The World Bank is giving Bangladesh about $1.1 billion (about Tk 13,200 crore) in emergency support to ensure food security, protect livelihoods and tackle the impact of volatility in global fertiliser and energy markets. The financing was approved on Friday under two separate projects.
In a statement, the World Bank said the Middle East conflict had raised the prices of food, fertiliser and energy on the global market and created supply volatility. Combined with limited fiscal capacity, this had hit small farmers, the poor and vulnerable communities in Bangladesh hardest.
World Bank country director for Bangladesh and Bhutan Jean Pesme said the support would help ensure the supply of fertiliser needed for rice production, protect people’s livelihoods and jobs, and keep essential services running.
Of the approved funds, $300 million (about Tk 3,600 crore) will be given under the “Emergency Support for Food Security Project.” The money will help import the fertiliser needed for the aman season of July-October 2026 and the boro season from October 2026 to April 2027.
According to the World Bank, more than 85 percent of Bangladesh’s total fertiliser demand is import-dependent. The project will finance the import of 6 lakh metric tonnes of essential fertiliser, half of it urea, helping small farmers continue rice production on about 14 lakh hectares of land.
The project’s task team leader and World Bank lead economist, Suleiman Coulibaly, said about 90 percent of the country’s total rice output came from the aman and boro seasons, and about half the country’s people depended on agriculture. Any disruption to fertiliser supply would therefore negatively affect not only food security but also employment and poverty.
Under the “Contingent Emergency Response Project,” $713 million (about Tk 8,556 crore) will be given. This money will be released quickly and spent on cash support and livelihood-recovery programmes for affected families and small and medium entrepreneurs, as well as on the energy sector to keep essential services such as food, medicine, medical equipment, and electricity and water supply running. The project’s funds will be released by 30 June.
World Bank disaster-risk-management specialist Leslie Jean Yu Cordero said the support, by reallocating unused funds from existing projects, would create the chance to obtain money quickly, making it possible to protect people, businesses and jobs from the economic shock.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report