analysis of urban slum case study of korail slum dhaka

Analysis of Urban Slum: Case Study of Korail Slum, Dhaka

Authors: Sanjida Ahmed Sinthia

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. There are several reasons for this insufficiency and uncontrolled population growth is one of the prime reasons. Others include low economic progress, imbalanced resource management, unemployment and underemployment, urban migration and natural catastrophes etc. As a result, the rate of urban poor is increasing inevitably in every sphere of urban cities in Bangladesh and Dhaka is the most affected one. Besides there is scarcity of urban land, housing, urban infrastructure and amenities which create pressure on urban cities and mostly encroach the open space, wetlands that causes environmental degradation. Government has no or limited control over these due to poor government policy and management, political pressure and lack of resource management. Unfortunately, over centralization and bureaucracy creates unnecessary delay and interruptions in any government initiations. There is also no coordination between government and private sector developer to solve the problem of urban Poor. To understand the problem of these huge populations this paper analyzes one of the single largest slum areas in Dhaka, Korail Slum. The study focuses on socio demographic analysis, morphological pattern and role of different actors responsible for the improvements of the area and recommended some possible steps for determining the potential outcomes.

Keywords: Demographic analysis , environmental degradation , physical condition , government policy , housing and land management policy.

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Article Contents

Introduction, ethnography in korail slum, temporality of the pandemic in korail.

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Ethnography of community governance: a case of COVID-19 response of an urban slum in Bangladesh

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Shahaduz Zaman, Faruq Hossain, Imran Matin, Ethnography of community governance: a case of COVID-19 response of an urban slum in Bangladesh, Community Development Journal , Volume 58, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 247–264, https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsac006

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Although COVID-19 cases and deaths in different clusters of Bangladesh were increasing rapidly for most of the year 2020, surprisingly very few cases were reported in the urban slums, identified as the potential hotspots of Coronavirus. While the epidemiological puzzle of the low incidence of COVID-19 in slums remains unresolved, an ethnography in an urban slum in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, reveals how, in the context of indifference from the state, the slum dwellers themselves initiated several informal but robust interventions to tackle the pandemic. This study reveals the power of community governance from below, which we understand using Bayat’s (2013 ) concept of ‘quiet encroachment’ and Roy’s (2009 ) argument about the role of informality in urban governance. To adapt to the pandemic situation, we applied an innovative ‘peer research’ approach for data collection.

Cities have been the epicentres of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, both in terms of epidemiology and economics ( Bai et al. , 2020 ). Within the cities in the Global South, slums and informal settlements were identified as the potential hotspots of Coronavirus (COVID-19) transmission and vulnerability ( The World Bank, 2020 ). It is estimated that about one billion people worldwide currently live in slums ( UN-Habitat, 2020 ). Due to the physical, structural, and social aspects of the slum environment, preventative measures like handwashing, self-isolation, and physical distancing are not feasible.

The relationship between informal urban settlements and the state is complex, adversarial, and constantly shifting ( Bhan, 2017 ). The slums were particularly vulnerable during the pandemic because of the high probability of weak compliance and enforcement in the context of challenging governability of the urban slum spaces. Inquiring the governance narrative of a Bangladeshi slum during the pandemic, therefore, becomes particularly relevant.

The first COVID-19 case in Bangladesh was recorded on 8 March 2020. So far, Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, has the highest number of Coronavirus positive cases in the country. It is estimated that over five million slum dwellers live in Dhaka city alone ( UNICEF, 2020 ). As the number of COVID-19 cases started to rise during April–May, the media started expressing concerns about the high-risk population of urban slums. The media also made grim speculations about infections in Korail, the largest slum in Dhaka ( British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC], 2020 ). The media highlighted the ignorance and indifference of Korail residents about the virus and reported how the slum dwellers disregard health and safety directives ( Antara, 2020 ). They were portrayed as a threat to the whole city—potential sources and transmitters of the disease.

However, though COVID-19 cases and deaths in different clusters of the country were increasing rapidly, to everyone’s surprise, no alarming number of positive cases were reported in the slums of Dhaka, and the death register did not record any increased mortality. Press release of a study in June 2020 estimated a lower prevalence of COVID-19 in slums than in other parts of the Dhaka city, although, seroprevalence was estimated higher in the slums indicating higher exposure to the virus ( icddr, b, 2020 ). The absence of a shocking number of positive cases or deaths in Korail, the most densely populated slum in the country, generated curiosity and became a talk of the town. Newspaper headlines like ‘Dhaka Slums: Where COVID is curiously quiet’ ( Mollah and Islam, 2020 ) were common.

