Meeting Discusses Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100

The General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Commission and the TA Team of the BDP 2100 Formulation Project organized a workshop at the NEC II Conference Room last week on 11 September 2014. The objective of the workshop was to discuss approaches to Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 Formulation, Baseline Study Plan and Ministries’ Participation.

Special Guest of the workshop, Mr. Md. Nojibur Rahman, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of Bangladesh said: “The Delta Plan program is a visionary one, and it will greatly benefit from the views of all stakeholders and experts.”

At the workshop, Mr. Md. Mufidul Islam, Project Director of the BDP 2100, made a presentation and informed that GED will stimulate the involvement of ministries, divisions and agencies in order to build partnership and ownership, share ideas, knowledge and understanding of needs in order to link planning to sectoral policy documents.

“Deliverables of the BDP 2100 formulation project will ensure views of relevant stakeholders, and this involvement will be coordinated through the designated focal points,” he said.

He also added that deliverables such as the inception report, baseline study reports on 19 themes, investment plan and future reports generated will be shared with all focal points for their views and comments.

Mr. Jaap de Heer, Team Leader, BDP 2100 TA team, provided a brief overview of the project and the process being used to formulate the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. He summarized the challenges of delta management in Bangladesh in three key points: “Facing water resource problems including climate change, need for long term holistic vision, strategy, plan, investments for better management of land and water and institutional and governance setting needed to make BDP 2100 approach possible and implementable.”

Mr. Christiaan Reebergen, Deputy Director General, International Cooperation and Foreign Trade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of the Netherlands, was present at the workshop as a special guest, who said: “Our countries have so much in common. I think the most important element here is for the plan to be adaptive. At first in Netherlands, we made a delta plan but soon realized that we need to change it because the world is changing very fast. So we need plans to evolve as the world evolves. Secondly, I think the private sector needs to be involved, because a lot of the required interventions need investments which cannot be funded by the public sector alone. Institutional development is needed to carry forward the implementation of this plan, which brings people together who needs to work together. It’s not just about water and water management, but also about land and agriculture and development overall, because all these things need to be considered together and not as standalone issues.”

He ended his speech saying he is looking forward to the collaboration between the governments of Bangladesh and the Netherlands in putting the BDP 2100 together.