolchildren. "So you can’t say that allocation for science education and research has been downsized."

"We are trying to give a laptop and a multimedia projector to every school. So, science is everywhere," Osman added.

http://www.scidev.net/en/south-asia/news/bangladesh-cuts-funds-for-science-research-education.html

Bangladesh wary of 'green economy' agenda at Rio+20

Tue, 19 Jun 2012

By Syful Islam

DHAKA (AlertNet) - Bangladesh will advocate for a “green economy” approach that does not constrain poorer nations’ potential to grow at the U.N. conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro this week.

“We are concerned the green economy path will hamper our economic development. How effective will it be for poverty eradication?” Quazi Khaliquzzaman Ahmed, convener of Bangladesh’s climate change negotiation team, told AlertNet. “Unless poor countries get adequate funds from the major polluter (nations), it won’t be possible for them to green their economy.”

Ahmed added that Bangladesh, like other countries in the G-77 grouping of developing nations, wants to shift its economy onto a greener path, but only if it can control when and how that happens.

Some developing-country governments are concerned, for example, that if they fail to meet renewable energy targets, they could be penalised on international markets, curbing their export and growth opportunities.

Or their agricultural production might be limited if they do not get access to the environmental technologies they need to boost yields in a changing climate.

“The approach for transforming to a green economy should be country-driven, offering opportunities to improve the integration of economic and social development with environmental sustainability without hampering social development, economic growth and environmental conservation,” says the Bangladesh country position paper to be presented at the June 20-22 Rio+20 conference.

“Green economy policies should respect the national right to development, objectives and priorities based on national circumstances, including eradicating poverty, education, health, food, water and energy for the basic wellbeing of people with regard to the three dimensions of sustainable development,” it adds.

The Rio summit comes 20 years after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), and 10 years after the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.

Rio+20 aims to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development, assess progress and remaining gaps in implementing the outcomes of the previous two major summits, and address new and emerging challenges.

The two key themes of the 2012 gathering are the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and the institutional framework for sustainable development.

FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY NEEDED

Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), said development should be the top priority for poorer nations including Bangladesh.

“First they have to ensure peoples’ basic needs for life, which include adequate food and nutrition, safe water, electricity, adequate energy, hygienic living, education and social security. But the process they have to follow should be extremely sensitive about the environment and social justice,” he said.

“The polluters who are responsible for increased greenhouse gas emissions must give the victims (poor countries) adequate funding and environment-friendly technology,” Rahman said, before heading to Rio de Janeiro.

Fahmida Khatun, head of research for the Dhaka-based Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), told AlertNet that the green economy concept will be a contested issue at Rio+20.

“Developing and least developed countries, including Bangladesh, are concerned that the term ’ green economy’ will replace ‘sustainable development’ as the key theme in the environment-development nexus,” she said in an email interview.

The expert, who is attending the preparatory meeting for Rio+20 with the Bangladeshi government delegation as a civil-society representative, warned that the “green economy” agenda could be misused by richer countries for trade protection purposes, aid conditionality and debt relief.

“Bangladesh is not giving the green economy concept high status and insists that the term should only be one of several other concepts and tools that can be used to achieve sustainable development,” she wrote, adding that it should not be introduced as an international framework to prescribe policies.

“In order to follow a green development path, Bangladesh needs additional and new financial and technological support without any conditionalities,” she added.

The Bangladesh country paper states that the transformation to a green economy should be supported by an enabling environment and well-functioning institutions, with a leading role for governments and other concerned groups in society.

A green economy approach should avoid giving rise to trade measures that could lead to arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination, or disguised restrictions on international trade, the paper says. It should also contribute to closing the technology gaps between developed and developing countries, and support the livelihoods and development of people in vulnerable situations, it adds.

Environment and forests minister Hasan Mahmud said Bangladesh will seek financial commitment from the developed world at the Rio+20 summit to help achieve the embryonic Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The U.N. secretary-general has called on political leaders attending the meeting to agree to define a new set of targets that will supersede the Millennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015.

“We won’t compromise on pursuing equitable growth based on environmentally-friendly means,” the Bangladeshi minister said.

Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/bangladesh-wary-of-green-economy-agenda-at-rio20/

Hit by growing disaster losses, insurers set limits on coverage

Fri, 1 June 2012

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – The growing number of natural disasters linked to climate change has pushed global and local insurers to put a cap on their liability, leaving policy holders vulnerable to financial losses in the event they suffer major destruction.

Recent catastrophes such as flooding in Thailand and Australia, earthquakes in New Zealand and the tsunami in Japan have caused enormous losses to global insurers and reinsurers.

