Brazilian support safeguards 2,000 lives
Charge d'Affaires of Brazil in Bangladesh Fausto Godoy and UN's World Food Programme Representative in Bangladesh Christa Rader, along with Local Government Engineering Department engineers and local representatives, are walking a newly constructed road doubling as an embankment at Char Barovita, a shoal in the Brahmaputra river, in Chilmari, Kurigram. The photo was taken on Tuesday. Photo: WFP
A sandy road stretching little over a kilometre in a far-off Brahmaputra shoal is now a life-saver for an entire community of 2,000 people living in the impoverished Char called Barovita. Construction of this road could not have been better timed. A flash flood struck the shoal in late July when some 500 rural poor, 75 percent of them women, had just completed construction of the 1.27km elevated road which doubles as an embankment, saving many lives and property from inundation. The men and women, mostly landless poor and victims of recurrent erosions, who built the road in record 18 workdays, eventually safeguarded 40 hectares of cultivable lands from flash floods of the Brahmaputra river and protected the shoal from siltation and intrusion of sand in the arable land. Now this road stands for testimony of resilience and only pathway for some 182 children who attend the only registered non-government primary school in Char Barovita in Kurigram's Chilmari upazila. It has been possible for a Brazilian government donation channelled through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), which helped the shoal's poor to form groups and work to build the road on the basis of daily wage. The Bangladesh government also chipped in cash to supplement the Brazilian food donation. Chilmari and Char Barovita witnessed the official launch of the Brazilian contribution on Tuesday when its Charge d'Affaires in Bangladesh Fausto Godoy along with WFP Representative in Bangladesh Dr Christa Rader handed over the cash and food to the Enhancing Resilience (ER) programme participants at Fakirhat High School ground in Chilmari. Emerging out from a queue of food and cash recipients, one Mosammat Sobeda told The Daily Star, "I am happy to have worked for the development of my own community and at the same time earning some wages. I received today Tk 1,244 in cash and rice, oil and pulses too." Mousumi Akhter, who works for an NGO that partnered with WFP in this effort, explained that they selected for the work the most vulnerable members of the community, who had no land to grow crops and very little assets to survive. The participants were also given trainings on issues ranging from simple life skills to adaptation to climate change, she said. Brazil is WFP's 10th largest donor. But a consignment of 7,000 tonnes of rice worth US$3.3 million is Brazil's first contribution through WFP Bangladesh and also a first time contribution to food security programme in Bangladesh. The contribution signals the beginning of a new South-South partnership between Brazil and Bangladesh. Brazil has made enormous successes in reducing poverty and food insecurity through extremely successful government policies like its "Zero Hunger Campaign". Talking to The Daily Star, Brazilian envoy Fausto Godoy said his country had emerged as the sixth largest economy of the world, and Brazil was willing to support Bangladesh's initiatives to achieve middle income status by 2020. "Believe me, your country has the potential to rise as a vibrant economy. We like to share the experiences of our achievements with Bangladesh. I can foresee Bangladesh developing its sugarcane sector by gaining access to rich genomic resources in sugarcane that we have in Brazil," he said. WFP Representative Dr Christa Rader said the rice from Brazil, along with contributions from other donors, would assist four lakh beneficiaries in 80,000 households supported by the Enhancing Resilience to Disasters and Effects of Climate Change (ER) programme in 2012. In partnership with the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), the WFP will use the contribution to provide employment to ultra poor people, 70 percent of whom are women. Participants receive food and cash for work to build community assets such as dams and canals and other key infrastructure projects in coastal and flood-prone areas, which protect communities from the impacts of climate change and for training in disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, life-skills, nutrition, and income generating activities. Under ER programme, the households received 2kgs of rice, 200 grams of pulses, and 100ml of vegetable oil every day. LGED provided a complementary cash of Tk 58 per day on Bangladesh government's behalf. WFP officials said the remainder of the rice will be distributed to participants in the ER programme for 2012 in 28 upazilas in Kurigram, Bogra, Sirajganj, Jamalpur, Bagerhat and Khulna districts, benefiting around 2.5 lakh people. The ER programme, which has been operating since 1975 to improve the country's transport through construction of roads, embankments and drainage, constitutes $23 million of WFP's Country Programme budget annually. This is in addition to $11 million annual contribution by Bangladesh.
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