Challenges of post-flood rehab work

The devastation caused by the mid-August flash floods that struck 11 districts in the eastern, central and south-eastern districts of Bangladesh was in a word immeasurable. In fact, it takes months to come up with an accurate figure about the damage done to the lives and livelihoods of people in the affected areas. Though figures about the actual number of flood victims and the amount of damage done to properties including livestock and crops vary according to the private or official sources estimating them, the latest data provided by the Disaster Management and Relief Adviser, as reported in the Wednesday's issue of this paper, says that close to 0.95 million people in total were affected by the floods that claimed 74 lives. The damage to properties was worth Tk142.69 billion. However, according to a report of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society posted on September 6, some 5.8 million people have been affected by the floods.

Clearly, arriving at a conclusive figure about the number of flood victims, let alone the losses to properties and lives they sustained, will indeed be the initial hurdle the government's rehabilitation efforts would come up against. Unless there is a credible set of data about the havoc caused by floods, allocation of resources for rehabilitation work in the affected areas cannot be properly made. In that case, the government would do well to have its flood damage data as much free from errors as possible before launching rehabilitation work in full swing. At this point, it would be worthwhile to keep in mind that the work for post-flood rehabilitation is going to be complicated with floodwaters receding very slowly. So, the pace of post-flood rehabilitation work will be slowed down to some extent. To overcome this problem, additional measures to support those families whose properties are still in a submerged or semi-submerged conditions would be necessary. So, it cannot be said that the relief has been fully implemented in the affected districts as indicated by the adviser concerned.

That means the post-flood rehabilitation work will prove to be one of the most challenging one for the interim government. Notably, the extraordinary unity that the entire nation demonstrated when the floods suddenly struck, the interim government was in a fledgling state. Spontaneous public support for and participation in the relief activities made the government's work quite easier. Mobilisation of resources for relief activities, in large part, was done by students and people. Now during the post-flood rehabilitation phase, the government will be required to depend on its own strength to mobilise resources for the purpose. It is because with the passage of time, such massive participation of the public in various humanitarian work will naturally die down. From now on far from endorsing every effort that the government would make, the public will start judging its activities more critically with the honeymoon period being over.

Against this backdrop, the handling of post-flood rehabilitation work will require better professionalism. In fact, management of neither the relief work during floods, nor post-flood rehabilitation work was ever foolproof in the country. Resource mobilisation being a big issue in this context, the interim government can well arrange some fund from, among others, the Chief Adviser (CA)'s relief and welfare fund from which one billion taka has already been allocated for the July Shaheed Smriti Foundation. One may recall that a large amount of relief materials for flood victims of Sylhet were supplied from the then-prime minister's special relief fund which the incumbent government has inherited.