Bangladesh is strengthening landslide anticipatory action through government-NGO collaboration, improved forecasting, early warnings, cash assistance and community-led preparedness initiatives aimed at reducing disaster risks in vulnerable hill districts.
Save the Children Bangladesh, in institutional collaboration with the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR), successfully convened the National Learning Workshop on Landslide Anticipatory Action in Bangladesh on Thursday at the Amari Hotel in Gulshan.
Funded by European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), the high-level workshop was implemented alongside consortium partners YPSA, ASHIKA Development Associates and the Regional Earth System Sciences and Monitoring Center (RIMES).
The event marked the conclusion of a milestone project titled “Anticipatory Action for Landslides Causing Displacement for Communities in Chattogram and Bandarban Districts”.
Designed to mitigate climate-induced landslide hazards in the fragile hill ecosystems of the Chattogram Hill Tracts, the project has successfully built robust government-led frameworks to protect vulnerable communities before disasters strike.
Md Saidur Rahman Khan, secretary of the MoDMR, attended the event as chief guest and said the insights and empirical evidence generated through the initiative would significantly advance Bangladesh’s strategic transition toward proactive disaster risk management.
He said ensuring national commitments to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would require strong alignment between the government and development partners, adding that scaling up such institutional good practices remained a national priority.
Addressing the technical milestones of the workshop, Momenul Islam, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), said the transition from traditional weather forecasting to a colour-coded impact-based forecasting system under the project had delivered unprecedented operational effectiveness.
He said that after establishing localized landslide special bulletins, the BMD was now working toward a comprehensive multi-hazard colour-coded system.
Momenul added that while last-mile communities were actively responding to these protocols, achieving the global target of Early Warnings for All by 2027 would require faster integration of stronger dissemination networks, particularly through the use of artificial intelligence.
Razwanur Rahman, director general of the Department of Disaster Management (DDM), highlighted the operational success of humanitarian financing and said unconditional cash assistance programmes deployed before landslide events had significantly reduced structural losses and socio-economic damage for at-risk communities.
He said the lessons and evidence gathered over the past two years would directly contribute to shaping the current National Early Action Plan (NEAP) for landslides.
During the plenary session, Fatema Mehereunnessa, manager of anticipatory action at Save the Children, and Asif Bin Noor from RIMES delivered the main presentation.
They highlighted key achievements including the institutionalization of the Landslide Anticipatory Action Technical Working Group (AA TWG) under BMD leadership, the installation of Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) for real-time rainfall monitoring and the development of localized Disaster Management Committee (DMC)-led action protocols.
The workshop also featured a grassroots reflection session where traditional indigenous leaders, including headmen and karbaris from remote areas of Naikhonchhari and Lama, alongside urban landslide volunteer units from the Chattogram City Corporation, shared first-hand experiences of using real-time data to carry out timely evacuations and protect community assets.
The workshop concluded with a commitment from senior government officials, UN agencies and international development partners to adopt an action-oriented roadmap integrating landslide anticipatory triggers and early warning protocols into the national framework on anticipatory action.
