World Bank to finance USD 250 million to Bangladesh for environment management

The World Bank on Friday approved USD 250 million financing to help Bangladesh strengthen environment management and promote private sector participation in green investment. Successful implementation of the Bangladesh Environmental Sustainability and Transformation (BEST) Project will help the country tackle key pollution issues, benefitting over 21 million people living in Greater Dhaka and beyond.

The project will help construct four vehicle inspection centres using private-public partnership modality to inspect about 46,000 vehicles annually. An E-waste management facility will be set up to process 3,500 metric tons of e-waste annually. The project will help reduce over 1 million metric tons of GreenHouse Gas emissions from targeted sources.

The project will also set up a first-ever network of 22 continuous surface water quality monitoring stations to start monitoring of water quality of Dhaka rivers and targeted international rivers in real time. It will also establish continuous water quality monitoring stations to ensure environmental compliance of selected industrial effluent treatment plants.

World Bank Acting Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan Dandan Chen said that Bangladesh’s rapid economic growth and urbanisation have come at a high environmental cost in terms of pollution. Chen said pollution is not only impacting the country’s health, but it is also eroding Bangladesh’s economic competitiveness. He said this project will strengthen the country’s environmental institutions to better control pollution and promote sustainable development.

World Bank Senior Environment Specialist and task team leader for the project Jiang Ru quoted a World Bank estimate that shows that in 2019 air pollution and lead exposure were responsible for more than one-fifth of the deaths in Bangladesh, costing about 12 percent of the country’s GDP.

The credit is from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides concessional financing. It has a 30-year term with a five-year grace period.