DHAKA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Bangladesh have signed a financing agreement to support 303,000 rural households in six flood-prone districts in northern Bangladesh.
The agreement for the Promoting Resilience of Vulnerable through Access to Infrastructure, Improved Skills and Information project was signed by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, and Kazi Shofiqul Azam, Secretary of Bangladeshi Economic Relations Division, said a statement here on Wednesday.
The total cost of the project is 92.4 million U.S. dollars, including a 63.2-million-U.S. dollar loan and a 1.2-million-U.S. dollar grant from IFAD, said the statement.
The government will provide 27.9 million U.S. dollars, it added.
According to the statement, the project aims to improve rural peoples' resilience in 25 flood-prone upazilas, or townships, through building weatherproofed infrastructure, creating off-farm employment opportunities, and strengthening communities' ability to adapt to climate change-related risks.
The project will put in place an early warning system managed by the communities themselves, and the system will be placed to other communities outside the mentioned flood-prone districts.
The project will be implemented over six years and in six districts: Gaibandha, Jamalpur, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, and Rangpur. These districts are often flooded due to overflows of the Jamuna and Teesta rivers.