Bangladesh: Experts for disaster management projects sans foreign consultants

Foreign donors should drop the condition of involving 'international consultants' in the country's disaster management projects to maximise the utilisation of resources, experts told a workshop here Thursday, reports UNB.

They said the condition of involving external expertise usually set by different international bodies, including the World Bank, has been hampering the transfer of technology.

They said the condition of involving external expertise usually set by different international bodies, including the World Bank, has been hampering the transfer of technology.

Speaking at the inception workshop titled 'Multi Hazard Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, Modelling and Mapping' (MRVA) at a city hotel, government officials also blamed the condition for delay in launching the component under the Emergency Cyclone Recovery and Restoration Project (ECRRP).

Disaster Management Bureau organised the inception workshop of US$ 2 million MRVA component.

M Aslam Alam, secretary to the Disaster Management and Relief Division, said the donor partners always set conditions that international consultants should be hired for disaster management project which the division had failed to ensure over the last one and a half years. But involving local experts could have been easier, he added.

"Although we've experts in the field of disaster management in our country, we're unable to use them for the projects," Aslam said, adding that the project document makers usually make it mandatory to hire foreign consultants.

Development projects should focus on involving local experts more and more for the sake of better technology transfer, he observed.

Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, vice-chancellor of Asia Pacific University, said, "We, as a country, are becoming more dependent on foreign expertise day by day instead of allowing the technology to be transferred to the country."

Observing that the country has undergone enough experiences of systematic and scientific ways of disaster management activities to produce the necessary experts in the field, he said, "Please, try to maximise the resources, don't go for external help. We should do by ourselves whatever we do."

Ahsan Zakir, director general of the Disaster Management Bureau (DMB) and also the project director of MRVA (D1 sub-component of the ECRRP), said hazard risk assessment, mapping and training of relevant officials were the main focus of the MRVA that will contribute to knowledge development and disaster risk preparedness.

Bhuiyan Shafiqul Islam, secretary in-charge of the Planning Division; Masood Ahmed, task team leader of World Bank and Dr Bhichit Rattakul, special advisor to the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Thailand, among others, addressed the inception workshop with Ahsan Zakir in the chair.