Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reductionin Urbanization in Bangladesh: A Scoping Study

Oxfam GB

Bangladesh Programme,

House-4, Road-3,

Block-I, Banani, Dhaka-1213

Web: www.oxfam.org.uk

Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reductionin Urbanization

Development Frontiers

Email: [email protected]

Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reductionin Urbanization in Bangladesh: A Scoping Study

evelopment Frontiers

Flat 3, Level 4, Sattar Tower

9, West Kafrul, Taltola

Agargaon, Dhaka-1207


Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction A Scoping Study

Oxfam GB

Bangladesh Programme,

House-4, Road-3,

Block-I, Banani, Dhaka-1213

Web: www.oxfam.org.uk

Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction in Urbanization

Bangladesh: A Scoping Study

i



Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction in Urbanization

Scoping Study


Flat 3, Level 4, Sattar Tower

9, West Kafrul, Taltola

Agargaon, Dhaka-1207


Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction in Urbanization in

ii

Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction in Urbanization in

Bangladesh: A Scoping Study

A.K.M. Mamunur Rashid1 Dr. Shahjalal2

Dr. Tawhidul Islam3 Maruf Hasan Sakib4

Naznin Nahar5 Bebek Kanti Das6 Chaity Rahman7

Md. Rajibul Islam8 Salma Azzad9

SarfarazNewaz10

1A.K.M. Mamunur Rashid is the Director (honorary) of Development Frontiers and student of

Ph.D in Department of Anthropology in Jahangirnagar University. He was the DRR expert and team leader of the study.

2Dr. Shahjalal is a Professor of Anthropology in Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka and honorary Chairman of Development Frontiers. He was the technical advisor of the study. 3Dr. ShiekhTawhidul Islam is the Professor of Department of Geography and Environment in

Jahangirnagar University. He was the urban expert and physical planning expert of the study.

4 Maruf Hasan Sakib is a graduate of Urban and Rural Planning Discipline, post-graduate of

Development Studies, post-grad student of IWFM-BUET and former consultant of World Bank, DMB, SDMC and UNDP. He was the research coordinator of the study

5 Ms. NazninNahar is MPhil student of department of Urban and Rural Planning of Khulna

University. She was the research associate for Khulna and Mongla cities. 6Bebek Kanti Das is a graduate of Geography and Environment from Chittagong University. He

was the research associate for Mymensingh and Sirajganj cities. 7 Ms. Chaity Rahman is a post-graduate student of disaster management in Dhaka University.

She has graduated in economics from BRAC University. She was research associate for Dhaka North and South City.

8Rajibul Islam is a graduate of Civil Engineering from Khulna University of Engineering and

Technology. He was research associate for physical planning work of all cities. 9 Salma Azad is a graduate of public administration from Rajshahi University. She was research

associate for Rangpur and Nageshwari cities. 10SarfarazNewaz is a graduate of public administration from Chittagong University. He was

research associate for Durgapur city and RAJUK and KDA.

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ABBREVIATION

ADP Annual Development Plan ADB Asian Development Bank BAPA Bangladesh PoribeshAndolon BBS Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics BCCRF Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund BCCSAP Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan BCCTF Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund BSPCR Bangladesh Special Programme for Climate Resilience BELA Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association BIP Bangladesh Institute of Planners BIWTA Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority BIWTC Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation BMD Bangladesh Meteorological Department BPDB Bangladesh Power Development Board BRAC Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee BSCIC Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation BTCL Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited BUET Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology CBO Community Based Organization CCA Climate Change Adaptation CCTF Climate Change Trust Fund CCU Climate Change Unit COP Conference of the Parties CDMP Comprehensive Disaster Management Plan CPEIR Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review CRMP Community Risk Management Planning CTP Chief Town Planner DANIDA Danish International Development Agency DCC Dhaka City Corporation DIT Dacca Improvement Trust DMB Disaster Management Bureau DND Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra DoE Department of Environment DPDCL Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited DPHE Department of Public Health Engineering DPZ Detailed Planning Zone DP Development Partners DRM Disaster Risk Management DRR Disaster Risk Reduction e.g For Example ERD Economic Relations Division EPZ Export Processing Zone

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FAR Floor Area Ratio FFZ Flood Flow Zone FYP Five Year Plan GED General Economic Division GIS Geographic Information System GoB Government of Bangladesh IAB Institute of Architects, Bangladesh IWM Institute of Water Modelling i.e. That is JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency J.L. Jurisdiction List LGED Local Government Engineering Department mld Million liter per day MoHPW Ministry of Housing and Public Works NGO Non-Government Organization NUC Nagar Unnayan Committee PP Paurashava Planner PVC Polyvinyl Chlorate REB Rural Electrification Board REHAB Real Estate & Housing Association of Bangladesh RHD Roads and Highways Department R.S. Revisional Survey/Revisional Settlement SoB Survey of Bangladesh SP Structure Plan SPZ Strategic Planning Zone STP Strategic Transport Plan TGTDC TITAS Gas Transmission & Distribution Company TWG Technical Working Group UAP Urban Area Plan UNCHS United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (Habitat) UNDP United Nations Development Programme viz Namely WASA Water and Sewerage Authority WDB Water Development Board

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The research entitled Mapping of Urban Planning Process of Bangladesh

Government (national to local level) to explore scope for mainstreaming urban DRR

into development planning (including physical) process in Bangladesh provides the

review of literature on urban disaster risk reduction in Bangladesh and also offer some

recommendations to incorporate DRR into the plan and budget of the city

corporation, municipality, relevant organization. The research has been conducted by

a team of Development Frontiers.Funding for the research has contributed by Oxfam

Bangladesh. It has taken eight cities as sample city area e.g. both Dhaka North and

South City Corporation, Mymensingh Municipality of Mymensingh district, Durgapur

Municipality of Netrokona district, Khulna City Corporation (KCC and KDA) of Khulna

district, Mongla Port Municipality of Bagerhat district, Sirajganj Municipality of

Sirajganj district, Rangpur City Corporation of Rangpur district and Nageshwari

Municipality of Kurigram district. First of all, we would like to express a deep sense of

appreciation and profound gratitude to Oxfam for their sincere help doing fund for

such types of research work in Bangladesh. We also express our deepest gratitude

and honour to all Honourable Mayor, Chief Executive Officer, Engineer and Town

Planner of all City Corporation, Development Authorities, Municipality and other

relevant organization for their cordial help in data collecting process. Our sincere

greeting goes to the Chairman and Director of RAJUK and Urban Development

Directorate for their help and coordination.The research team is also grateful for the

supporting of report writing who were devoted into the work and contributed their

valuable time.

Dated: April 21, 2013


Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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PREFACE When we started our journey as organization "Development Frontiers" in Bangladesh

in 2007, we had a clear aim to work with urban societies. In past six years, we had

conducted a few studies in disaster risk reduction, but only one work we was done in

2010 in the field of urban post disaster governance. We were very much tempted to

work on urban society and for that we thought to study the urban policy context in

