ADB focuses on water worries

Keeping the looming water scarcity in mind, the Asian Development Bank has nearly doubled its allocation for water sector projects across Asia to $4.2 billion this year, up from an average yearly funding of $2.4 billion in the last six years.

In a welcome departure from a low-level annual funding of less than half a billion dollars in irrigation and drainage, the ADB decided to more than triple its funding in irrigation to $1.5 billion in 2017, placing high importance on crucial needs of the farm sector in the largely agrarian Asian economies. 

The ADB's Deputy Director General Amy Leung said this at a media briefing at the Pacifico Yokohama, one of Japan's largest convention facilities, yesterday ahead of the beginning of the Bank's golden jubilee celebration and annual meeting in Yokohama today.

Leung said 3.4 billion people would be water-stressed in Asia by 2050 as projected demands for water would increase by 55 percent from now, food by 50 percent and energy by 66 percent.

How big a slice of pie Bangladesh can expect from this larger financing for water and irrigation sectors? Though Leung had no ready answer, she said Bangladesh is crucial as far as growing water needs are concerned.

Later in the day, ADB officials from its headquarters in Manila emailed to inform that Bangladesh would get $250 million out of the $4.2 billion this year.

According to an ADB literature, declining river health is most evident in Bangladesh, the lower Yangtze River Basin in China, Nepal and northern and southern Vietnam (Mekong Delta).

Of the $4.2 billion, half a billion dollars would go to China as part of a four-year project worth $4 billion to revitalise the Yangtze river and turn the industries along the river green, said Leung.

She said 29 out of 48 countries in the Asia and Pacific are currently facing water insecurity.

Many Asian countries would end up with least per capita availability. And that's why the Bank was increasing its water projects across the continent, added the ADB DDG.

An ADB literature notes, “South Asia has the lowest score for resilience to water-related disasters, notably Bangladesh and India. Several countries increased resilience between 2013 and 2016, including Pakistan and the Philippines.”

Bangladesh also lags behind in providing better water services like water, wastewater and stormwater managements in urban settings, according to the Bank.

The ADB has awarded an additional investment grant of $6 million to build resilience in vulnerable communities in Bangladesh's Bagerhat and Patuakhali. This is part of the Bank's $130 million trust fund established in recent years to support fast-growing cities in Asia to reduce the risk the poor face from the negative impacts of climate change.

Speaking at the news briefing, ADB Technical Adviser (urban) Vijay Padmanabhan said Bangladesh is among seven countries where at least 70 percent of the Bank's $2 billion portfolio for urban cities goes to water and sanitation projects under its “Liveable Cities Initiative”.

Leung said 150 million more people could have been provided with safe water if the leakage of water pipelines in the Asian countries was halved.

The issue of water got more complicated when countries failed to manage common river waters as upstream and downstream neighbours, she added.

“We didn't conduct a study on transboundary river issues by ourselves,” said Leung, adding that ADB didn't want to be dragged into this as things get “political” at times when it comes to water-sharing.

About setting up of hydrological power plants in India's Sikkim, the ADB official said the Bank gets involved in small-scale hydel projects rather than in gigantic ones and that it cares about any adverse ecological impacts.

Leung said ADB would soon publish a study identifying “water hotspots” in Asia -- it would inform the governments across Asian nations about where and how they should focus to help people come out of water-starved situations in the coming decades. The study is done  and all the governments sans India have completed reviews. It should be made public very soon provided India's review gets completed, she added.

She also spoke of an upcoming GIS-based water information system, first of its kind, in Pakistan's Balochistan which would help the Baloch government to develop efficiency in farm irrigation.