UN allocates $2.4m to fight floods

In order to support Bangladesh's swift response and to assist those who have been affected by the flooding, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated US$ 2.4 million to support the humanitarian response.

To date, more than 720,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed, and 172 shelters in the flood-affected areas are sheltering more than 46,000 people.

Agricultural land and vital infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, roads and bridges have been damaged.

Following heavy monsoon rains, one-third of Bangladesh has been affected by the worst flooding in four decades, impacting eight million people across 32 of the country's 64 districts.

Those who have lost their homes, livelihoods and means of making a living are in need of immediate life-saving assistance.

The UN agencies and NGOs are assisting the government to respond to the needs of flood-affected people in the northern and central parts of the country.

The CERF fund will allow agencies to scale up their responses and reach 100,000 people who have been acutely affected by the flooding in the two most severely affected districts -- Dinajpur and Jamalpur.

The fund will be used to provide water and sanitation facilities, food assistance through cash transfers, health support for pregnant women and newborn babies, and emergency shelter kits.

The UN Resident Coordinator for Bangladesh, Robert Watkins, said, “Bangladesh is used to flooding at this time of the year…, but the volume of water that has fallen this year has been exceptionally heavy. There is a limit to people's resilience, and that has already been severely tested.”

To complement the response led by the government, the humanitarian community has developed a six-month response plan, which the CERF allocation will contribute to in terms of funding.

The response plan requests US$ 12 million to support 330,000 flood affected people in six of the worst affected districts -- Gaibhandha, Dinajpur, Kurigram, Jamalpur, Nilphamari and Sirajganj.

This is the fourth time Bangladesh has experienced flooding this year and the latest floods have coincided with the rice planting season.

Consequently, the response plan outlines the planned life-saving and protection assistance activities of the UN agencies and NGOs, as well as the early recovery actions required to restore access to basic services and rehabilitate community infrastructure.