WB okays $165m to help provide for Rohingyas

The World Bank has approved a $165 million grant to help Bangladesh provide basic services and build disaster and social resilience for the Rohingyas who fled violence in Myanmar and took shelter in Teknaf and Ukhia upazilas in Cox's Bazar.

This is the third in a series of planned financings of approximately half a billion dollars announced by the WB in June 2018.

Earlier the World Bank had committed a $75 million grant to provide for healthcare and educational needs of the Rohingyas.

The Emergency Multi-Sector Rohingya Crisis Response Project will help Bangladesh cope with the world's fastest growing exodus, where the Rohingya outnumber the local community more than threefold in the Teknaf and Ukhia upazilas, said the WB on Saturday.

The project will help build and rehabilitate basic infrastructure, improve community resilience and help prevent gender-based violence.

This includes building a water supply system comprising community standpoints, rainwater harvesting, and piped water supply systems as well as improving sanitation facilities.

The project will also build and improve multipurpose cyclone shelters, roads, footpaths, drains, culverts, bridges and install solar street lights inside the camps.

"Bangladesh has shown great generosity by sheltering and providing for a nearly a million Rohingya people, despite its own development challenges," said Dandan Chen, World Bank Acting Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan.

"The influx has placed enormous pressure on local infrastructure, services and public resources. This project will contribute to improving basic public infrastructure and living conditions in the congested camp. Moreover, through our existing and new projects, we are helping the local population."

The Rohingyas are living in extremely congested conditions in Cox Bazar, an area that is prone to weather shocks.

The project will respond to natural disaster shocks and gender-based violence through strengthened government systems and its service deliveries will focus on women and children.

Water and sanitation facilities will target women, children and disabled individuals and the street lights will contribute to better safety.

"More than half of the Rohingya population are women and girls and before coming to Bangladesh they were exposed to gender-based violence," said Swarna Kazi, World Bank team leader for the project.

The World Bank is helping the host communities with about $200 million support in Cox's Bazar through ongoing projects: disaster preparedness including building and rehabilitating cyclone shelters; improving basic infrastructures and governance in union parishads, pourashabhas, and municipal areas; social protection; and, collaborative forest management and income generation opportunities for the host communities.