To ensure an efficient water management system, Japan and Bangladesh will work jointly to materialize the SDG’s related targets regarding water resources, exchanging expertise to establish an State-Of-Art institute ‘The Bengal Delta International Hydraulic Training and Research Institute’ as well as to actualize the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. Japanese environment state minister Minoru Kiuchi informed this while paying courtesy call to state minister for Water Resources Zaheed Farooque at his office in the capital on Sunday.
State Minister Zaheed Faruque informed the Japanese counterpart about the various initiatives taken by the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) under the prudent leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and said ‘Bangladesh is working relentlessly to address the changing issues of global warming and its subsequent impacts’.
‘Since Bangladesh is a riverine country and situated at the downstream of the greatest deltaic plain confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers and their tributaries, so the effect of climate change would be huge to us as we’ve experienced same hazards already. To deal with the challenges, Bangladesh has taken a long-term planning termed as Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 and to create an expert pool for this plan, we are going to establish an international standard institute’ State Minister Faruque also said.
Mentioning Japan is a proven partner in progress for Bangladesh and to its people, state minister Farooque urged support from his counterpart in relevant sectors for the development of water resources in Bangladesh. Japanese Minister of State replied that they would be always beside us on initiatives conducted by Bangladesh and shall be happy to endorse their cooperation to Bangladesh regarding expertise exchange and best practices in adopting and mitigating the consequential impacts of climate change. Japan also likes to collaborate with Bangladesh for ascertaining a sustainable water management system.
Led by Japanese Minister of State for Environment, a seven-member-team took part in the meeting. Secretary to the Japanese Minister of State for the Environment Hiroaki Murai, Director for International Strategy Division of Global Environment Bureau Fumio Ito, Section Chief of International Cooperation and Sustainable Infrastructure Office Hisato Hayasaka, Researcher of International Cooperation and Sustainable Infrastructure Office Mahoyo Yamamoto, Counsellor of Embassy of Japan in Bangladesh Yasuharu Shinto and Second Secretary of Embassy of Japan in Bangladesh Masatoshi Higuchi accompanied Minister of State for Environment of Japan while Additional Secretary of MoWR Mahmudul Islam and Minister of State’s Private Secretary Nur Alam have assisted Minister of State for Water Resources of Bangladesh.
