Take special measures for the marginalised

A coalition of leading development organisations yesterday called on the government and other development actors to prioritise needs of the marginalised by taking comprehensive, inclusive and far-sighted measures to protect them amid the evolving coronavirus situation.

Special consideration needs to be given to 11.3 percent extreme poor population in rural and urban areas, with a focus on geographically marginalised population in haor and char areas of Bangladesh, the coalition "Leave No One Behind" said in a statement.

"The coronavirus emergency is primarily a health crisis, but it has the potential to have severe medium and long term negative socioeconomic impact on every segment of the society. It is the poorest and marginalised of Bangladesh who will be the hardest hit," it said.

Particularly, women and children of vulnerable communities will severely suffer from the economic and social impacts, it added.

The coalition comprises of Brac, Save the Children in Bangladesh, Plan International, ActionAid Bangladesh, Transparency International Bangladesh, Islamic Relief, international Christian development organisation CBM, and Voluntary Service Overseas.

Praising government's measures to stop coronavirus infections and the stimulus packages, the coalition said it was important to remember the already vulnerable, marginalised and poorest communities are living in the fringes of society.

People with disability, ethnic minority groups, transgender communities, sex workers and people with sexually transmitted disease are the demographics that are the ones left furthest behind, it said.

In a 12-point recommendation, the coalition called for ensuring inclusive health service delivery for the marginalised with effective testing services, ensuring availability and distribution of medicine, and accessible isolation and quarantine centres.

It called for providing personal protection equipment to officials and workers in special service centres such as District HIV Centres and Disability Service Centres, and hand-washing, water, hygiene and sanitation facilities for the marginalised communities.

The coalition said special social safety net programmes and food ration cards should be provisioned with a dedicated budget and effective targeting.

It stressed for direct cash transfer programme to reach urban floating people and urged to address informal sector unemployment problem which arose due to the pandemic.

It emphasised on strong measures to tackle the challenges of governance as well as corruption during the Covid-19 response.