However, whether this perception is epidemiologically justifiable is not the aim of this paper, as this perception might have been created by a combination of asymptomatic infection, ‘hiding of symptoms’ by slum residents due to fear of stigma ( Rashid et al. , 2020 ) or ‘information deficit’ created by lack of testing, and deficiencies in vital registration ( Ahamad et al. , 2021 ; Haider et al. , 2021 ). Rather, our focus is mainly on addressing the ‘explanations’ of the ‘slum phenomenon’ that treated the slums as passive spaces and the residents as only economic victims of the pandemic, from the perspectives of the people living in these spaces. We explored the local narratives of COVID-19 among the Korail slum dwellers, the largest slum of Dhaka city to understand their lived experience during the pandemic. We were interested in the narrative knowledge which indicates how individuals assign meaning to their experiences through the stories they tell, in contrast to the ‘paradigmatic mode of thought’ which draws on reasoned analysis to explain ‘cause and effect’ and to create unambiguous objective ‘truth’ that can be proved or disproved ( Bruner, 1986 ; Becker, 1996 ; Slevitch, 2011 ). We particularly aimed to identify the home-grown interventions the slum dwellers took against the pandemic, and understand the community governance mechanism applied in tackling the crisis.

Consisting of around 14,000 households, Korail is the largest slum in Dhaka city and home to almost 250,000 people on ninety-nine acres of land ( BBS, 2014 ). The majority of the Korail residents are involved in different informal economic sectors, working as domestic workers, rickshaw/van pullers, street hawkers, and garment workers, for example.

The study took an ethnographic approach, which relies on researchers participating in the research setting, interacting with and observing the people being studied, seeking to document the patterns of social interaction and the perspectives of participants, and understanding the findings in their contexts ( Hammersley and Atkinson, 2019 ). Two researchers trained in anthropology and two ‘peer researchers’ from the slum were recruited to collect data from Korail. Data were collected during August–November 2020, when the Coronavirus-induced lockdown was lifted and life in the slum was back to normal. Peer research is a participatory research technique through which people with the life experience of the studied community participate in and facilitate the research ( Salway et al. , 2015 ). Bhide (2020 ) argued that a key attribute of the knowledge of informal settlements is that it is highly extractive in nature, collected, and owned by outsiders. Engaging the peer researchers was an attempt from our side to address this concern. The study appointed two peer researchers from the community, one male and one female, both were college students (grade eleven, age nineteen years). The peer researchers attended an intensive five-day training on qualitative research methods. Peer researchers were involved in conducting in-depth interviews and observation within Korail. They were also asked to maintain diaries of their daily life activities that included mobility, food consumption, social interaction, religious actions, and so on, for a month. This diary was an important source of data. On the other hand, the trained anthropologists conducted in-depth interviews, key informant interviews, informal group discussions, and observation. Both the peer researchers were paid a day-basis salary, whereas the anthropologists were salaried staff. The researchers conducted non-participatory observations of the everyday life in the slum. Although the peer researchers observed the locality both day and night as they are residents of Korail, the trained researchers conducted observation only during the daytime. The slum is divided into seventeen blocks. The non-participatory observation was performed in all blocks of the slum to get a holistic view of the everyday life of the slum. The trained researchers and the peer researchers divided the observation sites among themselves. The field researchers took detailed notes of the interviews and observations which they have elaborated on at the end of every day. Inductive and thematic approaches were used to analyse the data. Group discussions were held with the data collection team, including the anthropologists and peer researchers, to break down, conceptualize, and categorize the primary data into different codes and themes. The emerging codes were thematically organized based on the patterns of the data for descriptive analysis. Quotes, images, and stories were also extracted from the transcription as evidence.

In line with the principle of ‘intrinsic’ case study, Korail slum was selected on its own merits, not because it is representative of other cases, but because of its uniqueness, which is of genuine interest to the researchers ( Crowe et al. , 2011 ). However, as follow up to this current study, two more ethnographies were conducted in two other slums in Dhaka, one on privately owned land and the other on city corporation owned land. The results of those ethnographies are beyond the scope of this current paper but the report of those ethnographies are available on the institutional website ( Zaman et al. , 2021 ). The report shows although there are certain aspects of experience that are different from Korail slum, the core theme of ‘governance from below’ is true for all three slums.

