Population growth combined with economic growth will increasingly stress water resources and this has the potential to be the dominant environmental and possibly the most important development issue facing Bangladesh in the coming half century. This Country Water Resources Assistance Strategy describes what the Bank can and will do to help improve country-level water management, and, thereby, assist the Government of Bangladesh in choosing water sector activities that the Bank can engage in strategically, that is, activities that are expected to have the most impact on long-term systemic challenges; that fit with the Bank's comparative advantages; and that support Bangladesh's Poverty Reduction Strategy implementation and complement the Bank's Country Assistance Strategy. The report identifies the following portfolio as priorities for World Bank engagement: 1) the institutional framework, including the responsibilities of different actors; and standards for water quality and service provision (especially for the poor), for the environment, for land use management, and for construction and management of infrastructure. 2) the management instruments, including regulatory arrangements; financial instruments; standards and plans; mechanisms for effective participation of stakeholders; and knowledge and information systems that increase transparency, motivate effective water allocation, use, and conservation, and secure maintenance and physical sustainability of the water resources system 3) the development and management of infrastructure, for irrigation, floods, and droughts, and for water quality and source protection. 4) the political economy of water management and reform, emphasizing the distribution of benefits and costs, and the incentives that encourage or constrain more productive and sustainable resource use and a pragmatic, sequenced and prioritized reform path.
