ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development of an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and development. Thus, the write-up takes off from the key argument in the chapter in favor of combined structural and non-structural approaches in disaster management and mitigation. As a low-lying deltaic country, Bangladesh experiences regular flooding, erosions, and coastal surges associated with tropical cyclones affecting literally hundreds and thousands of people creating a cycle of poverty and landlessness due to loss of valuable land, dislocation of people, and destruction of homes and assets for livelihoods. Following the emergency cyclone recovery and rehabilitation work arising out of Sidr and Aila, the Government of Bangladesh with World Bank financing adopted a strategic long-term integrated plan for systematic restoration and upgrading of the coastal embankment system. The major beneficiaries of the bank protection works and re-embankment are those people who took shelter and eventually settled after being displaced by floods and erosions in the area.