In-depth interviews—twenty-four in total—with a cross-section of people of the slum community, and key informant interviews—ten in total—with local leaders, traditional healers, health service providers, drug sellers, religious leaders, and people involved in burial activities in the slum. Furthermore, several opportunistic informal group discussions were conducted. Purposive sampling was used to select the respondents from a diverse section of the population of the community. Selecting sample size is not straightforward in qualitative research. There are differential opinions about how many qualitative interviews are enough. The principle of data saturation is maintained in determining the sample size. However, a systematic review on qualitative sampling suggested a range between ten and thirty interviews to be appropriate ( Baker and Edwards, 2012 ; Vasileiou et al. , 2018 ).

In this paper, we present the narrative stories of COVID-19 from the slum dwellers’ perspective; employment through their stories can provide access to the world in question (Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2003). We conclude with our interpretation of the narrative.

The ethnography reveals that there is a temporal dimension to the narrative of COVID-19 among the Korail inhabitants. We elaborate on the changing scenario of the Korail slum into different phases.

First phase: Panic and perplexity

The slum dwellers started to worry when the first case of COVID-19 in Bangladesh was reported in Dhaka city on 8 March 2020. After the government’s announcement of a nationwide lockdown, the situation of the slum became worse with the massive job loss and shutting down of businesses ( Rahman et al. , 2020 ). Fear of COVID-19 turned the busy, noisy slum into an unprecedently quiet space. The fear at that time was expressed by a respondent: ‘At the beginning of the pandemic, we were all trembling in fear like a bachca kobutor [baby pigeon]. Everyone in Korail—men, women, all alike.’

The unexpected changes in the city due to COVID-19 left the slum dwellers, most of whom were day labourers or small business owners, in panic, and eventually without a job.

The uncertainty at the initial phase of the pandemic and lack of information and direction left them confused. Many decided to save their lives and stock as much food as they could afford. For the first few weeks of the lockdown, the slum was in a state of standstill. People could hardly see any role of the local leaders and administrators of the slum, who were reportedly stunned by the extraordinary situation and remained silent. Various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were operating in the slum closed their regular activities. There were also no interventions from the government. People were frightened, aimless, and disorganized. One respondent said, ‘When the lockdown was imposed, we had nobody to give us directions. We did not see any slum leader or NGO worker providing any guidance or instruction, as if they were hiding in a cave, like a snake in winter.’

Second phase: Private initiatives at the individual and household levels

After the initial puzzlement, the slum dwellers started to take various initiatives at the individual and household levels to protect themselves from COVID-19 from the first week of April 2020. Their initiatives could be categorized as follows:

Cleaning and wearing masks

People started to follow the safety rules that were circulated through various visual and social media. They washed their hands with soap and detergent and started using face masks whenever they went outside the home. Selling face masks suddenly became a new business in the slum. One respondent said,

‘I am a street hawker. I used to make different types of bags with different materials like modified leather, polythene, and white paper, and sell them on the streets. When the government imposed the lockdown, I observed a huge demand for face masks in the slum. I immediately decided to change my business and started making face masks with simple clothes. It costs BDT 10 to make a mask and I sold it at BDT 20–25.’

Home remedies

Most respondents stated that drinking several cups of tea with ginger and hot water became a norm in the slum during the pandemic, believing that it would kill the virus. One school-going boy stated, ‘During the pandemic, I suffered from a cold; thinking that this would prevent COVID-19, my mother forcefully made me drink ginger and lemon tea daily until I fully recovered.’

Thankuni pata ( Centella asiatica ), a herbal leaf, which was believed to prevent COVID-19, became popular at the beginning of the lockdown. Most of the respondents mentioned that there was a huge demand for this herb during the lockdown. People started collecting and buying it from different parts of the city at high rates.

Homoeopathic medicine

People believed that homoeopathic medicines had a special power in preventing COVID-19. A certain medicine called ‘Arsenica Album 30’ became popular. The homoeopathic drug sellers mentioned that the sale of this medicine had increased unusually. This medicine was massively distributed throughout the slum at a later stage, which will be explained shortly.

Allopathic medicine

In addition to home remedies and homoeopathic medicine, people in the slum also took various allopathic medicines to protect themselves from the Coronavirus. Respondents said they got the idea from social media and local pharmacies that certain allopathic medicines could prevent the disease. Among those were a few analgesics and antibiotics. Many pharmacy owners informed that their medicine sales increased unexpectedly during the pandemic. Many house owners, on their own initiative, collected these medicines and distributed them among their tenants. It is because any tenant having the virus would spread the disease among other tenants as well as the owners, risking the loss of rental business.

