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Bangladesh

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Bangladesh is among the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world. It is also a country highly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters.

Recurrent floods cause the soil to become hyper-saline, making agriculture particularly difficult. This situation greatly threatens the livelihoods of the population. Food insecurity and malnutrition are alarming. These nutritional problems are aggravated by the poor bacteriological quality of the water and the presence of arsenic in the country’s main water sources.

Faced with this situation, large numbers of people are migrating to the cities to escape natural disasters and rural poverty. Every year, several hundred thousand people arrive in Dhaka. A large proportion of them settle in one of the 5,000 slums of the capital, where insalubrity, pollution and lack of access to electricity and drinking water are glaring. These marginalized populations cannot claim their rights and make their voices heard.

At the same time, the country is hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas. Refugees from neighboring Myanmar, they are fleeing the wave of violence inflicted on their minority and face urgent humanitarian needs: protection, food security, access to healthcare, water and sanitation.

SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL is active in Bangladesh, where our teams are committed to working for and with the population to provide access to drinking water for all. Communities are supported over the long term to improve their knowledge and skills and to involve them in local governance.

SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL also responds to the needs of refugee populations through basic water, sanitation and hygiene aid.

As water quality and food security are impacted by natural or climatic disasters, disaster risk reduction is also an important part of the activities of our teams in Bangladesh.

To learn more about our work in Bangladesh, consult the articles below.