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Rohingya Refugee and Humanitarian Crisis: Synergies within Bangladesh Government and Humanitarian community (Case study: WASH for Rohingya Refugees)

Rahman, MD Mostafizur LU (2019) In TVVR-19/5007 VVRM01 20191
Division of Water Resources Engineering
Abstract
Humanitarian Crisis is an alarming problem throughout the world. Bangladesh also is undergoing Rohingya refugee crisis with grave severity and challenges. Over 1 million Rohingya people have been settled over the top of hills, living without inadequate WASH facilities. This study tried to analyse the humanitarian crisis by Pressures-States-Responses framework depicting the factors exacerbating the situation, its impact and responses to overcome the crisis. Results showed that unplanned water and sanitation structures, risk of landslides and soil erosion with flooding and wind-storms during monsoon, lack of coordination, unavailability of fund etc. are inflaming the crisis creating severe health problem to the vulnerable people. Hence, to... (More)
Humanitarian Crisis is an alarming problem throughout the world. Bangladesh also is undergoing Rohingya refugee crisis with grave severity and challenges. Over 1 million Rohingya people have been settled over the top of hills, living without inadequate WASH facilities. This study tried to analyse the humanitarian crisis by Pressures-States-Responses framework depicting the factors exacerbating the situation, its impact and responses to overcome the crisis. Results showed that unplanned water and sanitation structures, risk of landslides and soil erosion with flooding and wind-storms during monsoon, lack of coordination, unavailability of fund etc. are inflaming the crisis creating severe health problem to the vulnerable people. Hence, to overcome the crisis, a synergies mechanism within Bangladesh and Humanitarian communities like UN agencies, LNGOs, INGOs etc. had been established. To solve WASH crisis, WASH Sector, leaded by DPHE, on behalf of Bangladesh, and co-chaired by UNICEF and Action Against Hunger had taken several respone activities. Besides, UNHCR, IOM, MSF, OXFAM, BRAC etc. are collaboraing each other to improve WASH crisis. Responses also had been taken by Bangladesh Government funded by World Bank and ADB. Yet to progess a lot, hence multilateral discussion within countries and agencies, water safety plan, rain water harvesting, hill slopes strengthening and more studies and research are recommended to initiate in this study. (Less)
Popular Abstract
The number of displaced people around the world is gradually increasing as a survey from UNHCR shows that in 2007, it was 42.7 million which reached at 68.5 million in 2017. Like other parts of world, Bangladesh is now a address of around 1 million Rohingya refugee, 55% are children mostly living in Ukhia, sub-district of Bangladesh, having a population density 3,468 per km2 after Rohingya influx. Study reveals that around 69% refugees have been staying in the Kutupalong-Balukhali Expansion camp which make it one of the largest refugee camps in the world.

30% of the 5,338 handpumps installed in the camps had become non-functional mostly due to a drop in the underground water level and a lack of proper maintenance. During summer, 42 %... (More)
The number of displaced people around the world is gradually increasing as a survey from UNHCR shows that in 2007, it was 42.7 million which reached at 68.5 million in 2017. Like other parts of world, Bangladesh is now a address of around 1 million Rohingya refugee, 55% are children mostly living in Ukhia, sub-district of Bangladesh, having a population density 3,468 per km2 after Rohingya influx. Study reveals that around 69% refugees have been staying in the Kutupalong-Balukhali Expansion camp which make it one of the largest refugee camps in the world.

30% of the 5,338 handpumps installed in the camps had become non-functional mostly due to a drop in the underground water level and a lack of proper maintenance. During summer, 42 % of individuals having less than 3 liters of clean drinking water daily. More than 90 percent of household water sources in the camps were contaminated with E. coli bacteria. Almost 95 per cent of toilets were close to water points which ultimately degraded the water quality. Monsoon drives around 2.5 meters of rainfall in three months, turning camps into unhealthy swamps. Around 200,000 people in the camps were at risk, including 25,000 in extremely high-risk areas due to landslides. Hence the above picture showed that several internal and external factors exacerbating the crisis. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are a) to find out the factors exacerbating the Rohingya Humanitarian crisis; b) assessing synergies mechanisms within Bangladesh Government and Humanitarian Communities and c) analyzing response activities regarding Rohingya crisis. Information had been collected through discussion with concerning government officials, field visit, journal articles and reports published in the electronic and print media. For the analysis Pressure-State-Response framework was used.

