Bangladesh Government approved the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP 2100) on September 04, 2018 with the aspiration of achieving ‘safe, climate resilient and prosperous Bangladesh’ by 2100. In other words, BDP 2100 is a century long planwhich has no other parallel in the world. The government in the early part of the present month formed the Delta Governance Council with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at its helm. It is expected that we will now soon see the activation of the process leading to implementation of this unprecedented plan that would completely transform for the best the delta land of Bangladesh in stages. Efforts have been made to formulate BDP 2100 exactly in the same way we want to build Bangladesh in coming years of this century.
BDP 2100 is the combination of long-term strategies and subsequent interventions for ensuring long term water and food security, economic growth and environmental sustainability while effectively reducing vulnerability to natural disasters and building resilience to climate change and other challenges likely to be faced by the delta land of Banglsadesh through robust, adaptive and integrated strategies, and equitable water governance.
The General Economics Division (GED) of Bangladesh Planning Commission has formulated BDP 2100 which is a holistic and integrated plan considering many themes and sectors for the whole country. The needs of natural resource management have also been articulated in this mega plan. Side by side, it is also a techno-economic plan, which covers both technical and economic issues (GDP growth, poverty reduction, employment, food security, investment,etc) for the whole country. BDP 2100 is also an implementable plan having an investment programme up to year 2030 linked with mobilisation of financial resources. Another important thing regarding this plan is that it has strongly focused on climate change issues such as temperature rise, erratic rainfall pattern, sea level rise etc., and for that it followed an Adaptive Delta Management (ADM) approach. For the first time in any development planning, BDP 2100 has taken the climate change issue as an exogenous variable in developing the macroeconomic framework of the plan.
In order to illustrate the role of BDP 2100 and its contribution to the long term development of Bangladesh, two policy options are considered. One is called the Business As Usual (BAU) Policy Option where it is illustrated that when the adverse impact of climate change and natural hazards increases, the GDP growth rate starts falling over time, efficiency of capital falls resulting in lower agricultural production, unemployment, migration and pressure on urbanisation. The other option, Delta Plan (DP) Policy Option incorporates the adoption of strong climate change related adaptation measures to achieve higher and sustainable growth trajectories in the face of the various weather-related natural hazards and risks.
This DP policy option will allow us to achieve national level goals of eradicating extreme poverty and achieving the full status of Middle Income country by 2030 and becoming a prosperous country by 2041. Moreover, macro-economic analysis done for BDP 2100 reveals that in Business As Usual (BAU) policy option, the extreme poverty will be eradicated around 2041. But, if the country progresses in Delta Plan policy option extreme poverty could be eradicated around 2027.Side by side, yearly economic loss of about 1.7 per cent or more of GDP due to climate change impacts and natural hazards has been predicted in future for Bangladesh Delta without BDP 2100.
In BDP 2100, water has been considered the most important factor for the sustainability of this delta, not only for its human beings but also for its sustainable environment. Important componentsinclude different areas covering water security, climate change impact and environmental sustainability, food security and livelihood, economic growth, social development, knowledge development, biodiversity conservation, forestry, crop production, etc. Consistent with this, Delta specific goals have been fixed. The goals are to: ensure safety from floods and climate change related disasters; ensure water security and efficiency of water usages; ensure sustainable and integrated river systems and estuaries management; conserve and preserve wetlands and ecosystems and promote their proper use; develop effective institutions and equitable governance for in-country and trans-boundary water resources management; and achieve optimal use of land and water resources.
Cross cutting issues considered in BDP are: sustainable land use and spatial planning; agriculture, food security and livelihood, trans-boundary water resources management; activating a suitable water transport system; blue economy; renewable energy; and preparedness for earthquakes.
All the strategies and associated interventions are considered through the lens of “economic growth” and “environmental sustainability”. Formulation and implementation of BDP 2100 is inclusive of all the stakeholders. During the preparation of the plan, lessons have been drawn from all other relevant plans and policies. Most importantly, the plan itself is both ‘horizontally’ and ‘vertically’ integrated. Another very important task conducted before the formulation of the plan is conducting baseline studies in 26 major areas relevant to it.
Challenges mainly lie with its successful implementation. These challenges should be addressed in a systematic and articulated manner. The challenges are namely financing, capacity building and coordination. .To address the challenges apart from cooperation and coordination of all the stakeholders, we should take up some activities immediately. These are: establishment of ‘Delta Wing’ in GED for overall support, guidance and coordination for the implementation of the BDP 2100; establishment of ‘Delta Fund’ and relevant essential institutional arrangements; establishment of ‘Delta Knowledge Hub’ for hosting, updating and sharing of data/information collected for and relevant to BDP 2100; presenting BDP 2100 to the development partners and also negotiating with them in order to secure investments for the projects enlisted in the IP of BDP 2100; reviewing the concepts for the Water User Association (WUA) and its Terms of Reference (ToR); developing new pricing policies for Water and Sewerage services.
Successful implementation of BDP 2100 is seen as the major concern in the coming days. Successful implementation mainly involvesappropriate skills and technical capacity of the relevant organisations. To address this challenge, GED is currently working on a project to support the implementation of BDP 2100. The project aims to support capacity building, institutional strengthening, facilitating implementation, supporting investment planning and financing, validating investment plan, reviewing and updating of BDP 2100, if deemed necessary with continuously evolving new knowledge and tools.
The plan took four years to formulate with the help of local, national and international experts and involved a huge number of stakeholders from all walks of life. In each and every stage of its formulation till its final approval, it went through the scrutiny of technical experts and also the policy makers in the government.
We believe that BDP 2100 is the best that could happen for Bangladesh from the perspectives of its all round development and environmental security. Therefore, there should be no dilly dallying with it. It should remain the main focus of endeavors at the national level come what may notwithstanding changes in governance. No change in governance should affect its highest priority status. There has to be absolutely bipartisan agreement between all quarters in the country to carry forward the plan to its completion by the projected date.