Spiritual measures

Several respondents said they had conducted various religious and spiritual activities to receive blessings from Allah to survive during the pandemic. People performed religious activities—reciting the Quran and fasting, for example—more than before. One respondent said, ‘My father never performed fasting, but this time he performed it due to the pandemic.’ In the slum, there are a good number of followers of Dewanbagi , a particular spiritual leader or pir. During the pandemic, as per the instruction of Dewanbagi, his followers performed muraqabah (Sufi meditation) to get rid of the Coronavirus.

Third phase: Initiation of community interventions

Although there was a leadership crisis in the slum at the beginning of the pandemic, the local leaders took the first community initiative from the second week of April 2020.

Korail slum consists of two wards of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), ward number 19 and 20. The ward councillors are powerful leaders, linked with the ruling party, who have a strong hold on the slum. The greater part of the slum is located under ward 20, thus the councillor of this ward is considered the most powerful leader in the slum. He lives outside the slum but maintains his power through his nominated informal leaders. The slum is also divided into different units and each unit has a separate sub-committee comprised of and led by slum dwellers. These unit-level informal leaders are monitored and supervised by the ward councillors.

There are also two unnayan (development) committees in the slum, one in Jamaibazar and the other in Bowbazar. These are voluntary committees authorized by the Social Welfare Department of the government. In addition, there are also various informal social and religious committees in the slum, like the bazar (market) committee, masjid (mosque) committee, school committee, and NGO-led voluntary committees. These committees are composed of people from different sociopolitical backgrounds of the slum; most are operated and maintained by the local leaders who have some form of connection with the ruling party. Most of these leaders also run different businesses in the slum, for example, renting houses, supplying water, and providing illegal gas services.

The initial initiatives were taken by the informal leaders of the slum. In early April, they had informal consultation among themselves and concluded that they had to act. One informal slum leader said,

‘I stayed inside my home for the first few days of the lockdown as I was afraid of COVID-19, and this was the common pattern of slum life. After some time, I thought to myself that things cannot continue like this. I started to contact other slum leaders of different blocks over the phone and decided to work from our own position to save the slum. As a part of this, we formed different volunteer groups.’

They mobilized volunteering teams of community members, especially the youth, who were eager to do something to save the slum from the pandemic. As a first step, they organized a mission for cleaning the slum; they started to clean all the alleys of the slum with detergent water. After a week or so, the ward commissioner got involved; he had meetings with the informal slum leaders and came up with a more structured approach to pandemic prevention activities in the slum. He formed a volunteering committee for central disaster and pandemic management and divided the slum into thirteen blocks.

The blocks had their own committees, each consisting of five members from the previous informal volunteering teams—people from the slum who are socially, religiously, and politically influential. Each five-member committee subsequently appointed a team of thirty volunteers from the respective block. The team consisted of youths, members of the slum development committee, and a few NGO workers working in the slum. Essentially, any work that was done to tackle the pandemic was operated by the block-level committees.

There were also some groups led by enthusiastic students. Later, various external agencies also initiated different interventions in the slum. However, they did it mainly through the slum dwellers and local informal leaders.

Following are some of the interventions taken by these committees and groups at this stage:

Cleaning the slum

Under the supervision of the block-level committees, led by the informal community leaders, young volunteers, using buckets, began cleaning the slum with bleaching powder and other disinfectants. The community financially contributed to creating a fund for buying bleaching powder. Later they received spray machines and personal protective equipment (PPEs) from external agencies. In this regard, one respondent said,

‘At the beginning of the lockdown, we initiated a slum-cleaning operation and sprayed every corner of the slum with bleaching powder in a way that there were streams of powder on the lane [alley], and all the lanes were so clean that you could sit and have your meal there.’

To save their homes, a group of house owners created a common fund and sprayed insecticide on surfaces that could be touched near their homestead. Many house owners provided soap, with their own initiative, to their tenants for using in the toilet. Some local youth created a charity organization named Manobotar Jonno Amra—We are for the People—through which they played an important role in the cleaning mission of the slum. They raised a considerable amount of funds through Facebook to buy cleaning materials.

Restricting mobility

The central Coronavirus prevention committee closed the four main gates of the Korail slum with barricades made of bamboo and wooden benches. They monitored the entry and exit of the slum. The young volunteers played a role in controlling the mobility. Inter-block movement was also restricted. One peer researcher’s diary entry describes, ‘I went to take a book from my friend who lives in a nearby block, but I couldn’t go there. There were a few people with sticks in hand in front of the gate, who scared me and thus I returned home.’

