City Desk :
The workshop titled “Air Pollution-Health Adaption Action Plan for Bangladesh” under the “Improvement of Urban Public Health Preventive Services Project” (IUPHPSP) jointly funded by the Government of Bangladesh and the World Bank under the Local Government Division was held at Hotel Intercontinental under the chairmanship of Mr. Abul Khair Mohammad Hafizullah Khan, Joint Secretary, Local Government Division and Project Director of the IUPHPSP. Mr. Md. Rezaul Maksud Zahedi, Secretary, Local Government Division was present as the chief guest in the workshop. Ms. Surayya Akhtar Jahan, Additional Secretary of the Local Government Division, Ms. Iffat Mahmud, Senior Operations Officer, The World Bank Dhaka Office and Task Team leader of “Improvement of Urban Public Health Preventive Services Project” (IUPHPSP).
The workshop was attended by the Chief Executive Officer of Dhaka South City Corporation and officials of Dhaka North City Corporation and Chattogram City Corporation. High officials of the Local Government Division, representatives of the Savar Pourashava, Dhaka and Tarabo Pourashava, Rupgonj, Naryangonj. Representatives of the Department of Health, its related departments of various ministries and its related organizations were present. Representatives of the World Bank, eminent scientists, researchers and academicians from various universities and research institutions actively participated in the workshop. Consultants of the Project Management Unit Mr. Md. Aminul Islam, Dr. Md. Billal Hossain, Dr. Moh. Sher Ali, Mr. Enamul Hoque, Mr. Shams Uddin Md. Rafi, S M Abdul Mottalib, S K Mahbub Ahmed, Dr. Sharmin Mizan, Mr. Rajib Chowdhury, Mr. Md Zahid Hossain, Mr. A J Minhaj Uddin Ahmad were present in the workshop.
Dr. Farzana Misa, Associate Professor of the Department of Environment, Climate and Health, BRAC University, presented the main topic of the workshop, “Air Pollution-Health Adaption Action Plan for Bangladesh”.
The resource persons present at the workshop gave their valuable opinions and suggestions on the presented “Air Pollution-Health Adaption Action Plan for Bangladesh”.
Recently, the increase in temperature due to air pollution and climate change has emerged as a major challenge for public health in Bangladesh. Considering the continuity of the continuous increase in temperature due to air pollution and climate change and the real situation, a realistic action plan has been prepared by the project team to take coordinated initiatives to deal with the situation. This day-long workshop was organized to make the action plan timely, applicable and realistic. In the workshop, the workshop chairperson and project director presented a brief speech on the project activities through a power point presentation.
In the second phase of the workshop, after presenting the draft action plan prepared according to the research of the Department of Environment, Climate and Health of BRAC University, recommendations were invited to make the action plan prepared to deal with the situation more realistic.
The participants were all concerned with adapting to the excess temperature due to air pollution and climate change. Emphasis is placed on formulating a specific, implementable, adaptation plan through the coordinated efforts of the stakeholders.
The prepared Action Plan is implementable by various ministries/divisions and departments/agencies. The Secretary of the Local Government Division and the chief guest of the workshop requested the concerned ministries/divisions and departments/agencies to implement their respective parts of the Action Plan.