In response, reinsurers announced recently that they will limit their future liability in any disasters in Asia to 1.5 billion Bangladeshi taka (about $18 million) per event for each insured party.

Following suit, Sadharan Bima Corporation (SBC), Bangladesh’s lone state-owned reinsurer, imposed the same condition for renewing reinsurance treaties with local insurance companies for the fiscal year 2012-13. SBC underwrites almost 80 percent of the country’s billions of dollars of insurance coverage. The cap came into effect in April.

According to the assistant general manager of SBC, Jakir Hossain, the country’s insurance companies provide coverage of some 60 billion taka ($731 million) for natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and cyclones. The increasing frequency of cyclones and flooding in Bangladesh is believed by experts to be a consequence of climate change.

Bangladesh’s insurance companies worry that the reinsurers’ decision has put them in peril, since a major disaster that causes large-scale destruction could leave them with huge financial losses.

“The event limit of protection given by the SBC is 100 to 150 percent of the respective treaty capacity (i.e. up to 1.5 billion taka), though the exposure of the individual company against catastrophe perils is in billions of taka,” said Nasir A. Chowdhury, chief executive officer of Green Delta Insurance Company Ltd., which is based in Dhaka,

“If any such event, especially an earthquake, occurs in Bangladesh, the liability of each insurance company shall be billions of taka, which they may not be able to pay because of limited reinsurance protection by SBC and other reinsurers,” Chowdhury said.

WORSENING DISASTERS

Catastrophic flooding is a commonplace occurrence in Bangladesh. Flooding occurs during the monsoon season every year, and in the past quarter-century the country was particularly devastated by flooding in 1987, 1988, 1998 and 2004.

The 1988 flood affected more than 75 percent of Bangladesh, and in 2004 two-thirds of the country went underwater, causing widespread destruction to property and infrastructure valued at nearly $7 billion.

April of this year brought a tsunami watch to countries bordering the Indian Ocean, including Bangladesh. Heavy rains and thunderstorms have already struck the country as summer begins, claiming at least 20 lives in April, and cyclone warnings have been posted several times.

“The intensity of cyclonic wind in the Bay of Bengal has increased significantly in recent years, which we noticed in cyclones like Sidr and Aila, both of which caused a lot of damage,” said Ainun Nishat, vice chancellor of BRAC University in Dhaka.

“The frequency of disastrous events is likely to rise further,” he said.

SBC’s Jakir Hossain conceded that major destructive events are likely to hit insurance companies with huge losses.

“But we can’t go beyond the limit as that will go against our capacity. The protection limit is introduced globally,” Hossain said.

Saifuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, additional managing director of Bangladesh General Insurance Company Ltd, maintained that for events like floods and cyclones, the agreed limit of coverage by the reinsurance companies would be adequate.

“But for a massive earthquake event the coverage agreed by the reinsurer is very much inadequate which has raised the vulnerability of both the insurance companies and insured.”

The country has experienced more than 30 earthquakes of 1.5 to 6.0 magnitude on the Richter scale in the past year, according to Syed Humayun Akhter, a seismologist and supervisor of Dhaka University’s Earth Observatory. Akhter is concerned that a major earthquake may be imminent in Bangladesh.

NO ABILITY TO GET LOANS

Meanwhile, businesses that have taken out insurance against natural disasters are concerned the lack of insurance will cause problems even in day-to-day business.

Abdul Awal Mintoo, chief executive officer of Multimode Group, whose businesses include textiles, shipping, seeds, software and banking, said that if the insurance companies fail to give risk coverage to the insured, companies may not be able to access loans.

“Unless the insurance companies can provide risk coverage to our establishments, no banks will lend to us and our business will face trouble,” he said.

Against this backdrop, the country’s insurance companies are now planning to create a pool of disaster insurance funding in order to provide full coverage to their policy holders.

“We have asked all our members to inform us of their liability in case of flooding, cyclone or earthquake,” said Molla Nurul Islam, secretary-general of the Bangladesh Insurance Association.

Islam said the association would work to find ways to cover the liabilities of its members in the event of a disaster.

“We are legally bound to give full insurance coverage to the insured,” he said.

Syful Islam is a journalist with the Financial Express newspaper in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/hit-by-growing-disaster-losses-insurers-set-limits-on-coverage

Community radio cutting disaster risk in coastal Bangladesh

Tues, 22 May 2012

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – New local dialect community radio stations in Bangladesh’s coastal districts are warning residents about cyclones and helping farmers cope with erratic weather patterns.

The new radio stations are part of an initiative to reduce loss of life and damage to livelihoods from natural disasters and unpredictable weather.