Many house owners wrote their phone numbers on the door to reduce physical contact and encourage people to contact over the phone.

Except for the pharmacies, all other shops were open only for a limited time. Volunteers also delivered safety messages by hand mikes.

Controlling public gatherings

To reduce public gatherings, different actions were initiated. Although tea stalls were open for a limited time, the community volunteers, in coordination with the local leaders, ensured that the shop owners removed the televisions from the shops to avoid social gatherings. They also ensured that no table, chair, or bench remained around the shop that would allow the customer to sit and spend time. A female tea seller stated, ‘Two or three weeks into the lockdown, I opened my tea shop without television and benches and started selling tea in disposable cups, which became quite popular.’

The young volunteers also shopped for community members, especially for the elderly people, so that they could stay at home.

Handwashing stations

A slum leader, who had a decoration business, installed four handwashing stations with soap in different corners of the slum. He said,

‘Local ward councillors with whom I have close relations told me to do something for the slum dwellers, for which people would remember me for a long time. Inspired by his words, instead of giving cash, I decided to install sinks at different points of the slum so that people could use them to wash their hands easily.’

In addition to these four handwashing stations, the NGO Dustha Shasthya Kendra (DSK)—Help Centre for the Poor—and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) installed seven and forty-two handwashing stations, respectively, in different parts of the slum. According to slum dwellers, there were enough handwashing devices in the slum for washing hands easily; even children used to wash their hands as a form of playing.

Donation of food and cash

Relief activities, distribution of both food and non-food items as well as cash, by multiple government institutions and NGOs started mainly from mid-April and continued till June 2020. Initially, the slum residents used their social, political, and personal connections and social media to get relief from different agencies. One local leader explained how he mobilized government resources and even managed to speak to the prime minister (PM). He narrated,

‘I posted a message on Facebook, mentioning that the slum people were out of work for several weeks, and they desperately needed food. Noticing the message, the local MP [Member of Parliament] called me over the phone and promised to give us 200 tons of rice, which he did, but it was not enough for the entire slum. After a few days, I contacted Sayma Wazed Putul, the daughter of the PM, for helping the slum dwellers. I got to know her through working on a project she carried out. On that night, I was astonished to get a phone call from our PM. I was overwhelmed because I never expected that the PM would call me. During the conversation, she assured me that she would help us and told me to visit the relief and disaster management unit of the government located at Mohakhali. We visited the office, and within a few days, we got a large amount of rice [2,000 tons].’

Although that relief was helpful for the slum dwellers, there was no ongoing relief from the government. From mid-April 2020, some other organizations/stakeholders, including a few NGOs, provided cash and food support. Several other individual and group donations, in cash and kind, were made as well, managed and distributed by local volunteer groups.

Poster and banner display

Different posters and banners were found in the public spaces in the Korail slum for mass awareness-raising on COVID-19. These materials were provided by various NGOs, as well as different ministries/departments of the government. These posters/banners included different text-based and pictorial messages to reach different types of people of the slum.

Mass distribution of ‘Arsenica Album 30’

Mentioned earlier, a homoeopathic medicine called ‘Arsenica Album 30’ became popular in the slum during the pandemic for its perceived capacity to prevent the Coronavirus. At one point, the ward councillors took an initiative for a mass distribution of this medicine. Around 60,000 bottles of Arsenica Album 30 were distributed in the Korail slum. This was done in coordination with Khukumoni Foundation, an NGO working for the development of disadvantaged children and youth in Bangladesh.

Police patrolling

Respondents mentioned that police patrolling in Korail increased during the lockdown period. The police monitored whether people were adhering to the health and safety measures advised by the government. However, it is worth mentioning that the police were found more active during the early days of the lockdown but reduced their activity when the members of the police were being increasingly infected across the country.

Help with cleaning and personal protection materials

Personal protection and hygiene materials were provided to the slum dwellers by many local and international organizations. The materials included soap, detergent powder, face masks, and hand sanitizers. The respondents informed that every household in the slum got these materials and many of them had more than what they needed. One respondent said , ‘ People in the slum have got so much soap that they do not have to buy it for the next five/six months. And, if you go and check, you will also find at least ten to fifteen face masks in every household.’

