REACH country diagnostic report: Bangladesh

This report highlights the key water security risks to Bangladesh’s growth and poverty reduction efforts and illustrates evidence of significant but uncertain water security risks. It examines the progress made by Bangladesh in reducing poverty and improving growth and potential locations to establish REACH Water Security Observatories for ‘universal drinking water security’ and to reduce ‘water security risks for the coastal poor'.

Complex hydrology, chronic water-related risks, high exposure to water-related hazards and rapid environmental change mean that Bangladesh is already addressing challenges that will affect other South Asian countries in the decades ahead. But poverty reduction and growth efforts will not achieve desired development outcomes unless they include productive investments in water security and protective interventions against water-related risks.