Bangladesh. In November, when OXFAM GB called for an expression of interest to

conduct a study on urban disaster mainstreaming scoping, we found this as a good

opportunity to start towards a comprehensive work in urban societies. The work is

very introductory but has higher opportunity to get insight of different aspects to

understand the urban society. The policy, institution, planning, budget, and capacity

of urban governments and urban service providing entities are key aspects of the

study, which has strong possibilities to offer an insight also to understand urban

society at large. We a group of researchers, who has conducted the study, mostly live

in different urban centres in Bangladesh. A few of us has also lived in different cities in

the world in different time scale in different durations, but hardly had we had any

individual and collective effort to consolidate our urban life experience into a black

and white paper. Disaster is an important aspect, which offer a beautiful scope to look

into deep of the urban society, where government, culture and its operation are very

much interlinked and provides wider scopes to understand a complex society. Many of

us involved in this study are trained in Anthropology, who has strong experience in

working with simple and rural society. We two anthropologists worked with one

economist, one geographer, one urban planner, one environmentalist, two political

scientists in a team, who all have experience in the field of disaster risk reduction. We

worked less, engaged more in debates and sometime after hours of debate become

more confused and thus almost spending 2880 hours in field and table, we have came

to a broader outline of the problem of the urban society in terms of disaster

mainstreaming. We learned together, the urbanization as a process produce,

reproduce and manifest a different vulnerability context than rural vulnerabilities and

with hazard exposures and genesis of new types of hazards within urbanization

process constitute a complex disaster risk environment. The urban risk is therefore,

has much development relevance to include the risk reduction in the urbanization

process. We have also learned that mainstreaming is not an activity, nor a product but

a process. Bangladesh is a resourceful country but mostly Bangladesh is one of the

disaster prone areas in the world. Every year Bangladesh is faced by several hazards

like flood, cyclone, salinity, drought, earthquake which turn into disaster. As a result

the country loses huge amount property each year and people suffer a lot of. Now-a-

days cities of Bangladesh face a serious problem due to enormous population and

unplanned urbanization. Urban disaster risk is a serious challenge for cities around the

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world, particularly in developing countries where urbanization is happening. It

threatens to increase vulnerabilities, destroy ecology of the area as well as disturb the

whole environment, economic destruction. The corollary of urban disaster risk

impedes the development of both social and economic. The dwellers life of urban

area is hampered and cannot lead normal life. It is because of lack of awareness,

initiative, consideration into the planning sphere by the Government and other non-

government organization. Most of the cities and municipalities in Bangladesh do not

consider the disaster risk issues in their plan. The Oxfam has taken initiative to find out

the reason behind of not consideration into plan for urban disaster risk reduction. The

study has deemed total eight study areas as sample to conduct the research. The main

objectives of the study is to find out the gap of urban disaster risk reduction and

formulate some recommendation to address and consider urban disaster risk

reduction issues in the plan of the city authorities like city corporation and

municipality.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Urban growth has occurred both by way of influxes of rural migrants into the big cities and through re-classification of erstwhile rural centres. The proliferation of slums, particularly in Dhaka and Chittagong, has been an integral feature of the urbanization process. Urban services have not generally kept pace with urban growth, and an overall feature of unplanned growth marks the process. This unbalanced urban growth in two major cities and some other metropolitans has a contribution in discouraging the rural to urban migration in policy spheres.

In last twenty years, Bangladesh has observed drastic changes in the physical,

economic and social structure in the urban areas due to unplanned rapid urbanization,

which has created serious challenges for sustainable urban development. Urban areas

are now afflicted with innumerable problems ranging from the law and order situation

to deteriorating environmental conditions. Although a majority of the urban centres

faced such challenges, severity of the problems varied depending on the size of the

centres. The environmental problems of urban areas have direct and immediate

implications for human health and safety, especially for the poor, and for business

productivity. Urban environmental problems are of central concern for policy makers

since adverse environmental conditions resulting from inadequate waste

management, poor drainage, air pollution, lack of access to safe water and sanitation,

exposure to excessive noise, traffic congestion, and inadequate health services exact

a heavy toll on the quality of life.

Poverty in Bangladesh in the past was found mostly in rural areas, but with rapid

urbanization during the last few decades, poverty has increasingly been visualized in

urban centres by way of transfer of the rural poor in urban areas. The manifestation of

urban poverty is often more appalling than that of rural poverty due to lack of social

safety nets, hazardous habitats, highly risky work environment in informal sectors,

very poor-quality housing, sanitation, water and personal safety, and many other

reasons. The urban poverty is highly linked with rural disaster risks. The disaster-

vulnerable people and those who are severely affected in past disasters and lost their

basic economic assets and employability are pushed from the disaster hotspots and

pulled to large cities. The current poverty scenario of Khulna City, Mongla City,

Nageshwari City is observed highly linked with disasters in catchment rural areas.

Cities of Bangladesh are exposed to a number of natural and human-induced hazards,

which are likely to intensify on account of climate change. Natural disasters include

floods, land-slides, river erosion, earth-quake, and water-logging. Human-induced

disasters include settlement growth in hazardous locations such as unstable slopes,

ravines, wetlands, etc., unplanned growth leading to greater vulnerability, social

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exclusion leading to reduced capacity of marginalized communities to cope with

disasters, low building standards and poor zoning policies. The cities in flood plains,

coastal areas and hilly areas are found highly exposed to hazards (for the detail list,

please see Table 13 in annex, which describes the risk exposure of major cities in

Bangladesh and Table 14, which lists medium and small townships affected by cyclone

Sidr in 2007 and cyclone Aila in 2009). The hazards in urban areas are not very distinct

than of rural areas, except a few hazards grown from the urbanization process: fire,

building collapse, and water logging. The major hazards in urban areas are useful to discuss in brief at this stage.

The above mentioned problems are examined through a comprehensive policy, institutional and expenditure context for urban disaster risk reduction to find out and explore the possible entry points for mainstreaming DRR into urban planning and budget process. This is simple in its current sense but very complex and architecture with lot more puzzles to unpack through careful and in-depth analysis of urban disaster risk reduction under existing policy-institutional-expenditure (or budget) niche of urban development. The further scopes to narrow down the analysis to range of capacity necessary for disaster risk reduction be embedded within the rules and allocation of business of different service proving entities. The study therefore tried to identify the entry points in following sectors/community of practices in urban development.

- City Governments (City Corporation and Municipalities) - Key Urban Service Providers (Water, Electricity, Gas, Health, Civil Defense,

Education, Sanitation, Drainage, transport) - Key Physical Planning Entities (Development Authority/ Wing in Municipalities/

Regulatory Authority) - Key Development Planning Mechanisms (Mid Term Budget Framework, Annual

Development Programme, Long and Mid Term Plans) - Key Policy Mechanisms (Parliament and Ministry; Disaster Policy, Urban Policy,

Poverty Reduction Policies, Education Policy, Health Policies and other policies; and policy making process)

- Private Sector - Mass Media - Civil Society Engagement

Objectives of the Study

To conduct the extent to which DRR is considered in urbanization process and its development and whether it is in the process of mainstreaming.

Mapping of key government service providers departments in urban areas with its nature of services offered through various development schemes / programme particularly those which has high potential to address disaster risks

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Capacity and Resource (technical) assessment (situation analysis and needs assessment) of urban planning authorities/departments in context of DRR mainstreaming

Explore strategy entry point for mainstreaming in Media and Private Sector Organizations.

Ontologically DRR refers to a systematic approach to identify, assess and reduce risks of disaster or to be more comprehensive it aims to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as dealing with the environmental and other hazards that trigger them: Here it has been strongly influenced by the mass of research on vulnerability that has appeared in print since the mid-1970s.