“The radio (stations), run with the active participation of local people, have already gained popularity and are telling people how to adapt to climate change impacts,” said A.H.M. Bazlur Rahman, chief executive officer of the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication.

Approval was given for 14 community radio stations in coastal and inland areas in April 2010, and six are now broadcasting from coastal districts. A further 22 applications have been filed with the government. The stations are mostly funded by non-government organisations and individuals.

The radio programmes focus primarily on disaster risk reduction and climate variability, Rahman said. He attributes their growing popularity in part to programmes being broadcast in local dialects.

ACCESSIBLE TO THE ILLITERATE

“People in the countryside, most of whom are illiterate, can easily understand weather bulletins and other instructions” when they are provided in local languages, he said.

During a tsunami watch in early April, in countries bordering the Indian Ocean including Bangladesh, the new radio stations transmitted national weather forecasts in local dialects, said Manir Hossain, station manager of Lokobetar community radio, based in Barguna district in the south of the country.

“Through our programmes we advised people what they needed to do for their safety during the emergency,” Hossain said.

Although no tsunami took place, heavy rainstorms have struck Bangladesh as the rainy summer season commences, claiming at least 20 lives in April in different parts of the country.

Eunus Ali Hawlader, a Lokobetar listener who makes his living fishing at sea, said, “The station suggests carrying a radio set with us so that we can hear weather bulletins and start returning in time to avoid any danger.”

Lokobetar also broadcasts plays, songs and talk shows to raise awareness about climate change impacts and issues such as education and health services, said Hossain, who strives to ensure that programming is relevant and approachable.

“We have also included community people, the fishermen, boatmen, farmers and other locals in our programmes,” he added.

In Khulna district in the country’s southwest, Sundarban community radio warns people to send women and children to elevated storm shelters immediately when cyclones approach, and to keep adequate stocks of dry food.

Tarun Kumar, head of Sundarban community radio, said the station plans to provide a free solar-powered radio to each cyclone shelter so people can receive government instructions during disasters.

Kumar is also concerned that climate change is causing rivers in the area to dry up, threatening the livelihoods of fishing communities.

“Through our programmes we advise fishermen (on how) to find alternative livelihoods, and draw the attention of policymakers to take steps so that fishing communities do not remain unfed,” he said.

AGRICULTURAL ADVICE

Sharif Iqbal, station manager of Barguna’s Krishi radio, said his station’s main goal is to help people with disaster preparedness and risk reduction, but that offering agricultural advice is also important because of the difficulty of farming on land vulnerable to flooding from the sea.

“For the farmers we broadcast expert opinions on what steps they need to take, and when, to get a better yield,” he said. “We suggest to them what types of seeds they should choose and which one will be suitable for saline-affected lands.”

Real-time information is vital for farmers, according to Iqbal, because land in the area only allows for a single harvest each year.

“If they lose the crop, they will starve,” he said.

Amal Babu, a farmer and listener of Krishi radio, has no illusions about the difficulty of making a living, and believes the broadcasts could help.

“This area is prone to disaster. The crop yield is comparatively good here but salinity, drought, flooding and cyclones destroy (it),” he said. “If the farmers can get advance information on calamity and advice about farming tools they will be able to get a good yield.”

Babu has already taken the advice of a programme broadcast on Krishi Radio about a salt-tolerant variety of rice paddy which can survive more than three weeks under water.

“Farmers have started to cultivate the variety and are now less worried about losing crops,” said Babu.

The convener of Bangladesh’s national climate change negotiation team, Quazi Khaliquzzaman Ahmed, agreed that community radio can play a significant role in explaining how to adapt to the effects of climate change and helping people improve their preparedness for disasters.

“In Bangladesh there are 45,000 volunteers ready to act when disaster hits. The community radios can inform them as well as (other) people ... what to do before and after the disaster strikes,” he said.

Syful Islam is a journalist with the Financial Express newspaper in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com. This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/community-radio-cutting-disaster-risk-in-coastal-bangladesh/

Coconut and mango waste could help power Asia

Syful Islam

22 March 2012

SciDev.net

[DHAKA] Researchers in the United States say agricultural waste from coconut and mango farming could generate significant amounts of off-grid electricity for rural communities in South and South-East Asia.

Many food crops have a tough, inedible part which cannot be used to feed livestock or fertilise fields. Examples of this material — known as 'endocarp' — include coconut, almond and pistachio shells, and the stones of mangoes, olives, plums, apricots and cherries.

Endocarp is high in a chemical compound known as lignin. High-lignin products can be heated to produce an energy-rich gas that can be used to generate electricity.

