Is it Rich life ?

Is it rich life?

The converging pressures of global climate change and urbanization have a devastating effect on Bangladesh’s most vulnerable populations. At this moment, millions of people in the country are exposed to extremely high food and water-borne disease risks such as bacterial and protozoal diarrhoea, Hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever. Bangladesh’s disease burden is further exacerbated by unsanitary living conditions that underscore the poor economic conditions of both urban and rural home dwellers. Sadly, these poor health outcomes disproportionately impact children under the age of five years, causing widespread morbidity and mortality; the second leading cause of death in children under five is diarrheal disease.

Deprivations in living standards such as flooring and sanitation contribute to nearly half of all multi-dimensional poverty experienced in Bangladesh. Therefore, ARCHIVE believes that simple housing improvements represent a unique solution that has the potential to have a large impact and create responsive and lasting changes in vulnerable communities.
To overcome the burden of unhygienic and unsanitary housing conditions among those most vulnerable to infectious diseases, ARCHIVE has collaborated with ADESH (Association for Development of Economic and Social Help) to establish a pilot-flooring project, Health from the Ground Up. The Health from the Ground Up initiative serves to replace dirt/mud floors with concrete flooring in Bangladeshi homes and, through this intervention, target a major transmission pathway for gastrointestinal and parasitic pathogens.

Bangladesh, like most nations, faces a large number of challenges.
What should be the top priorities for policy makers, international donors, NGOs and businesses? With limited resources and time, it is crucial that focus is informed by what will do the most good for each taka spent.
The Bangladesh Priorities project will work with stakeholders across Bangladesh to find, analyze, rank and disseminate the best solutions for the country.
We will engage Bangladeshis from all parts of society, through readers of newspapers, listeners to radio and TV viewers, along with NGOs, decision makers, sector experts and businesses to propose the best solutions. We will commission some of the best economists from Bangladesh, the region and the world to calculate the social, environmental and economic costs and benefits of these proposals.
Once the research is available, we'll ask everyone - from Nobel Laureates to everyday Bangladeshis - to set their priorities for the country, sparking a nationwide conversation about what the smart - and not-so-smart - solutions are for Bangladesh's future.