An AUICK delegation, consisting of Dr. Prem P. Talwar, IAC Member, Mr. Masayuki Ishitsubo, Executive Director; Mr. Nobuyuki Morimoto, Manager, visited Chittagong, Bangladesh, from 24 to 26 February 2004. In the afternoon of 25 February at a cenference froom of the Chittagong City Corporation Building, they had a monitoring meeting with the mayor and senior officials who had participated in AUICK's past training courses.

Mr. A.B.M. Mohiuddin Chowdhury, Mayor of Chittagong, expressed thanks to AUICK for building capacity of his staff members.  He took pride in telling that his staff members returned from AUICK training with new ideas and necessary motivation.  They took several actions for better planning and management of the services they were responsible for.  He expressed hope that such activity of AUICK will continue in the future as well, and thus help Chittagong in improving its services.

Mr. Masayuki Ishitsubo expressed thanks to the Mayor for sparing his precious time to meet the delegation.  He explained the purpose of the visit, and extended the invitation to the Mayor for participation in the Mayors Conference in Kobe at the end of July 2004.

Dr. Prem P. Talwar gave detailed description of the new project and new strategy which AUICK is going to follow in its next project during the circle 2004-2007. All the important features of the strategy were described, particularly (1) the relationship of Chittagong as AUICK Associate City, (2) close collaboration with UNFPA, and (3) preparation of action plan during training period to strengthen its services.  It was pointed out that a continuous contact will be maintained with Chittagong through regular visits.

The mayor was pleased and interested in the new AUICK strategic progect of 2004-2007, and particularly appreciated that the new project would provide Chittagong City with an opportunity to become a model city in urban planning as one of nine AUICK Associate Cities (AAC's).

Mr. Shawkat Mostafa, Deputy Secretary to Mayor, attended the 1998 Seminar on Population, Primary Health Care and Reproductive Health and the 2002 Seminar on Population Ageing and Administrative Countermeasures.

On behalf of all the past Chittagong participants, he expressed great satisfaction with they had received, and indicated that they implemented some of the ideas received during the training period in their own city planning.

"Kobe experience on 'Silver College' and other elderly homes is rare experience for us.  Also, solid waste management, sewage treatment and managing parks and gardens, Coop Kobe for collecting solid waste from warious super markets and other facilities are wonderful experience for me."

"A participant from Ipoh City in Malaysia described about a healthy city program and how they created a healthy atomospher, converting Ipoh City into a "Garden City". After discussions with the Mayor of Chittagong City, we introduced a small door to door gabage collection in a ward area out of 41 wards by the initiative of our mayor.  We also introduced three rickshaw vans for collecting street waste and solid refuse from the main highway of the city."

Dr. Shahana Perveen, Director, Midwifery Institute, attended the 1999 Seminar on Primary Health Care and Reproductive Health.

"As the director of the Midwifery Institute, I had an opportunity to implement my knowledge and and experience what I acquired form the seminar.  We are primarily engaged in the training and capacity building of young girls for midwives, who are coming from less privileged and low income societies of the country.  I think, this is a kind of direct approach for the empowerment of women folk.  After receiving their academic training from this institute, our midwives are being employed in different government and nongovernment organizations under the health sector in the country.  Through their services, these midwives are directly engaged with a maternal and child health care facility in urban areas to reduce the maternal and child mortality of the county."

Dr. salim Akhter Chowdhury, Health Officer, attended the Study Course on ICPD and Health Care in 1998.

“As the Health Officer of the City, I have been working for the prevention against HIV/AIDS.  Fortunately, Bangladesh so far has escaped the worst ravage of HIV/AIDS.  However, the spread of infection is rapidly increasing, and high positive HIV prevalence areas account, altogether, great potential for the poor Bangladesh to be a HIV/AIDS prone country in very near future.  Therefore, I have a great hope that AUICK will organaize a workshop on Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS in the near future.”

He also reported that he recently engaged in HIV /AIDS  research project donated by Germany through GTZ.

Mr. Sayed Hasan Mahmood Chowdhury, Assistant Private Secretary to Mayor, attended the 2000 Seminar on Public Utilities in Asian Cities.

“After coming back from AUICK Seminar where I had a lot of experience about sewage system waste disposal, water and environmental projects of Kobe, I was closely associated with the decision making process along with the Mayor in undertaking similar projects of Chittagong.”

“In Chittagong City, we are going to implement a solid waste management project where we would be able to produce power and organic fertilizers from the recycling of city garbage.  This is going to be a milestone in the solid waste management of Bangladesh.”

“In the field of clean water and environmental pollution control sector, we are going to achieve tremendous achievements very shortly.  Through motivation and preservation activities of Chaktai Khal, the major canal flowing through the central high density areas of the city.  This canal was a threat of the overall environment as well as the urban population living on both the banks for more than two decade.”

Mr. Saifuddin Mahmud Katebi, Chief Conservancy Officer, attended the 2001 Seminar on Population and Solid Waste Management.

“I learned a lot from the training specially about the solid waste management aspect of Kobe city.  Moreover, I have an opportunity to learn that city waste could be converted to resources through recycling.  That’s why we are also encouraged to implement a similar waste recycling project for Chittagong City Corporation at Halishahar Region of the city.  We hope this would go for operation soon and we would be able to generate power and fertilizer through this process.”

Mr. Architect A.K.M. Rezaul Karim, City Planner and Head, Department of Architecture and City Planning, attended the 2003 Seminar on Population and Sustainable Water Resource Management in Urban Planning.

Since he attended the most recent seminar held in early December 2003, he did not have adequate opportunity to implement any project based on what he learned during the training.  Instead, he reported what he was tackling in his current position.

“Presently, Chittagong City Corporation is trying to develop a water preserver in between the hilly areas located at the north-western part of the city to overcome the crisis of drinking water.  This can be implemented easily with constructing water structures between the hills and obstructing rain water accordingly.  As a result supply of natural drinking water along with agro forestry, fishery and tourism can be ensured.”

The past participants also suggested there was a need to increase the duration of the training course from 8-10 days to between three and four weeks. It was suggested that the location of training courses should not be limited to Kobe, and should also be held in other AUICK Associate Cities.  It was felt that this would give trainees an opportunity to become more familiar with the problems and strategies that individual cities and countries are adopting to solve their urban problems.

The meeting concluded with a renewed commitment from Chittagong officials to collaborate more closely with AUICK and other AACs on the new strategic project for 2004-2007, which is based on the realization of UNFPA Millennium Development Goals in nine cities of Asia.