The conceptual framework of elements considered with the possibilities to minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development (as of UNISDR). DRR incorporates elements, concept, particularly disaster, risk and reduction. These notions are inextricably linked to each other constructing the essence of DRR. Disaster risk reduction is a systematic approach to identify, assess and reduce the risk of disaster. In another way, DRR is the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyze and reduce the casual factors of disaster. There is often confused duality in the term 'urban disaster'. Usually the term refers

disasters in cities, and very specifically the natural hazards in cities and its

consequences on city dwellers. However, the term 'urban disaster' does not carry the

full meaning only by referring the hazards or disasters occurred in city centres. This

connotation only describes the hazard (i.e. flood) exposures in city life and the

suffering of city dwellers by such exposures. There is other ways to think the

phenomena 'urban disaster', where the disaster is typically different from the 'rural

disaster', not only the hazards occurred in cities but also how urbanization as a

process creates a condition that are highly susceptible to be affected by any hazard

onset. Therefore, 'urban disaster' unfolds a large number of associated concepts:

urban vulnerabilities, urban hazards, urban risks and urban disaster preparedness,

response and recovery along with prevention and mitigation as core dimensions of

disaster risk reduction in socio-cultural and built environment of cities. The first

connotation demands analysis of specific nature of cities and how that nature could

be factored during prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery

phases of disaster management. The second connotation will unfold the issues of the

way urbanization create a different risk context, different from rural risk (a function of

hazard and vulnerability) process. These two connotations are not same in its

meaning, though they seem same to the majority of the readers. The first connotation

does not see city as a product of the dynamic urbanization process rather a 'polygon'

where a hazard is exposed. Therefore, there is missing in analyzing urbanization and

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discussion how this process contributes in hazard onset and creates new types of

vulnerabilities and social resilience.

Mainstreaming is not an activity but a process." Mainstreaming is a long-term and dynamic process, and it requires the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. Putting all the components in the framework in place requires collective action through co-operation, consultation and negotiation at different levels (local, national and international) between the relevant actors. Mainstreaming Spheres Framework is an attempt to operationalise such a process mapping out a coherent system of different and dynamic spheres and levels. Mainstreaming Spheres Framework is not merely a listing of variables or entry points, but they represent spheres" of action, that are linked and interrelated in a particular way and ultimately, they re-enforce each other. Mainstreaming Spheres Framework is not hierarchical; it does not indicate a starting component but suggest a process the user should consider identifying levels of interventions, needs, opportunities and barriers to mainstream DDR. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into development policy, planning and implementation is not a matter of choice or preference. Its a necessity. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction is a continuous process of integration of disaster's implications and lessons learned into design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Mainstreaming requires consensus and active participation of decision makes and planners at the national level and support from donors and development community. Analysis, approach definitions and strategically thinking is a prerequisite for success. Integrating urban planning and DRR result to be fundamental in address poverty reduction in urban areas.

Disaster Management Act 2012 and BCCSAP do address issues of risk reduction and

climate adaptation. However both documents lack explicit reference and recognition

of the way unplanned urbanization and disaster aloof physical and economic planning

limit the urban communities to cope up with disaster vulnerability and hazard

exposures, especially for low-income urban poor people. The inference is that the

country has got to consider disaster risks of the urban communities as a serious issue.

National Urban Sector Policy 2011 is in process of consultation which envisages

strengthening urban aspects and measures to deal with its negative consequences to

achieve sustainable urbanization. The future endeavours and dimensions proposed

under this document are promising and provide an ideal entry point to incorporate

disaster risk reduction into the development agenda under urban areas. This

combined with provisions under DM Act, Water Policy, BCCASP, NAPA, BNBC and

others detailed under Annexure 1 and 2 (of the part 2 of the report) of this study that

can be considered as a basis to advance comprehensive urban disaster risk reduction

policy.

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Bangladesh has not yet developed institutions, strategies and policies relevant to

mainstream disaster risk reduction in post 2015 development agenda. There is legal

and institutional framework of decentralized system of local government with

provisions to establish disaster management committee; urban areas are not yet

considered as priority with regards to country resilience. There is substantial overlap

and lack of proper functional relationship amongst different agencies in the urban

areas. Disaster Management Committees are proposed to be the mechanism to

ensure institutional collaboration and coordination with integrate different efforts,

however, they are found to be inactive and often not grounded into the urban

communities. These committees are weak as factors including weak executive system

and poor resource allocation. They do not posses institutional capacity to plan,

implement, finance and monitor services related to risk reduction.

In Dhaka and Khulna, , there are vibrant City Corporation administered by Ministry of

Local Government division and Development Authority administered by Ministry of

Public Works. Study revealed that without functional relationships and mutual trusts

between organizations in Dhaka (north and south), Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi,

the development and reduction of urban disaster risk would be challenging. The

effectiveness of these authorities, however, is generally limited by factors such as

inadequate management and financial system, multiplicity of institutions with urban

development function within their jurisdictions, uncoordinated development, and lack

of integration with other agencies, inadequate manpower and lack of public

participation. City Corporations in metropolitan city, disaster risk reduction to be

mainstreaming into City Corporation, development authority and service providing

organizations like WASA. The entry points have to be the organogram, allocation of

business of the organizations, and rules of business among organizations for a better

coordinated resilient city. The legal and institutional framework at the local level

should have inclusive and decentralized decision making mechanisms to

operationalise mainstreaming of risk reduction services into their routine business.

Rangpur, Mymensingh, Sirajganj and Mongla cities, there is a planning cell, responsible

for planning. The issues of disaster risk reduction could be potentially mainstreamed in

the planning cell, and the planning cell of the municipalities should be the potential

entry point for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction.

The history of both physical and development planning in Bangladesh isnt new and

has gone through a lot of evolutionary steps to redeem proper attention for progress.

Yet, as dynamic as it is, much has to be done in the development and physical planning

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spheres of Bangladesh in term of effectiveness and reality of the modern societies.

Similarly, the concept of disaster management has been a very familiar topic in many

development planning arenas in Bangladesh. On the other hand, the concepts of

urban disaster management and mainstreaming DRR in the urban planning process is

rather fresh in Bangladesh although it incorporated some aspects of disaster

management through different physical planning activities like master plans or

through even some infrastructure development initiatives. Over the time, physical

plans for urban areas has started to incorporate and mainstream lots of more

development considerations to enhance the quality of these physical plans and to

ensure efficiency and compatibility with overall urban development activities in

Bangladesh. As a result, projects like CDMP, PECM are also being implemented

alongside planning projects like DMDP; DAP of Dhaka, Khulna; local level physical

planning initiatives like UTIDP, DTIDP etc.

Spatial analysis has been carried out for selected urban centres the analysis shows

that inter-connections and dependency between locations is important determinant

to understand the risks and vulnerability of cities in a country like Bangladesh where

physical processes are strongly active. This understanding may provide

arguments/rationale for adopting different kinds of planning process and institutional

setup to address the dynamic factors and processes that characterize the type,

intensity and magnitude of disasters. However, the current planning process and

related strategic approaches offer limited space to accommodate disaster risk

reduction measures since the objectives of urban planning/management are not

sufficiently aligned with reducing disaster risks. However, this section demonstrates

the gaps in this regard based on some spatial analysis. The narratives argue that

understanding the problems at-scale and within the wider regional settings are

necessary to grasp the dimension, magnitude of disaster risks in an urban context and

to devise methods/approaches to address disaster risks.

Current urban planning process, specially the Master Plans, and related strategic

approaches got limited space to accommodate disaster risk reduction measures since

the objectives of urban planning/management are not sufficiently aligned with

reducing disaster risks. Besides, this planning instrument (i.e. the Master Plan) is

designed for a certain duration (i. e. 20 years) and non-flexible/fixed in nature. Critical

spatial assessments, considering scale issues (e.g. the inter-connections of locations,

considerations of catchment characteristics) for physical or social processes are rarely

considered in Master Plan developments in Bangladesh. Assessment of Mymensingh

Master Plan, Khulna Master Plan, Detailed Area Plan (DAP) for Dhaka indicates that

mapping exercises are carried out in the name of spatial assessments as to produce

general land use maps. But spatial analysis based on physical and social variables,

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scenario based projections, climate change impacts are strongly missing in these

planning documents. It is imperative to mention here that in an interview the Team

Leader for Khulna Structural Plan mentioned that DRR considerations are missing in

the Master Plan. He also indicated that there are components/elements like indication

of open spaces, wetlands etc. in the Structural Plan which could be used to align

current Structural Plan more DRR responsive/focused. However, based on the

discussions above, some recommendations are given in the following sections to

develop efficient Master Plans in Bangladesh.

