Air pollution found as leading cause of mortality in country

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An Environmental Assess-ment identified air pollution as the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Bangladesh and said if the exposure to urban air pollution could be reduced by 20 per cent to 80 per cent, it would result in saving 1,200 to 3,500 lives annually and avoiding 80 to 230 million cases of contracting diseases.

The government and the World Bank (WB) recently completed the Country Environmental Assessment, said a WB press release.

The government recognises the need to address the problem of urban air pollution because of its wide-ranging adverse impacts.

To facilitate adoption of sustainable environmental initiatives in the key polluting sectors like urban transport and brick making with a focus on reducing air pollution and improving safe mobility, the government has developed the 'Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE)' project with proposed WB financing.

Recently, a WB team conducted an appraisal of the proposed project, during which a World Bank team and government counterparts reviewed the progress of the project preparation.

The proposed CASE project builds on the experiences and lessons of two past Bank-supported projects in Bangladesh, namely the Air Quality Management Project (AQMP) and the Dhaka Urban Transport Project (DUTP). Both the AQMP and DUTP projects had a major impact on improving Dhaka's air quality.