News Source: Bangladesh Daily Sun

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Lilianne Ploumen, World Bank Program Leader Lia Carol Sieghart, and Executive Director of IFC/2030 Water Resources Group Dr Anders Berntell are seen at a ceremony on signing a MoU on ‘Towards Resilient and Sustainable Delta Management for a Prosperous Bangladesh’ at NEC Conference Room at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the capital on Tuesday.

The government has joined hands with the Dutch government and the World Bank group to implement its ‘Delta Plan 2100’ designed to uphold biodiversity and physical characteristics of the Asia’s largest delta apart from helping attain a mid-income status.  To this end, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the government, the Netherlands and WB Group including its private sector arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the 2030 Water Resources Group at the city’s NEC auditorium on Tuesday. The MoU titled ‘Towards Resilient and Sustainable Delta Management for a Prosperous Bangladesh’ will strengthen management of the Bangladesh Delta, also the world’s most populated.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Lilianne Ploumen, World Bank Programme Leader Lia Carol Sieghart, and Executive Director of IFC/2030 Water Resources Group Dr Anders Berntell signed the document. Two-thirds of Bangladesh lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta and calls for special focus to sustainable delta management.

Beset by an already high and growing population density along with growing urbanisation, proper planning and management of the delta will secure Bangladesh’s future development over the next decades through improving water safety, food security and disaster resilience.
Welcoming the partnership with the Netherlands for formulating Delta Plan 2100, the finance minister said Bangladesh has not really acquired land from the sea the way the Netherlands did as Bangladesh has relied on natural forces to get these land. Bangladesh every year gets around 1,000 square miles of land automatically through various river systems creating delta in Bangladesh.