The most important considerations for these expenditures to describe the Climate and Disaster sensitive budget/ expenditure in the table no 9 are as the followings:

1. It was observed that almost every city the development budget is greater than the revenue budget, which provides good opportunities for mainstreaming DRR in urban development.

2. It was perceived that every year the development budget allocation is increasing compared to the previous years.

3. Sometimes development budget increases due to the development-project allocation.

4. In the Budget of DCC-North 2012-2013 Development budget a fund mentioned about Climate change and Disaster management and BDT 0.50 crore is allocated in this fund. This is a new expenditure sector for DCC-North.

5. Besides, there are many Development projects running in DCC and Pourashava to be implemented in 2012-2013 financial year. Those are UGIIP-2(Urban Governance & Infrastructure Improvement Project-phase 2), STIFPP-2(Secondary towns integrated Flood protection-phase 2), UPPRP, District town Infrastructure Development project, MSDP (Mymensingh Strategic Development Plan), clean air and sustainable environment program etc. many of these development programs are related with solid waste management, municipality improvement, climate change and disaster management.

6. In the budget of DCC-North and South, a welfare expenditure is mentioned as Natural Disaster (Flood, Accident and Fire hazard). Here we can see 125% increases in the budget allocation for this sector. Nevertheless, this part is not well described because we know Accident and Fire Hazard are not actually natural disasters. We know that Dhaka city is in a potential threat of Earthquake disaster, which is not mentioned in this point. And this is not described that whether the amount allocated for pre- disaster preparedness or post-disaster response.

7. Disaster management and Urban Planning is actually present in the Financial Budget 2012-2013 in terms of Development projects. But most of them do not have any regular fund-allocation for DRR or Disaster management. Only DCC-North has separate fund for climate change and disaster management. There is

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scope to create separate fund for DRR and Disaster management in their budget.

People prefer to live in the urban areas because of diversified employment opportunities, contemporary education system, improved medical facility, well-built communication and transportation system compared to the rural and backward areas. As a result, each year, thousands of people are moving to the capital city Dhaka and the nearby major urban cities in search of better living standard. Urbanization in Bangladesh is mainly due to the migration of people from the rural areas to the cities in search of employment. While people recognize that rapid urbanization has a negative impact on the overall living conditions within cities, it also significantly put additional pressure on the existing capacity of the government. Urban local government is a vital part for the delivery of services to people. Along with other responsibilities, urban local government in Bangladesh is also responsible for disaster risk reduction. The quality and capacity of city governance has an enormous influence on the disaster risk its population faces; quite simply, a good urban and environmental plan, and services and infrastructure in place, can prevent disasters better than one that does not. Bangladesh having required legislation and department to advance disaster risk reduction is an indicator of countrys seriousness to response to the international commitments on disaster risk reduction. National Building Code and Disaster Management Act adopted by government does take into account these hazards and related risks, but effective implementation has not happened in the country especially with in urban areas. Bangladesh has achieved a lot with regards to rural development and risk reduction models, but historically, all these initiatives happen only in response to some major hazards. Bangladesh has not been experienced massive earthquake since 1896 and the present as well as the past generation do not have any memories about the destruction capacity of a major earthquake. Therefore, at present only a few numbers of buildings are being built in compliance with the National Building Code. Fire, another major hazard for the cities, can be spread and destroy lives and properties within a very short time. Recently, there have been some fire incidents in Dhaka, but, still precautions to reduce the risk of fire is not getting much importance. A lot more collaboration amongst the NGOs, development partners and government bodies is now essential for making our urban life fully safe, and a lot more advocacy is needed for the sake of disaster preparedness of the people. It will ensure that the government is mindful enough about implementing the existing laws, and thus we can strive for a disaster-resilient Bangladesh. There are various development partners and NGOs in Bangladesh who are doing excellent work in pocket areas in collaboration with the government. For example, the European Commission funded DIPECHO projects, after identifying Sylhet, Dhaka and Chittagong as the most earthquake-vulnerable cities of the country, are preparing for the potential earthquake and fire risks in collaboration with Sylhet City Corporation, the Fire Service & Civil Defense (FSCD), the education department and others. This

xvi

was possible only in areas where the city authority was keen to work in partnership after realizing the need community people in terms of disaster risk reduction. Like this initiative, there are opportunities to offer technical support and funding for efficient disaster risk reduction efforts. Generally, the media in Bangladesh found active during disaster and immediate after disasters. The sensitization part of the catastrophe from any disaster has good news value and media has attention on those issues. In case of disaster risk reduction, particularly in urban disaster, media is active on earthquake and fire incidences. Though, the activism is very much confined within some talk show in the electronic media and some special feature on causes of such disasters. The interview with media professionals shows that they have huge interest on urban disaster and the whole of the urbanization process. They have varied level of understanding and some are misconception and demonstrate low level of awareness about the urban disaster risk reduction issues. Some media platforms are also observed in Bangladesh. In most of print media, there is a dedicated bit for Environment, who covers environment, disaster, climate change and related issues. There is no such formal media forum on disaster beyond Federation of Environmental Journalists in Bangladesh (FEJB). This is a potential area, where we have observed many young journalists now involved, with very low level of awareness, could be nourished with gradual capacity building efforts.

The term private sector is taken to mean businesses that produce goods and provide

services for profit. This includes businesses of all sizes, from local enterprises up to

transnational corporations. It also includes informal-sector enterprises as well as

registered and regulated business: in developing countries, the informal sector is

often extensive and significant economically and as an employer. Similarly, according

to United Nations, The social responsibility of the private sector goes beyond the

sectors day-to-day operation of producing a certain range of products and services in

the most efficient and economical manner. The social responsibility of the private

sector (also referred to as corporate social responsibility) concerns the relationships

of a company not just with its clients, suppliers and employees, but also with other

groups, and with the needs, values and goals of the society in which it operates. All

these groups can be regarded as stakeholders in the company. Stakeholders can be

identified as those individuals or groups of individuals that have an interest, or take an

interest, in the behaviour of the company both within and outside its normal mode of

operation. They therefore establish what the social responsibility of the company

entails or, at least, how they perceive it to be a significant factor for programming for

urban disaster risk reduction.

Bangladesh has witnessed dramatic growth of NGOs, which currently has a total of

26,000 NGOs registered with the NGO affairs bureau. Some of these NGOs have

strong presence in urban areas and working on various development projects with

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special emphasis to urban poverty, health education, literacy and governance. In the

urban context, Turner (1988) and UNCHS (1988) both emphasized the growing scale

and significance of NGOs working on a range of housing and neighbourhood

development issues in low-income settlements. In particular, NGOs are seen as being

more participatory, people-led and responsive to local needs than more formal official

development assistance agencies. CSO have played crucial role in the development of

the various important legislation including disaster management framework in the

country. Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDMP), Urban Poverty Reduction

Programme (UPPR) and DIPECHO funded initiatives are taking place in urban areas in

conjunction with the existing regulatory frameworks, SAARC regional roadmap in

Urban Risk Management, and the UNISDR safer cities campaign. There are examples

of civil society working on mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in rural areas, an

example which is proposed for piloting and replication in urban setting.

The study has observed that there is good enough policies in urban development,

most of those are to regulate but very few of these policies are promoting and

incentive for urban development. Many of these policies have contradictory

provisions and ambiguity. The National Urban Sector Policy is currently under

consultation process. This could be the key entry points for mainstreaming DRR in

urban planning. Master plan is an ongoing process, where each city has a regulatory

obligation to develop it. This master plan is the basis of urban physical and economic

development. In most cases, the master plan as key document ignored the risks of

disasters and failed to capture the long term climate change impacts. Though, we find

that disaster and climate change is addressed in Mongla master plan but not in Khulna

master plan in coastal cities. Earthquake is adequately addressed in DAP in Dhaka and

very much in the upcoming master plan of Mymensingh.

