The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has agreed to support Bangladesh by providing a $170m loan to improve the sanitation infrastructure for 1.5 million residents in the capital city of Dhaka.
Co-financed by the World Bank, the Dhaka Sanitation Improvement project will support the government to invest in sanitation infrastructure that includes sewerage systems, sewage treatment and pilot measures for hard-to-reach areas in the Pagla catchment, one of the most densely populated areas of the city.
The funding from AIIB will be used for the reconstruction of two trunk mains, build a new secondary and tertiary network and a wastewater treatment plant. The total estimated cost of these components is $446.5m.
Other components of the investment include strengthening the capacity of the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) and to conduct a feasibility test of locally adapted collection and sewage treatment solutions. The components are estimated to cost nearly $36.03m.
AIIB investment operations vice president D.J. Pandian said: “AIIB is committed to ensuring that its projects improve quality of life for the most vulnerable communities. This project is expected to directly contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which is to ensure access to water and sanitation for all.
“The experience of implementing this project will strengthen AIIB’s capacity to finance broad-based water supply and sanitation projects, which are in high demand in other areas of the region.”
Last month, AIIB had also approved a loan of $200m to Bangladesh to increase access to electricity and to improve service efficiency in Dhaka.
The loan will support the country to add 7.4GVA (gigavolt-amperes) of power transmission capacity, reduce transmission losses and the number of annual outages from 60 to 15, by 2025.
To achieve these ambitions, the country needs to construct 408km of transmission lines, which is expected to have a positive environmental impact in terms of reduced CO2 emissions to the extent of 455,000 tons, annually.