The findings revealed that the ongoing crisis of safe water, sanitation and hygiene facilities were adversely affected due to lack of hygiene education, unplanned construction of WASH facilities, natural disasters like floods, landslides, windstorms etc., lack of coordination within humanitarian communities and unavailability of fund. The geographical characteristics like shortage of ground water and high groundwater salinity was also responsible to augment the crisis.

To overcome the multidimensional humanitarian crisis, more than 200 humanitarian groups and Bangladesh Government embraced the vulnerable situation establishing a synergies mechanism within themselves. RRRC, on behalf of Bangladesh Government and Inter Sector Coordination Group as humanitarian coordination platform are functioning in the field level. WASH sector, leaded by DPHE and co-chaired by UNICEF and Action Against Hunger established WASH strategy for effective coordination. 46 WASH partners are working in the camps. The number of beneficiaries to access functional latrines operated, maintained and cleaned by the Sector was 748,173 people in camps and 49,900 Bangladeshis in host communities. Working with partners, a total of 7 water networks through taps is operational or in final stages of completion. 21,959 latrines had been de-sludged. 5,732 latrines had been decommissioned. Up to December 2018, UNICEF had provided safe water to 346,512 target people, sanitation for 618,280 and Hygiene facilities to 679, 593 target people. BRAC and MSF-OCA established a treated water supply and distribution network for over 80,000 Rohingya (18,600 HH) refugees in Camps IE and IW.

Yet the Rohingya refugee is nestled with enormous challenges demanding more effective initiatives such as continuous multilateral discussion with international communities, long-term solution of crisis strategy, strengthening the slopes of hills covering with geomembranes, harvesting rainwater, initiating Water Safety Plans, innovative sanitation strategy like incorporating urine-diverting toilets and lastly more studies and research to improve the synergies efficiency. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Rahman, MD Mostafizur LU
supervisor
organization
course
VVRM01 20191
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Key words: Rohingya Refugee, Humanitarian Crisis, WASH, Synergies, Humanitarian Community.
publication/series
TVVR-19/5007
report number
19/5007
ISSN
1101-9824
language
English
additional info
Examiner: Ronny Berndtsson
id
8981786
date added to LUP
2019-06-12 14:56:04
date last changed
2019-06-12 14:56:04
@misc{8981786,
  abstract     = {{Humanitarian Crisis is an alarming problem throughout the world. Bangladesh also is undergoing Rohingya refugee crisis with grave severity and challenges. Over 1 million Rohingya people have been settled over the top of hills, living without inadequate WASH facilities. This study tried to analyse the humanitarian crisis by Pressures-States-Responses framework depicting the factors exacerbating the situation, its impact and responses to overcome the crisis. Results showed that unplanned water and sanitation structures, risk of landslides and soil erosion with flooding and wind-storms during monsoon, lack of coordination, unavailability of fund etc. are inflaming the crisis creating severe health problem to the vulnerable people. Hence, to overcome the crisis, a synergies mechanism within Bangladesh and Humanitarian communities like UN agencies, LNGOs, INGOs etc. had been established. To solve WASH crisis, WASH Sector, leaded by DPHE, on behalf of Bangladesh, and co-chaired by UNICEF and Action Against Hunger had taken several respone activities. Besides, UNHCR, IOM, MSF, OXFAM, BRAC etc. are collaboraing each other to improve WASH crisis. Responses also had been taken by Bangladesh Government funded by World Bank and ADB. Yet to progess a lot, hence multilateral discussion within countries and agencies, water safety plan, rain water harvesting, hill slopes strengthening and more studies and research are recommended to initiate in this study.}},
  author       = {{Rahman, MD Mostafizur}},
  issn         = {{1101-9824}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{TVVR-19/5007}},
  title        = {{Rohingya Refugee and Humanitarian Crisis: Synergies within Bangladesh Government and Humanitarian community (Case study: WASH for Rohingya Refugees)}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}