This is also observed that where there is fund from donors (Mymensinh from CDMP,

Khulna from ADB), the disaster sensitivity is observed but absence of fund in cities like

Sirajganj, Nageshwari, Rangpur and Durgapur has contributed in disaster non-

sensitivity in master plans. Surprisingly, Mongla master plan has integrated disaster

and climate change and that is also explored that the lead consultant for master plan

was a disaster professional having town planning background. This clearly indicates

the disaster risk reduction and climate change impact is yet to be matured in the

urban development planning agenda.

The role of media and civil society is very much critical at this point and it reveals that

in most cities, media professional and very much sensitive about urban service

problem as they have highest number of news in that angles: traffic jam, electric-

water-gas failures, crimes in streets and some political processions. Except Dhaka, the

study has observed very low level media activism in disaster risk reduction, when they

xviii

report on urban development. The civil society sensitization in an organized form is

very active in Dhaka and has reported very strongly about earthquake, fire, flood and

linked with eco-systems: rivers and wetland in city. However, such activism of civil

society regarding disaster-climate change-environment is very low in other cities.

Though there are very high level risks in Khulna, Mongla, Durgapur, Rangpur,

Mymensingh and Sirajganj but the civil society activism is very low in disaster and

climate change arena. This is also observed that in Khulna, there is growing number of

academicians in Khulna university is very active in the civic engagement in relation to

disaster risk reduction.

Private sector is not active in disaster risk reduction beyond their corporate social

responsibilities. In Dhaka, the study team found key concerns about fire and industrial

accidents in garments sector, but this is also very low sensitivity beyond economic

niche. Regarding earthquake the private sector expects governments to act and help

them. There is substantial room for private sector sensitization in disaster risk

reduction in urban and industrial areas.

The following are the suggestive entry point for mainstreaming urban disaster risk

reduction.

URBAN PLANNING: The tendency of cities to be located and expanded on river banks

or coastal areas for economic reasons makes them more vulnerable to disasters.

Initiatives to enhance coordination between local government organization and

central government representative needs strong advocacy. Initiative to divide the

physical development plans into yearly combined development plan to ensure

execution will be a realistic approach.

ENVIRONMNET: The urban eco-system is characterized by interplay of the build,

natural and socio-economic environment, which separately and collectively generate

much of the risk that cities face today. While, we attempt to mainstream DRR into

urbanization, we have to consider all three subsystems (built, natural and cultural) of

the urban eco-system.

MEGACITY AND LARGE CITY GROWTH: Dhaka as a megacity is increasingly becoming

the concentration of physical, economic, social, political and cultural assets, which are

being exposed to different types of disaster risks, mostly earthquake, fire and

flooding. Similarly, two other upcoming megacities Chittagong and Khulna is already

heavily exposed to climatic disasters (cyclone, waterlogging, flooding, salinity, sea

level rise and tidal surge). Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Syhlet, Barishal, Rangpur,

Mymensingh and Bogura are large cities in Bangladesh and are increasingly becoming

the concentration of physical, economic, social, political and cultural assets, which are

xix

being exposed to different types of disaster risks and climate change vulnerabilities.

These large cities in Bangladesh needs to be properly planned to accommodate at

least 120 million people in next three decades and therefore these cities needs to be

ready to turn into a safer city for current and future citizens. Therefore, growth of the

megacity could be a potential entry point for mainstreaming DRR. Mostly urban

planning and implementation of public and private sector investments for

development could be a good entry point for mainstreaming DRR.

CATASTROPHIC RISK: Cities in Bangladesh face cascading vulnerabilities that go

beyond the original risk or hazard. The relevance of low probability and high

consequence events should be recognized during the development and growth of the

city. This is very important to keep in mind that a proper and comprehensive risk

assessment is therefore a key entry point for mainstreaming urban DRR.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Climate change is becoming a threat to the urban environment. The uncertainty that arises due to climate change needs to be considered in the overall urban risk management framework. Coastal cities and cities in flooding areas have higher likelihood of being affected by climate change. Satkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Mongla, Mathbaria, Barguna, Zhalokathi, Kalapara, Bhola, Chandpur, Chittagong, and Coxs Bazar are key cities remain highly vulnerable to climate change (sea level rise, increased cyclone, and tidal flooding) needs to bring under comprehensive risk based master plan to accommodate at least 30% more people from vulnerable rural areas around these cities only due to climate change.

INSTITUTIONALIZATION: Mainstreaming of DRR can be ensured through

institutionalization of DRR in different local level organizations (city corporations,

municipalities, development authorities) up to various national level organizations

(such as Planning commission, UDD, LGED) responsible for urban development of

Bangladesh. DRR specific rules of business, manpower, institutional activities

development requires attention.

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT: Technical and non technical trainings, workshops and

other applied formal education on urban DRR are very significant considerations.

Initiatives like Urban Volunteers for the community representative and coordination

capability enhancement initiatives for appropriate officials can be vital through any

disaster periods.

REVITALIZED PLANNING PRACTICE: Integration of DRR and implementation of

physical development plan demands attention. Ensuring development and

implementation disaster management or preparedness plan, development of an

xx

efficient inter ministerial and inter institutional practice to coordinate and manage

physical development plan are also important.

BUDGETING PRACTICE: Development of disaster management friendly budgetary

system is very important. A specific climate change and disaster management budget

should be introduced separately. Provision of Emergency budget should be allocated

for disaster management. Development of Guidelines to formulate budgets sensitive

to climate change and disaster management needs attention.

RESILIENCE: In spite on different threats, urban communities have their inherent

capacities to cope with different types of shocks (including hazards). Community

resilience should be considered as an asset for risk reduction in urban areas. Massive

mass awareness could be aimed for increased resilience of the communities is

indispensable efforts.

DECISION-MAKING: Appropriate governance and decision making system lie at the

core of risk reduction in urban areas. Special focus should be given to vital

infrastructures like schools, hospitals and key public buildings. Policy development

and mandating also requires attention.

ECONOMY: Urban areas are often considered as the economic hub of region or

country, and therefore result in concentration of vital infrastructures in cities. The

cities in Bangladesh are mostly located adjacent to rivers and also many people to the

catchment rural areas see city as a place of opportunity. Therefore urban economy is

growing faster, and in many cases without considering the environment, disaster and

climate risks. There is a scope for widening economic opportunity in cities for climate

and disaster refugees in catchment rural areas as well as during the economic growth

and planning there is scope to consider environment-climate change and disaster

risks.

POVERTY: The socio-economic opportunities provided by Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna,

Gazipur, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Barishal, Rangpur, Mymensingh, Bagura, Jessore, cities

enable people from a wide range of income brackets to interact and live, but also

create vulnerabilities resulting from lack of access to urban goods and services. Urban

livelihoods therefore have to be tied up with urban development, urban economy and

addressing urban poverty in an integrated fashion. This entry point could then create

more gearing effects for mainstreaming urban DRR.

PRIVATE SECTOR INVOLVEMENT: Private sector priority consideration for DRR for

industrial and man-made hazard as well as physical hazard needs revitalization

including the corporate social practice for disaster management in Bangladesh.

xxi

Promoting or introducing disaster management specific services from private sectors

can be also beneficial to the overall economy.

MEDIA COVERAGE: Promote and disseminate information on disaster and related

services. Enhancing the media sector capability to collect information on disaster (pre,

during and post disaster) and more importantly on disaster risk factors (mostly

vulnerability aspects) is a key entry point for maturing the agenda of mainstreaming

urban DRR.

