Bangladesh needs to increase the inclusion of disaster risk analyses when formulating development projects in order to decrease economic losses stemming from natural disasters and climate change, according to experts.

The country still suffers heavy economic losses due to the lack of resilience planning for climate change and natural calamities in the development project proposal (DPP), they said.

"There are not enough risk assessment measures during the formulation of most government development projects," said Nurun Nahar, joint chief of the programming division of the Planning Commission.

"The DPP does not feature what measures could be taken to reduce environmental risks in project areas. So, development will not be sustainable if policy makers do not consider the impact of such activities," she added.

Nahar, also project director of the National Resilience Programme (NRP), made these comments while speaking at the "National Dissemination Workshop", at the National Economic Council's conference room in Dhaka's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar yesterday.

The Planning Commission organised the event to mark the closing of the NRP project, which was taken up back in 2018.

The goal of the NRP was to sustain the resilience of human and economic development in Bangladesh through inclusive, gender-responsive disaster management and risk-informed development.

Nahar went on to say there is no mention in the DDP what kind of suffering may be caused by the implementation of various projects and what measures could be taken to eradicate it.

She said the risk of the project area must be assessed before taking up any project included in the proposal to ensure sustainable development.

If these can be done, the projects can be protected from disasters while fund wastage will be reduced, Nahar added.

As a part of the NRP, the Planning Commission has developed disaster impact assessment (DIA) tools and a disaster and climate risk information platform (DRIP) software.

"These assessment tools and software must help contribute to the cost cutting in project implementation," she said.

Besides, the government should plan long-term training for government officials on the target basis to get higher outputs when formulating development projects, according to the NRP project director.

"It may especially focus on young officials according to their expertise," she said.

Giving an example of economic losses, Nahar mentioned a study that quantified the economic losses and damages caused by waterlogging associated with climate change risks in Khatunganj.

"Every year, the waterlogging losses alone amounts to Tk 50 crore in the Khatunganj area of Chattogram," she said.

Speaking as chief guest at the event, Planning Minister MA Mannan said poor people in the country are the most affected by any natural disaster.

"It is not possible to stop natural disasters. However, it is important to at least protect the projects from potential impacts," he added.

Mannan then said they will have to work collectively to reduce the damage by assessing the risk of disasters.

For this, the capacity of those concerned must be increased so that projects are not damaged by natural disasters, and money is not wasted, the planning minister added.

The NRP project was worth Tk 16.32 crore with Tk 14.62 crore coming from donations from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in the UK and government of Sweden.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was the technical partner.

Md Mamun-Al-Rashid, member (secretary) of the Planning Commission, chaired the event while AKM Fazlul Haque, member of the Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Institutions Division, and Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian, member of the Industry and Energy Division, also spoke at the event.