The researchers identified high-endocarp-producing regions of the world – and noted that coconut and mango agriculture account for 72 per cent of total global endocarp production. Coconut production alone accounted for 55 per cent.

Most coconut endocarp comes from South and South-East Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

They then overlaid these findings with energy consumption data to identify communities with little access to electricity, who could benefit from endocarp-based energy.

"We noticed that production was unevenly distributed around the globe, which could make a very significant contribution to the energy budget in some countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines, [as well as] regions of India," Tom Shearin, co-author and a systems analyst at University of Kentucky, United States, told SciDev.Net.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (February 21), the researchers said endocarp bioenergy could meet up to 30 per cent of total energy needs in Sri Lanka, 25 per cent in the Philippines, 13 per cent in Indonesia, and 3 per cent in India.

Shearin said endocarp was preferable to crop-based biofuels as it had no value as a food item. "Its exploitation as energy source does not compete with food production," he said.

Wais Kabir, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, told SciDev.Net that most of the country's agricultural waste, including non-edible by-products, was already used to generate bioenergy.

"I don't think that supply of adequate volumes of coconut shell, [for example] to run a power plant, is possible at this stage until we go for its production in a planned way," he said.

The researchers acknowledged that efforts to scale up infrastructure to deliver decentralised bio-energy in developing countries would face economic, technical and social challenges.

Advocates of an endocarp-based energy sector would also have to persuade investors that it would be financially viable.

Abser Kamal, managing director of Grameen Shakti, a renewable energy firm in Bangladesh, said: "We have to check if these are cost-effective or not".

Islam Sharif, CEO of the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL), a state-run renewable energy financing firm in Bangladesh, said IDCO would encourage investment in endocarp-based energy production if it was found to be financially viable.

"Bangladesh needs more energy sources to meet its power needs," Sharif told SciDev.Net.

http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/renewable-energy/news/coconut-and-mango-waste-could-help-power-asia.html

Scientists identify genetic vulnerability to arsenic-related cancers

Syful Islam

7 March 2012 | SciDev.net

[DHAKA] People at greater risk of developing debilitating or fatal diseases related to arsenic exposure could be prioritised for treatment, following a study by Bangladeshi and US researchers.

Exposure to arsenic through contaminated drinking water is a major public health issue affecting millions of people, mostly in South Asia.

A previous study had linked as many as one in five deaths in Bangladesh to arsenic exposure, and the WHO has called the phenomenon "the largest mass poisoning" in history.

The new study — published in PLoS Genetics last month (23 February) — looked at why some people are more susceptible to arsenic poisoning, with a view to establishing whether there is a genetic basis to their susceptibility.

Researchers studied the entire genomes of 3,000 people in Bangladesh and found that those who developed arsenic-related skin lesions shared a common area of their genomes. Such lesions are an indicator of overall susceptibility to other arsenic-related diseases.

The researchers said their findings suggested that up to a third of the Bangladeshi population carries the genetic variation.

"The precise risk estimates are being investigated," said lead author Habibul Ahsan, an epidemiology professor at the University of Chicago, United States.

Ahsan told SciDev.Net that the discovery could inform the design of targeted screening programmes to identify those most at risk of developing arsenic-related illness.

"Since millions of exposed people can't realistically be treated, our findings will help identify susceptible sub-groups that can be provided with specific medical treatments," Ahsan said.

At present, he said, people with the genetic disposition have no alternative but to avoid contaminated water, although he acknowledged this was not always possible.

But he added that a range of treatments are being investigated, including low-cost therapies using vitamin E, selenium and folic acid, all of which are in clinical trials.

Once treatments become available, Ahsan said, those with the genetic susceptibility could be prioritised for treatment.

"We know from Chile and Taiwan that the risk of arsenic-related cancers and death remains high for the rest of [the lives of arsenic-affected people] — even after the exposure [risk] is removed by the provision of safe water," he said.

The researchers plan further large-scale studies, with a view to persuading the Bangladeshi government to engage more actively with the issue.

"This will help our doctors in curative and preventive management of arsenic-exposed patients," said Sudhir Kumar Ghosh, superintendent engineer at the Department of Public Health Engineering, in Bangladesh.

http://www.scidev.net/en/health/genomics/news/scientists-identify-genetic-vulnerability-to-arsenic-related-cancers.html

Climate migrants cause baby boom in Bangladesh's urban slums

02 Mar 2012

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) – Climate and economic migrants to Bangladesh’s urban slums are contributing to a population boom that is creating social strains in this tiny and impoverished country of 160 million people.