POPULATION: Urban areas are characterized by high density population, which results

in higher exposures. Combination of high vulnerability and exposure causes higher

degree of urban risk. This is a fact but we cannot avoid this reality in Bangladesh. The

entry point therefore should a whole of city awareness to communicate the risk

factors in the specific city.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS:

The upcoming National Urban Sector Policy is a golden opportunity for

mainstreaming DRR and CCA. OXFAM needs to present the study findings to a seminar

inviting key persons in this sector. The study recommends strong policy dialogue

organized jointly with Dhaka University, UDDR and OXFAM on the urban disaster risk

reduction issues and mature the case of urban disaster.

The issue of urban disaster risk is not a mature issue beyond overwhelming risk of

Dhaka city in earthquake. The issue needs to be matured in seven key cities through

policy dialogue and media campaign. Involvement of academicians, media and civil

society organizations are key in these policy dialogue inviting the city corporation

mayors and development authority chairmans in the dialogue to listen the concerns.

There are many policy advocacy issues, not all are disaster related but without having

change in urban governance system many of the DRR agenda will not be functional. In

the findings of the study this is clear that the relationship between City Corporation,

development authorities and key service organizations is a key and that can only

happened with a very robust policy advocacy. Disaster risk reduction will be a key case

to show where without the functional coordination of these entities, a resilient city is

very impossible in next decades.

The entry points, which are proposed here, are based on the study findings and

tentative in nature. These entry points will be key start for mainstreaming DRR in

urban planning but have to be open enough to explore more entry once the DRR

analysis starts in urban development process.

xxii

TABLE OF CONTENT

ABBREVIATION ........................................................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................................................................. v PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................................................... vi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................. viii TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................................................................................ xxii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................. 1

1.1 Background: The Urbanization and Emerging Disaster Risks in a Changing Climate and Development Context .................................................................................................................................. 1

1.1.1 Urban Poverty in Bangladesh and Disaster Relevance .................................................................. 4 1.1.2 Emerging Urban Disaster Risk ......................................................................................................... 6

1.2 Study Problem and Focus: Mainstreaming DRR in Urban Development and Physical Planning Process 8

1.2.1 Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................................... 8 1.2.2 Goals, Objectives, Outcome and Deliverables of the Scoping Study ................................ 14 1.2.3 Scope of the Study ............................................................................................................... 15 1.2.4 Limitations of the Study ...................................................................................................... 16

1.3 Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 16 1.3.1 Approaches and Its Logic .................................................................................................... 16 1.3.2 Methods ................................................................................................................................ 17 1.3.3 Analytical Framework ........................................................................................................... 17 1.3.4 Selection of Case City ........................................................................................................... 17

CHAPTER TWO: SCOPE OF MAINSTREAMING DISASTER RISK REDUCTION IN URBAN PLANNING PROCESS ..................................................................................................................................................................... 19

2.1 Policy Spheres ............................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 Institutional Spheres ..................................................................................................................... 21 2.3 Development and Physical Planning Spheres ............................................................................. 26

2.3.1 Comprehensive Mapping of the Urban Planning Process .......................................................... 27 2.3.2 Urbanization Strategy under the Sixth Plan ................................................................................ 30 2.3.3 Understanding the urbanization process within a high-risk environment ........................ 31 2.3.4 Needs for spatial assessments in Master Plan development ............................................ 33

2.4 Budget Spheres ............................................................................................................................ 35 2.4.1 Allocation of Development Resources for the Urban Sector in the Sixth Plan ......................... 35 2.4.2 Municipality Budget preparation in Bangladesh ......................................................................... 36 2.4.3 Budgetary Practice in the Local Government Institutions ......................................................... 36

2.5 Capacity Spheres .......................................................................................................................... 39 2.6 Media Spheres .............................................................................................................................. 42 2.7 Private Sector Spheres ................................................................................................................. 44

2.7.2 Different Private sector in DRR of Bangladesh and Potential Involvement ..................... 45 2.8 Civil Society Spheres ..................................................................................................................... 47 2.9 Urban Risk Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 49

2.9.1 Spatial assessment for understanding urban risks ..................................................................... 49 2.9.2 Physical condition (urban land use) and magnitude of risks in urban areas ............................. 50 2.9.3 Perceiving risks in the milieu of socio-economic and demographic conditions of the urban centre and the regional territory .......................................................................................................... 50

CHAPTER THREE: URBAN SERVICES AND NICHE FOR MAINSTREAMING DISASTER RISK REDUCTION .......... 51 3.1 Land Use ........................................................................................................................................ 51 3.2 Water ............................................................................................................................................ 52 3.3 Transportation .............................................................................................................................. 53 3.4 Sanitation ...................................................................................................................................... 55 3.5 Housing ......................................................................................................................................... 56 3.6 Power and Energy ........................................................................................................................ 57

xxiii

3.7 Solid and Non Solid Waste Management .................................................................................... 58 3.8 Revenue and Fiscal Services ........................................................................................................ 61 3.9 Fire and Civil Defence ................................................................................................................... 61 3.10 Education ...................................................................................................................................... 63 3.11 Health ............................................................................................................................................ 63 3.12 Wetland Conservation .................................................................................................................. 65 3.13 Road .............................................................................................................................................. 65 3.14 Drainage ........................................................................................................................................ 67 3.15 Development Regulation ............................................................................................................. 67 3.16 Poverty and Employment ............................................................................................................ 68 3.17 Others Urban Considerations ...................................................................................................... 69

CHAPTER FOUR: SYNTHESIS OF ANALYSIS- POINT OF CONVERGENCE ........................................................... 71 CHAPTER FIVE: RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION ........................................................................................ 77 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................................................... 80 ANNEXES .................................................................................................................................................................... 86

List of Figure Figure 1: Changes in rural-urban head count poverty differences in Bangladesh (HIES 2005, 2010) .............................. 5

Figure 2: Conceptual niche of urban disaster risk reduction ........................................................................................... 11

Figure 3: Percentage of revenue budget/ expenditure of the case cities ...................................................................... 37

Figure 4: Percentage of disaster and climate sensitive budget/ expenditure of case cities ......................................... 37

Figure 5: Percentage of development expenditure in comparison to total budget ..................................................... 38

Figure 6: Disaster management cycle and role of media ............................................................................................... 43

Figure 7: Percentage of drinking water source in urban areas (source: SVRS 2009) .................................................... 52

Figure 8: Budget/ expenditure on water supply in case cities ........................................................................................ 53

Figure 9: Percentage distribution of household by availability of toilet facilities in the urban HHs ............................. 55

Figure 10: Percentage distribution of household by toilet facilities in urban area ........................................................ 55

Figure 11: Percentage of budget/ expenditure on sanitation of case cities ................................................................... 56

Figure 12: Distribution of household by use of lighting facility and fuel used by residence, 2008 ............................... 57

Figure 13: Unemployment rates by level of education and residence (LFS, 2005-2006) ............................................... 63

Figure 14: Percentage of budget/ expenditure for roads in case cities .......................................................................... 65

Figure 15: Percentage of budget/ expenditure for drainage in case cities ..................................................................... 67

Figure 16: Percentage of employed persons 15+ by status in employment (labour survey, 2005-2006) .................... 68

Figure 17: Programmatic approaches for mainstreaming urban disaster risk reduction .............................................. 75

Figure 18: Relationship of disaster risk reduction programmatic approaches to the urban development planning

cycle .................................................................................................................................................................................. 76

List of Tables Table 1: Growth of urban population in Bangladesh ......................................................................................................... 1

Table 2: Poverty head count ratio by divisions, 2005-2010 ............................................................................................... 5

Table 3: Analytical framework of the study ..................................................................................................................... 17

Table 4: Selected case cities ............................................................................................................................................. 18

Table 5: Hierarchy of urban local governments .............................................................................................................. 23

Table 6: Development resource allocation for the urban sector in the sixth five year plan ............................................. 36

Table 7: Development resource allocation for the urban sector in the sixth five year plan ........................................ 36

Table 8: Allocation of disaster and climate sensitive expenditure in the budget (in million taka) ............................... 38

Table 9: Role of the media in disaster risk management ................................................................................................ 44

Table 10: Water supply in Dhaka city ............................................................................................................................... 53

Table 11: BNBC guideline for development of minimum standard housing ................................................................... 57

Table 12: Budget of Durgapur Municipality for the financial year 2009-2010................................................................. 61

1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

1.1 Background: The Urbanization and Emerging Disaster Risks in a Changing Climate and Development Context

Urbanization is growing rapidly in Bangladesh. Migration from villages to cities

contributed such rapid urban growth, from 7.6% to nearly 25% between 1970 and 2005

in Bangladesh (Government of Bangladesh 2010). Population growth in cities is faster

nowthan any time before, and the urban population stood at 42 million (26.6% of total

population) in 2007 and as of UN projections, it is expected to rise to 65 million within

a decade (GoB, 2010).

