Roundup: Green growth key to Bangladesh's upper-middle income country vision

DHAKA, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi officials and social representatives held a workshop here on Sunday to discuss the newly-released report by the World Bank on the environmental status of the country during its process of urbanization.

According to the report entitled "Country Environment Assessment for Bangladesh", Dhaka and other cities are facing severe air and water pollution due to rapid and unplanned urbanization.

To achieve an upper-middle income status, Bangladesh must check environmental degradation, particularly in the urban areas and become climate resilient, the report suggested.

The report said that the country is losing 1 percent of GDP every year due to air pollution. Noncompliant industries and inadequate waste management of hazardous and nonhazardous materials are polluting the cities' air as well as surface and groundwater.

For one ton of fabric, the dyeing and finishing factories discharge 200 metric tons of wastewater to rivers, leading to health hazards in the capital's poorer neighborhood, the report said.

"When growth comes at the cost of environment, it cannot sustain," said Zahid Hussain, World Bank acting country director for Bangladesh.

"The good news is that we have seen it is possible to grow cleaner and greener without growing slower."

"To sustain its strong growth performance, Bangladesh simply cannot afford to ignore the environment. It must plan and act now to prevent environmental degradation and ensure climate resilience," he said.

The World Bank report focused on four areas: cost of environmental degradation, urban wetlands, cleaner technologies, and institutions. As the country is rapidly urbanizing, the analysis suggested that it needs to manage the urbanization and industrialization process in an environmentally sustainable way.

To enforce environmental policies, the government must strengthen the institutions and regulatory framework. It should provide incentives to industries to adopt green and clean technologies and should enforce polluter's pay principle, the report suggested.

Due to unplanned development, unabated pollution is affecting both big and small cities. For example, in Dhaka, around 600,000 residents are exposed to lead contamination, which can lead to IQ loss and neurological damage, especially among children.

The cities also suffer from waterlogging due to heavy rainfall. They are vulnerable to floods due to wetland encroachments and lack of waste management systems, the report mentioned.

For instance, the city of Pabna has lost nearly half of its wetlands since 1990. Now it faces prolonged waterlogging. To improve the cities' resilience, the government needs to incorporate wetlands into urban planning, enforce zoning, and invest in waste management.

According to the report, climate change further aggravates industrial pollution as some industrial belts are exposed to sea level rise. Climate change will likely to reduce agricultural productivity, increase malnutrition, and decrease water availability in many areas.

Bangladeshi Minister of Environment and Forest, Anwar Hossain Manju delivered a keynote speech at the workshop.

Policy makers, government officials, environmentalists, urban planners, and civil society representatives were present and discussed findings of the report, which will be launched early next year. Enditem