“Lack of awareness and education, unavailability of contraceptives, absence of a social safety net and uncertainty over the future are among the reasons behind the baby boom of the slum refugees,” said Ainun Nishat, an environmentalist and vice chancellor of Brac University.

Bangladesh is suffering increasingly frequent flooding from cyclones and from heavy rainfall that experts believe is associated with climate change. Its coastal plains are particularly at risk, but many who live in the country’s interior are also vulnerable to river bank erosion – or conversely to drought.

When flooding and erosion displace families, and in many cases leave them landless and penniless, they often take refuge in urban areas, and have little option but to live in slums. There, lack of education about family planning, poor access to birth control and worries about financial security combine to result in large families.

“These unlucky people feel that in old age they will have to depend on children to secure a living. So, they prefer to take more number of children to be sure that at least one of them will take care of the parents,” Nishat said.

HIGH SLUM FERTILITY RATE

According to the 2006 Bangladesh Urban Health Survey, the total fertility rate – the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime – is 4.5 in urban slums, far higher than the overall national rate of 2.5.

Bangladesh’s total fertility rate has plummeted over the past five decades from a peak of more than 7. But the country’s population density, the increasing frequency of natural disasters, and heavy migration to cities mean that the higher fertility rate among slum dwellers is set to create growing economic and social pressures.

Hamid Mia, 50, is a father of five who works as a boatman near the Korail slum in Dhaka, the country’s capital, where he has lived for 20 years. He lost his village home in Chaulakathi, in the southern district of Barishal, after the Kochar River claimed his family's land.

Mia’s two sons are rickshaw pullers while his three daughters work in garment factories to help the family.

“My sons and daughters are also working, as I can’t bear all the expenses of a seven-member family,” he said.

The World Bank estimates that nearly 42 million Bangladeshis, somewhat more than a quarter of the country’s population, live in urban areas. According to Nurun Nabi, a professor in the University of Dhaka’s Population Science Department, around 40 percent of urban residents live in slums, and they contribute three-quarters of live births in urban areas.

“Every couple (of child-bearing age) in the slums has around five to six children, while the other city dwellers have on an average two to three babies,” said Nabi.

“I do not know if all the slum dwellers are climate refugees but most of them have come from the countryside as they lost living places due to river erosion (or were) displaced due to natural calamities and lacked somewhere to live,” he said.

ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRANTS

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that about 70 percent of slum dwellers in Dhaka have experienced some kind of environmental disaster. By some accounts, half a million people move to the city each year, mainly from coastal and rural areas.

Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, executive director of the Centre for Global Change, a non-governmental organisation, said that the capital contributes 31 percent of the country’s GDP, making it attractive to people displaced by climate change and disasters and looking for jobs.

Ahmed and fellow researcher Sharmind Neelormi estimate that erosion, soil salinity and waterlogging of soil alone have the potential to displace about 100,000 rural residents annually. But population migration due to flooding is on a far greater scale.

Tahera Akter, a researcher with Unnayan Onneshan, an NGO, found that during the period 1970-2009, Bangladesh suffered major floods every three years on average, and that each occurrence displaced an average of a quarter of the country’s population. Akter predicts that as many as 78 million people could be displaced by floods, cyclones and droughts by 2020.

Dhaka’s population has grown to about 12 million since the nation’s independence in 1971, and the city’s slum population has increased from 275,000 in 1974 to 3.4 million in 2005, according to the Centre for Urban Studies, a Bangladeshi think tank.

Ahmed said that many slum residents are illiterate and do not understand that a big family can bring burdens for society as well as for themselves. To stop the population boom, he said that ensuring education of girls and women is crucial.

EDUCATING WOMEN KEY

International studies show that educating women and providing health care to ensure their children survive is one of the surest ways of reducing birth rates.

M.M. Neazuddin, director general of the government’s Family Planning Directorate, said that while family planning activities outside cities are meeting with success, the lack of adequate health services and awareness programmes in slum areas is causing the population boom in urban slums.

Neazuddin said that his office will implement a crash programme within a year to try to bring down the fertility rate in city slums.

In Korail slum, Hamid Mia said that some health centres run by the city corporation did exist.

“Health workers there offer family planning advice but I think those are not enough to reduce population growth. Providing contraceptives free of cost as well as motivation may help,” he said.

Brac University’s Nishat said that in the past health workers had supplied free contraceptives door to door, which had helped reduce population growth.

“But the government, on the World Bank’s advice, has stopped the door-to-door service and made it health-centre based,” he said. The problem is that the health centres are often far from people’s homes, and as a result, “people feel discouraged to avail themselves of the facility,” he said.

Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Dhaka. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/climate-migrants-cause-baby-boom-in-bangladeshs-urban-slums/