The agrarian economy of Bangladesh having an area of only 147,750 km with acute problem of allocation of land to agriculture, industry, and human settlement is experiencing a very high rate of urbanization. In 1974 people living in urban areas accounted for only 8.8% of the population (Table 1), which rose to 23.1% by 2001.

Table 1: Growth of urban population in Bangladesh

1974 1981 1991 2001 Projected figure

for 2011

Number % Number % Number % Number % Number

(mill) %

Urban 6273603 8.78 13535963 15.05 20872204 18.73

31077952 23.1

44.06 29.1

Rural 70124397 91.79 76376037 84.95 90582981 81.27

99444646 76.9

107.35 70.9

Total 76398000 100 89912000 100 111455185 100

130522598 100

151.41

Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics

A major cause of urbanization in Bangladesh is that the agriculture sector is no longer

able to absorb the surplus labour force entering the economy every year. Inability of

the agriculture sector to provide sufficient employment or sufficiently high household

incomes to cope with a growing number of dependents can encourage people to seek

employment outside agriculture. In the case of Bangladesh the rural to urban

migration has contributed to more than 40 percent of the change in urban population.

The lure of employment opportunities existing in these cities is another reason for

urban migration.

Dhaka is the only mega city in Bangladesh, which contains 32% of the urban

population, and its population is expected to rise to 19 million within 2015. The second-

2

largest city is Chittagong with 4.5 million in 2007. Khulna in the south-west has more

than one million populations. There are some medium and small municipalities having

characteristics of dense populations. (Ibid)

Urban growth has occurred both by way of influxes of rural migrants into the big cities

and through re-classification of erstwhile rural centres. The proliferation of slums,

particularly in Dhaka and Chittagong, has been an integral feature of the urbanization

process. Urban services have not generally kept pace with urban growth, and an

overall feature of unplanned growth marks the process. This unbalanced urban

growth in two major cities and some other metropolitans has a contribution in

discouraging the rural to urban migration in policy spheres.

Bangladesh is not highly urbanized by world standards; the urban economy cannot

manage the faster urban population growth, which is therefore deepening the

persistent problems of poverty, unemployment and underemployment, inadequate

infrastructure and housing, deficient social services, and rapid environmental

degradation. Despite these problems, urban lure is a powerful force at work, and the

urbanization trend is likely to get only stronger.

Agriculture is the major employment sector in Bangladesh, and the agricultural

growth is also very persistent but the classic village to city migration, which is the

major cause of urbanization in Bangladesh, indicates that the agriculture sector is no

longer able to absorb the surplus labour force entering the economy every year.

Inability of the agriculture sector to provide sufficient employment or sufficiently high

household incomes to cope with a growing number of dependents are encouraging

people to seek employment outside agriculture. The rural areas also in last 40 years

were highly exposed to natural disasters, which further squeezed the space for

vulnerable people in the rural social structures and pushed to cities as obscure destiny

for employment with uncertainties. In the case of Bangladesh, the rural to urban

migration due to general poverty, rural unemployment and disaster push has

contributed to more than 40 percent of the change in urban population. The lure of

employment opportunities exists in these cities is another reason for urban

migration.Most of the industrial establishments and businesses as well as business

services are concentrated in the largest cities. Dhaka alone accounts for 80 percent of

the garments industry-the mainstay of manufacturing in Bangladesh.1 The domination

of business services, particularly finance and real estate services is considerably higher

in the four major cities relative to the rest of the country.2

1Dhaka Urban Poverty: Land and Housing Issues. Draft Paper, World Bank (2005). 2Bangladesh: Strategy for Sustained Growth, World Bank (2007).

3

In last twenty years, the country has observed drastic changes in the physical,

economic and social structure in the urban areas due to unplanned rapid urbanization,

which has created serious challenges for sustainable urban development. Urban areas

are now afflicted with innumerable problems ranging from the law and order situation

to deteriorating environmental conditions. Although a majority of the urban

centresfaced such challenges, severity of the problems varied depending on the size

of the centres.The environmental problems of urban areas have direct and immediate

implications for human health and safety, especially for the poor, and for business

productivity. Urban environmental problems are of central concern for policy makers

since adverse environmental conditions resulting from inadequate waste

management, poor drainage, air pollution, lack of access to safe water and sanitation,

exposure to excessive noise, traffic congestion, and inadequate health services exact

a heavy toll on the quality of life.

The impact of urbanization is felt more intensely in major cities across the country. In

Dhaka, for example, the quantity of solid waste generated at present varies between

3000 to 3500 tons per day. DCC is capable of collecting only 50% of this waste, leaving

the remaining half unattended. A part of this waste either remains in the streets or on

nearly open ground. Some of the waste flows through the open drains and blocks the

normal drainage flow. As a result, water logging sometimes disrupts the normal city

life for days during the monsoon. The serious health hazard posed by this situation is

of major concern.

One of the major problems that the urban residents are facing is the lack of access to

serviced land, which is posing as an obstacle to their meaningful participation in the

urban economy. The urban land market which directly affects the urban environment

and quality of urban life suffers from many distortions due to lack of proper land

development and management policies, including lack of planning and slow provision

of infrastructure and services, thus leading to unplanned or ribbon development of

land in the urban periphery. Inadequate supply of serviced land from the market leads

to land speculation which often prices the poor out of the formal land markets into

the informal land markets which are characterized by slums and squatter settlements.

During the last four decades, the price of land within urban areas increased by as

much as 80 times. The level of price rise, however, varies within the area and depends

on a number of local factors, including the level of services available. Of particular

importance are the width of the main road, width of the access road, distance from

the main road and duration of water logging. Other factors influencing land value to a

lesser extent include the type of neighbourhood (planned or unplanned), distance of

the closest market and distance of the closest school.

4

Apart from the existing huge shortage in housing stock, the majority of the dwelling

units are structurally very poor, lack services and utilities, and built without proper

planning. According to BBS (2007)3 only 24.24 percent of the houses in urban areas in

2005 were pucca (made of brick/cement) compared to 71.68 percent houses made of

corrugated iron sheet/wood and 4.08 percent made of straw/hay/bamboo. Rapid

growth of urban population and consequent demand for land and housing has made

the situation even worse, particularly in big cities. Very few households have access to

land and credit facilities. The situation is particularly worse for the lower-income group

and the poor who live on marginal settlements built by small land developers or by the

occupants themselves without any security of tenure. Due to lack of tenure, the poor

cannot meet the need for guarantees of loan repayment. This puts most conventional

sources of credit for housing construction out of the rich of the poor resulting in lower

level of housing investment. This led to overcrowding, lower quality of housing units

and the proliferation of slums and squatter settlements.

