Banking on a flood-free future? Flood mismanagement in Bangladesh

The World Bank's multi-million dollar Flood Action Plan, which seeks to tame Bangladesh's rivers with embankments and polders, spells outright disaster and displacement for the majority of the country's landless peasants, farmers and fishers. The Plan fails to address adequately the far more destructive flooding caused by cyclones. Land and social reforms are key to mitigating the adverse impact of floods.
The World Bank has devised a five-year Flood Action Plan worth millions of dollars to remedy the devastating effects of flooding in Bangladesh. However, the plan has numereous negative effects on the country's fishery resources and may succeed only in creating more floods. The Flood Action Plan has also forgotten to make provisions for cyclone protection which will protect the coastal embankments. The only key to an effective flooding program is in land and social reform.