Phase four: coronavirus testing in the slum

In May 2020, three campaigns for mass testing of COVID-19 took place in Korail. The first testing campaign was held jointly by the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), an internationally reputed research organization. The prevalence of COVID-19 in the slums was found to be 5.7 percent compared to 9.8 percent in Dhaka city. The study also found that eighty-two percent of the positive cases were asymptomatic ( icddr, b, 2020 ). However, the results were not shared with the community formally. The respondents told us that some of the families were informed by the testing team members informally about a member being tested positive. The second testing campaign was held by the medical team of the Bangladesh Armed Forces. Results of these tests were neither published nor conveyed formally or informally to the community.

We acknowledge that failure to inform a person about their test results is ethically not acceptable. However, this issue was beyond the area of control of the research team.

People who were notified of being positive from the first test, conducted by the icddr, b, showed neither any symptoms nor received any formal reports. On the other hand, since the testing authority of the Bangladesh Army did not take any initiative like isolation or quarantining in the slum, people at that point started to believe that they did not have any COVID-19 patients in the slum and they should resume their normal life. One respondent said, ‘If anyone was tested positive, the Army would definitely take some initiatives to isolate/quarantine that patient, but they did not do anything like that.’ It is, however, worth noting that we did not find any case of death due to COVID-19 during fieldwork.

The third round of testing initiative was taken by a private organization called Jobeda Khatun General (JKG) Healthcare. However, after the testing done by the icddr, b and the Army, the slum dwellers thought that they had enough and were not interested in any further COVID-19 testing. Intriguingly, the slum leaders observed that people from different neighbouring areas were coming to the booth for testing. This was a concern for the leaders, as they thought if someone tested positive in this booth, they would be assumed to be from the slum even when they were not. This would not only be a problem for the image of the slum but also interrupt their businesses. Finally, and most importantly, the JKG tests turned out to be a scam; they were found to be supplying false test results during the peak of the pandemic, and the head of this organization was arrested. Eventually, the local slum leaders were able to exert enough pressure to close the JKG testing booths.

Phase five: changing narratives of COVID-19 in the slum

The COVID-19 testing was a crucial turning point in the narrative about the pandemic in the slum. Very low incidence of infection, as identified in the tests, created a ground for an alternative narrative around the belief that there is no Coronavirus in Korail. The slum dwellers were already struggling with the dichotomy of life and livelihood and were desperate to start their normal life. When they saw that none of the community members they knew was Coronavirus positive, even after so much testing, it gave them a ‘scientific’ and moral legitimacy to get back to a normal life, defying government directives. Furthermore, the slum leaders took advantage of the test results and invited everyone to continue their normal business and not to leave the slum. From July 2020 onwards, Korail had a new narrative that it was immune to COVID-19. This is the time when people from the slum completely came out of the panic and fear and resumed their normal activities. When we visited the slum in August, Coronavirus was hardly a concern to them. They also rationalized their decision in several ways, as discussed at the beginning of the findings.

This is the phase when we did our fieldwork in Korail and came across a narrative which is quite different than it was at the beginning. As one of our respondents (a rickshaw puller) said, ‘We eat morsels of rice and wipe hands with our lungi [a traditional lower garment worn by men] as we rush back to work. We have no time to take Coronavirus into account.’

It was assumed that due to the precarious living conditions and precarity of livelihoods, slums will be severely affected by the pandemic in terms of Coronavirus cases and mortality. The media also portrayed slum dwellers as potential sources and transmitters of the disease, not only for the inhabitants of the slums but also for the entire city because of their ignorance and non-compliance to the health directives and indifference to the pandemic.

In reality, very few cases of COVID-19 were reported from the slum of Dhaka. As mentioned in the introduction, there may be various epidemiological and contextual explanations for this, which need further explanation; the focus of our study, however, is mainly to unpack the narratives of COVID-19 from the perspectives of Korail slum dwellers, against the media narrative of slum dwellers being ignorant and non-compliant to the health directives and indifferent to the pandemic. Our study reveals that contrary to the stereotypical notion about slum dwellers, in the context of indifference from the state and non-state actors, they themselves initiated several robust medical and non-medical measures to tackle the disease, mainly at the personal and household levels initially and later in the community.

A couple of weeks after the initial shock, the local government got involved in activities already started by the inhabitants to control the pandemic. In collaboration with the informal leaders of the slum and the community people, the local government took various organized and systematic interventions at the community level. The involvement of the slum leaders was also motivated by their own interest in running the rental business in the slum as well as maintaining power and influence within the community. Gradually, partial support from the government, NGOs, and other external agencies in the form of relief also began. They provided support remotely and it was the slum dwellers themselves who had the main control over the intervention efforts and the volunteers managed the distribution of the external reliefs.