1.1.1 Urban Poverty in Bangladesh and Disaster Relevance

Poverty in Bangladesh in the past was found mostly in rural areas, but with rapid

urbanization during the last few decades, poverty has increasingly been visualized in

urban centres by way of transfer of the rural poor in urban areas. The manifestation of

urban poverty is often more appalling than that of rural poverty due to lack of social

safety nets, hazardous habitats, highly risky work environment in informal sectors,

very poor-quality housing, sanitation, water and personal safety, and many other

reasons. The urban poverty is highly linked with rural disaster risks. The disaster-

vulnerable people and those who are severely affected in past disasters and lost their

basic economic assets and employability are pushed from the disaster hotspots and

pulled to large cities. The current poverty scenario of Khulna City, Mongla City,

Nageshwari City is observed highly linked with disasters in catchment rural areas. The

rural poor people with their recurrent disaster exposures are migrating into urban

areas. These new comers city dwellers face a high employment crisis in cities and with

very poor-quality housing and other well being further tapping them into a deeper

urban poverty cycle. Therefore, disaster and climate-change impactshave deeper

relationship with urban poverty in Bangladesh. The following table shows the poverty

scenario in Bangladesh.

3 Household Income and Expenditure Survey- 2005, BBS (2007)

5

Table 2: Poverty head count ratio by divisions, 2005-2010

Division 2005 2010

Total Urban Rural Total Urban Rural

National 40.0 28.4 43.8 31.5 21.3 35.2

Barisal 52.0 40.4 54.1 39.4 39.9 39.2

Chittagong 34.0 27.8 36.0 26.2 11.8 31.0

Dhaka 32.0 20.2 39.0 30.5 18.0 38.8

Khulna 45.7 43.2 46.5 32.1 35.8 31.0

Rajshahi 51.2 45.2 52.3 35.7 30.7 36.6

Sylhet 33.8 18.6 36.1 28.1 15.0 30.5

Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, HIES 2005 and HIES 2010

The table 2 and following figure-1 shows the differences of percent of poor people

lives in urban areas than rural areas during 2005 and 2010 household income and

expenditure survey conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.The figure 1

indicates that at national level, the rural poor are higher than urban poor (43.8% rural

poor while 28.4% urban poor in 2005 and 35.2% rural poor while 21.3% is urban poor in

2010) in both survey (2005 and 2010). The trend remain same in Chittagong, Dhaka,

Rajshahi (including Rangpur) and Sylhet Division, but in Khulna and Barishal divisions,

we find the increase of percent of urban poor than rural poor from 2005 to 2010.

Interestingly, during 2007 and 2009 these two divisions experienced two largest and

long lasting disaster effects: Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009.

Figure 1: Changes in rural-urban head count poverty differences in Bangladesh (HIES 2005, 2010)

Using a disaster perspective to the poverty incidences, we can easily find that in

Khulna and Barishal division, the urban poor is higher than rural poor (Figure-1), which

is a clear indication of the lasting impact of cyclone Sidr and Aila in these two divisions

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

National Barisal Chittagong Dhaka Khulna Rajshahi Sylhet

2005 Rural-Urban poverty 2010 Rural-Urban poverty

6

rural areas and pushed the vulnerable and rural poor to the urban centres. This is

probably one of the clear indications of significance of addressing urban poverty from

the view point of resilient city in Bangladesh. The figure also indicates that the

readiness of urban centres to provide livelihoods and shelters for millions of highly

disaster and climate migrants from rural communities is a upcoming challenge both

from urban poverty and urban resilience point of view. A comparison of incidence of

poverty in 2005 and 2010 indicates some significant differences in the pattern of urban

poverty reduction. Chittagong division experienced the most rapid reduction in urban

poverty. At 11.8 percent, Chittagong now has the lowest incidence of urban poverty.

1.1.2 Emerging Urban Disaster Risk

Cities of Bangladesh are exposed to a number of natural and human-inducedhazards,

which are likely to intensify on account of climate change. Natural disasters include

floods, land-slides, river erosion, earth-quake, and water-logging. Human-induced

disasters include settlement growth in hazardous locations such as unstable slopes,

ravines, wetlands,etc., unplanned growth leading to greater vulnerability, social

exclusion leading to reduced capacity of marginalized communities to cope with

disasters, low building standards and poor zoning policies. The cities in flood plains,

coastal areas and hilly areas are found highly exposed to hazards (for the detail list,

please see Table 13in annex, which describes the risk exposure of major cities in

Bangladesh and Table 14, which lists medium and small townships affected by cycloneSidr in 2007 and cyclone Aila in 2009).

The hazards in urban areas are not very distinct than of rural areas, except a few

hazards grown from the urbanization process: fire, building collapse, and water logging. The major hazards in urban areas are useful to discuss in brief at this stage.

Flooding Hazard

A recent mapping and census of slums conducted by the Centre of Urban Studies in

Dhaka4 shows that nearly 60 percent of the slums in the city have poor or no drainage

and are prone to frequent flooding. Poor-quality housing and overcrowding

exacerbate these problems. Flood in dense, poorly serviced settlements can lead to

other hazards, in particular, public health hazards.

Earthquake Hazard

Earthquake is a major threat to urban built environments. Though Bangladesh has not

experienced a major earth-quake for over a century, recent period has seen an

escalation in seismic activity. During 2007-09, there were more than 130 instances of

minor seismic disturbance. 8 earthquakes with magnitude of 4 on Richter's scale

4CUS, 2005, Slums of Urban Bangladesh: Mapping and Census, Dhaka

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occurred during 2000-10. Being located in the seismotectonic command areas of

youngest Himalayan mountainous terrain, Bangladesh is vulnerable, in particular, the

cities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Rangpur.

Landslide Hazard

Exposed soft sedimentary rocks in the vast tract of mountainous and hilly terrains (18%

of the total area within the country) and increasing number of informal settlements

on these slopes can cause fatal landslides triggered by the torrential monsoon rainfall.

The hilly terrain in the southeastern part from the country which holds the second-

largest city of Chittagong has a long history of slope instability. The landslide that

occurred in ChittagongCity area and its surroundings on June 11, 2007 was a

devastating one and took the lives of 127 people and caused injury to hundreds of

people and made many people homeless. Fatal landslides also occurred in 2008 and

2009. Though landslides appear as one of the major hazards, systematic approaches

are yet to be introduced in the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) system.

Fire Hazard Location of unsafe industries in dense, residential neighbourhoods as well as poor-

quality housingcombines to make fire hazard a regular nightmare for Bangladesh

cities. Thenumber of fire incidents in Dhaka was 1,861 in 2003, 2,053 in 2004, and 2,279 in

2005 (The New Age, 2007). Over 350 garment workers have died and some 1,500 been

injured in fire-related incidents since 1990 (The Daily Star, February 25, 2006). The

devastating fire at Nimtoli in Old Dhaka in 2010 has given a new scale to this hazard.

Water-Logging

Water-logging is a common hazard in all the major cities of Bangladesh.

Heterogeneous landscape having minor slope difference causes erroneous

development of drainage network, which does not follow adequate Digital Elevation

Model (DEM) during construction. Dumping of wastes and construction's materials in

the drainage system has further exacerbated this problem. The worst victims are the

urban poor income people, who reside in the least favourable areas of cities like

Dhaka and Chittagong.

The vulnerabilities of urban centres are very much distinct from the rural areas.

Urbanization as a process largely contributes this vulnerability, and this needs to be

shortly described throughout this section. The major urban vulnerability factors are:

land associated with urban habitats, livelihoods of city dwellers, social structures,

governance, policy and institution, economies and urban poverty. The issue of urban

poverty is discussed in previous section, but we will cover here the land and other

vulnerability issues.

The precarious land-man ratio has mad

Documents

Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reductionin Urbanization in Bangladesh: A Scoping Study