Bangladesh to get $200m ADB credit

Bangladesh is about to receive a package loan of $200 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for strengthening urban infrastructure, service delivery and governance in municipality areas. ADB board of directors approved the credit in a meeting, says an ADB press release issued yesterday. According to the press release, the additional financing approved this week will enable the continued funding of priority infrastructure and governance improvements in 35 municipalities with a total population of 3.1 million. Emphasis on promoting climate resilience and gender equality has also been addressed. The project will also allocate funds based on governance performance to the top-performing remaining municipalities in Bangladesh. Specifically, the additional financing for the third project, bringing the total ADB financing up to $325 million, will contribute to build or improve 600km of roads and 300km of drains, and install or upgrade 180km of pipes for water supply with 60,000 metered household connections. Slum improvement work will be undertaken in all project towns, while sludge management facilities will be built in 14 project towns and solid waste sites in 20. This project will focus on drawing up plans to tackle poverty reduction, gender issues, slum improvement, community participation, and improving municipal financial management by completing ongoing work on computerisation of tax records and billing systems. The implementation period for the project is from August 2017 to June 2021. “The country’s municipalities still need significant investment to not only improve service delivery and urban environment but also strengthen resilience to climate change,” said ADB Urban Development Specialist Alexandra Vogl. “This additional ADB financing for the well performing Third Urban Governance and Infrastructure (Sector) Project builds on the work of two previous ADB projects, expanding work in the municipalities where we are already working and into five new ones,” Vogl further added. The press release also stated: “Bangladesh’s economy has been growing at a healthy pace, averaging 6.6% gross domestic product growth in 2014-2016, but the government faces the challenge of achieving sustainable and inclusive growth in the face of rapid urbanisation.”