At one point, the narrative of panic and concern about COVID-19 turned into a narrative of denial and unimportance, as a number of official COVID-19 testing in the slum did not find any upsetting results. The community developed a sense of immunity against the disease. It also coincided with the stage when they were desperate to resume their livelihood. It gave them the confidence to ignore all protective measures of COVID-19.

The leaders of Korail, with their private economic interest primarily tied to the rental business, also had a vested interest in creating a positive narrative of Korail. Rahman et al. (2020 ) found a growing trend of people moving out of urban slums to their villages between March and July; the inflexibility of rent expense in the context of a massive decline of overall income seemed to be the main push factor behind this trend. Given the importance of rental business for the local leaders, their active role in organizing the governance from below during this crisis is understandable.

It is clear that both local leaders and the dwellers of Korail followed the narrative of acceptance of COVID-19 and dealt with it according to their understanding of the reality. Lora-Wainwright’s (2017 ) idea of ‘resigned activism’ may be relevant here; she observes the daily grind of living with industrial pollution in rural China and the varying forms of activism that develop in response, which she terms as ‘resigned activism.’ The author found that due to various complex, localized social, and political realities, the villagers, feeling powerless, often came to accept pollution as part of the environment; their activism is tempered by their resignation.

However, whether COVID-19 in the slum is an ‘epidemiological paradox’ or not, whether the interventions taken by the slum dwellers made any impact on COVID-19 is beyond the scope and interest of this study. What this study confirms is that slum dwellers are anything but ignorant, indifferent, or passive victims of the pandemic, as portrayed by the media. The study proves their agency, resistance, and activism.

Authors who have studied COVID-19 situations in other global informal settlement contexts, particularly in Africa and South Asia, discussed the poor preparedness to manage the pandemic and offered suggestions to minimize the risk of the virus through various external interventions ( Corburn et al. , 2020 ). In Dharavi, the largest slum in India, the infection rate was dramatically controlled through various formalized and visible responses by the local government of Mumbai ( Altstedter and Pandya, 2020 ).

The story of Korail, however, is different—as the responses have been mainly informal, local, and adaptive—an interesting case study of collective agency and community governance from below. It also reinforces the power of community governance, which can be defined as community-level management and decision-making that is undertaken with or on behalf of a community, by a group of community stakeholders ( Totikidis et al. , 2005 ). Sullivan (2001 ) also defined community governance as a bottom-up approach of local governance that focuses on the participation of community members, local leadership, and collaboration with community-based organizations in addressing local problems and improving the quality of public service. The focus on ‘community,’ rather than a corporation, organization, local government, or the public sector, is the distinguishing feature of community governance vis-à-vis the other forms of governance. Authors have discussed the value of community governance in relation to problems that cannot be handled either by individuals acting alone or by markets and governments ( Bowles and Gintis, 2002 ).

We can understand these community initiatives by the urban poor as what Bayat (2013 ) calls ‘quiet encroachment’ or ‘non-movement.’ He argues, the urban grassroots are diverse in terms of income, status, occupation, and production relations; nevertheless, they share a common place of residence—community. Shared space and the needs associated with common property offer these people the possibility of ‘spatial solidarity’ ( Bayat, 2013 , p. 39). Bayat argues, in general, non-movement refers to the collective actions of non-collective actors; they embody shared practices of large numbers of ordinary people whose fragmented but similar activities trigger larger social change, even though these practices are rarely guided by an ideology or recognizable leaderships and organizations. Bayat (2013 , p. 51) maintains, ‘The industrial states are by far better equipped with ideological, technological, and institutional apparatus to conduct surveillance of the population. In other words, people have more autonomy under the vulnerable and “soft states” of the Global South than the advanced industrial countries, especially at the time of crisis.’

Roy’s (2009 , pp. 76–87) argument is also pertinent in this regard. While examining the urban planning in India, she argues that it is not simply the state’s absence that fosters a tenacious informal sector, but the state’s presence also. She explains,

‘The state itself is a deeply informalized entity. While it has been often assumed that the modern state governs … through technologies of visibility … I argue that regimes of urban governance also operate through an “unmapping” of cities … forms of deregulation and unmapping, that is, informality, allow the state considerable territorialized flexibility to alter land use ... the state itself is a deeply informalized entity.’

Through the emic narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic from the residents of an urban informal settlement in Bangladesh, this study reveals this neglect and inequity in a crisis situation. It also encourages us to think about the relevance of governance from below through informality and community participation. We believe that such ethnographic insights can help design more grounded and contextualized responses to such a crisis. We argue that in complex governance, political, and institutional urban slum settings, integrating the understanding of informality in designing crisis response can be promising.

