Chief Adviser to the interim government Professor Dr Muhammad Yunus urged the country people to come forward to addressing the ongoing devastating flood. "With the initiatives and encouragement of the youth, the country's people should jump into addressing the flood together. We must tackle the flood unitedly," he said on Saturday (Aug 24) after a meeting with the representatives of non-government organisations at state guest house Jamuna in Dhaka, local media reported.
Briefing reporters in front of the Jamuna, chief adviser's press secretary Shafiqul Alam said Prof Yunus was surprised seeing that people from all works of life have come forward to help the flood victims. "The way the people of Bangladesh showed their spirit during the student-people movement, they are coming up showing the same spontaneity in addressing the flood," he said quoted the chief adviser as saying. He said about 44 NGOs were invited to join the meeting and a fruitful and cordial meeting was held on Saturday.
During the meeting, Prof Yunus asked the NGOs to conduct relief distribution and flood mitigation programmes in a coordinated way, the press secretary said.
He said many people have already lost their houses, while all belongs, including utensils, of many were washed away. "The floodwater has started receding. After the flood, water-borne diseases and health related issues emerge. During the meeting, they discussed how these issues can be addressed," Alam said.
About relief programme, he said people are collecting relief at village level and yesterday (Friday) students collected a huge amount of relief at TSC of Dhaka University, which was a remarkable scene.
On communication, he said, the government continues coordination with army and mobile phone companies to reconnect communication system at flood-hit areas.
"We are trying to make mobile towers operational by sending diesel oil there and resume power connectivity as soon as possible. If electricity connection resumes, mobile phone service will be operational. And once mobile network resumes, people living in flood-affected areas will be able to set up a direct communication with diaspora... relief and rehabilitation have already started," Alam said.
Replying to a question, he said Prof Yunus said NGOs are the strength of Bangladesh and "We must implement the dream the youth have shown us. And we can do it".
The Press Secretary said the chief adviser mentioned that NGOs always play a vital role in addressing flood in Bangladesh.
Adviser Ali Imam Majumder, SDG Coordinator Lamiya Morshed, prominent economist Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Rasheda K Chowdhury, ActionAid Bangladesh Executive Director Farah Kabir and BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh, among others, were present at the meeting.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh said there is a need for international funds mobilisation to deal with the flood situation.
Saleh said both small and big NGOs were invited today and they shared their ideas so that the ongoing flood could be addressed in a coordinated way.
"As we are working at field level, what should be the priority (in tackling flood) was discussed," he said, adding they welcomed the joint initiative of public and private sector to work together.
He called for maintaining coordination at national and local levels in dealing with the flood.
Observing that reaching out relief to hard-to-reach areas is a very challenging task, the BRAC executive director suggested distribution of relief by dividing the flood-hit areas into different zones so that relief can be distributed in a more coordinated way.
The chief adviser, he said, asked the NGOs to pave a way so that the government and NGOs can mobilise fund together in addressing the flood situation.
They (NGOs) also suggested taking a joint response plan in mobalising fund from international donors, he said. "We are planning together so that health issues could be addressed after the floodwater recedes," Saleh said.
He sought cooperation from international community and Bangladeshi expatriates in raising fund for the flood victims. "International fund mobilisation is a must... a rough estimate of a NGO shows that we require Tk 1,000 crore to address the flood...we have started a need assessment and we have scopes to maintain coordination in carrying out the need assessment," Saleh said.
