The government has launched a web-based platform under the Planning Commission to integrate disaster risk information into development planning and budgeting, policies, and programmes.

It was launched on Wednesday with assistance from the National Resilience Programme (NRP) and  technical support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and financed by the Government of Bangladesh, FCDO of the UK government and SIDA of the government of Sweden.

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Planning Minister M A Mannan inaugurated the Digital Risk Information Platform (DRIP) at a launching ceremony held at the commission’s NEC conference room.

“Strengthening risk governance and institutionalisation of resilience is a global and as well as a national commitment of the government of Bangladesh,” the minister said.

He said the economic losses due to disaster need to be minimised, and effective use of public money must be ensured through risk-informed investment.

DRIP will provide data and information for disaster and climate risk and vulnerability assessment and potential climate change adaptation options as well as disaster risk mitigation measures to address identified risks and vulnerabilities caused by the project and in the project implementing areas. 

It will allow different government ministries and agencies access to more than 300 maps for risk, hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and climate change on this site.

The future scenario of temperature and climate scenario is also available in its software, UNDP said.

The launching ceremony was addressed by Dr Shamsul Alam, State Minister for Ministry of Planning, Sudipto Mukerjee, Resident Representative of UNDP, Nick Harvey, Senior Humanitarian Adviser, FCDO, Christine Johnsson, Deputy Head of Mission in the Embassy of Sweden, Arif Abdullah Khan, Program Analyst of UNDP and Dr. Nurun Nahar, Project Director of NRP in Programming Division. 

Sudipto Mukerjee said National Resilience Programme (NRP) with support from the Programming Division of Bangladesh has taken the initiative to establish tools and database to generate a detailed analysis of disaster and climate change-related risks to inform development projects, plans and programmes of relevant key sectors.

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“Through Digital Risk Information Platform (DRIP); the proposed screening system will enable the Programming Division and Sector Divisions of Planning Commission to better understand and validate how the projects approved and endorsed may be affected by climate and disaster risks, and thus be more effective in its tasks. It just started of the journey and need continuous support for mainstreaming, updating and skill-building”.

Representatives from government agencies, diplomatic missions and scientific organisations were present at the event. Pradip Ranjan Chakraborty, Secretary, Planning Division, presided over the session.

Risk information of eleven hazards, including flood, salinity, landslide, earthquake in 64 districts, is available in the DRIP so that government officials can consider the local risks during project formulation to ensure risk-informed development.

The planning division’s secretary pointed out that the commission has introduced Disaster Impact Assessment (DIA) in the feasibility study format, and inclusion of DIA in project formulation is under process, which will be placed in the next meeting of NEC.