DHAKA, June 29, 2022 (BSS) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Bangladesh today signed an agreement for $41.4 million grant to improve the infrastructure and meet up the basic needs of the displaced persons from Myanmar- sheltered in Cox’s Bazar.

The additional assistance forms the second phase of the ADB’s ongoing Emergency Assistance Project worth $100 million in grant approved in 2018.
 
Fatima Yasmin, Secretary, Economic Relations Division, and Edimon Ginting, Country Director of the ADB, signed the agreement on behalf of Bangladesh and the ADB, respectively, said a press release.
 
“The assistance will scale up the ongoing project by addressing the unmet basic and urgent needs identified for ADB assistance in 2018 but which remained unfunded due to grant funding constraints,” said ADB Country Director for Bangladesh Edimon Ginting. 

“Disaster shelter centers, health facilities, improved water supply and sanitation, and better waste management that will be provided with ADB assistance, will reduce disaster risks, strengthen the resilience against COVID-19, and serve basic human needs of the camp population until their repatriation”.
 
The new assistance will build 200 water and sanitation facilities, three solid waste management facilities, and establish a piped water supply system at Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar. 

It will, among others, upgrade four health care facilities for acute respiratory infection, expand six primary health care and diagnostic centers in Teknaf, improve skills of health care workers in Cox’s Bazar district, and construct a multipurpose disaster-resilient isolation center to help with the COVID-19 response.
 
To strengthen disaster resilience and help protect displaced persons, six school-cum-cyclone shelters in local primary schools, and one multipurpose cyclone shelter, which will also function as a COVID-19 isolation center, will be constructed. About 13 kilometers (km) of rural access roads leading to the camp facilities will be upgraded.
 
In addition to the new grant assistance, an agreement was also signed today for a $30 million concessional loan to rehabilitate a 30.76 km section of National Highway-1 to improve the transportation of relief and essential goods between Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar.
 
The release said the ADB support has so far provided clean drinking water, bathing facilities, food distribution centers, and disaster shelters benefitting over 1.2 million people in the camps and host communities. 

Safety in the camps also improved through solar streetlamps, and lightning arresters. Roads, walkways, and bridges inside the camps improved the overall management of the camps as well as food distribution and other services.