Dr. Shahaduz Zaman is a professor in Medical Anthropology and Global Health at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK. He has led various multi country and multidisciplinary research projects on diverse global health topics in South Asia, Africa and Eastern Mediterranean Countries.

Faruk Hossain is an anthropologist and currently a Senior Research Associate at BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, (BIGD) , BRAC University, Bangladesh. He has been conducting anthropological studies on various development topics in Bangladesh.

Dr. Imran Matin is a Development Economists, currently the Executive Director of BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, (BIGD), BRAC University, Bangladesh. He played a leading role in number of international development organizations including Save the Children, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). He has been involved in major research studies on microfinance, extreme poverty and social protection.

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Research Article

Willingness to help climate migrants: A survey experiment in the Korail slum of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Political Science, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

• Rachel Castellano, 
• Nives Dolšak, 
• Aseem Prakash

• Published: April 22, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Bangladesh faces a severe rural to urban migration challenge, which is accentuated by climate change and the Rohingya crisis. These migrants often reside in urban slums and struggle to access public services, which are already short in supply for existing slum dwellers. Given the inadequacy of governmental efforts, nonprofits have assumed responsibility for providing essential services such as housing, healthcare, and education. Would local slum-dwellers in Dhaka be willing to support such nonprofits financially? We deploy an in-person survey experiment with three frames (generic migrants, climate migrants, and religiously persecuted Rohingya migrants) to assess Dhaka slum-dwellers’ willingness to support a humanitarian charity that provides healthcare services to migrants. Bangladesh is noted as a climate change hotspot and its government is vocal about the climate issue in international forums. While we expected this to translate into public support for climate migrants, we find respondents are 16% less likely to support climate migrants in relation to the generic migrants. However, consistent with the government’s hostility towards Rohingya, we find that respondents are 9% less likely to support a charity focused on helping Rohingya migrants. Our results are robust even when we examine subpopulations such as recent arrivals in Dhaka and those who have experienced floods (both of which could be expected to be more sympathetic to climate migrants), as well as those who regularly follow the news (and hence are well informed about the climate and the Rohingya crisis).

Citation: Castellano R, Dolšak N, Prakash A (2021) Willingness to help climate migrants: A survey experiment in the Korail slum of Dhaka, Bangladesh. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0249315. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315

Editor: Bernhard Reinsberg, University of Glasgow, UNITED KINGDOM

Received: November 12, 2020; Accepted: March 16, 2021; Published: April 22, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Castellano et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Relevant data has been uploaded to the Harvard Dataverse ( https://dataverse.harvard.edu ) with the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HTV3DT .

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Climate change is an important global policy issue. Increasingly, leading policymakers, business leaders, celebrities, and non-governmental organizations emphasize the need for quick and substantial efforts to tackle the crisis. While policy changes such as a transition from coal to renewables in electricity generation are critical, such profound changes will eventually require citizen cooperation as well. This holds for policies targeted at climate mitigation and climate adaptation. The former pertains to policies to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, while the latter pertains to policies that increase the resilience to or protect from the effect of climate change [ 1 , 2 ].

To what extent are citizens in a developing country willing to expend private resources to support an important climate adaptation policy, namely climate migration? Climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of extreme weather events. Because this is making some areas unfit for human habitation, individuals could adapt to climate change by migrating to a more hospitable area [ 3 ]. There is a rich literature examining support for climate mitigation policies such as carbon taxes and cap and trade, especially in developed countries [ 4 – 6 ]. This is among the first papers to examine public support for non-governmental organizations that work on climate adaptation by providing public services to climate migrants. We focus on Bangladesh, which is among the world’s most densely populated countries, and is often identified as a climate change hotspot [ 7 ]. It faces risks from rising sea-level, increased frequency of floods and droughts, and salt-water intrusion [ 8 ].

Theoretically, our paper speaks to the broader debate on citizen perceptions of salient global issues and how they form an opinion about actors, both governmental and non-governmental, that work domestically on these issues [ 9 ]. We offer several different perspectives on why respondents might or might not be willing to support an organization that supports migrants, such as empathy-driven giving and competition over scarce services. Thus, we do not have a theoretical position on which perspective will prevail and address this question empirically.

International treaties obligate domestic governments to translate them in domestic policies and enforce them. A government’s willingness to enforce international treaties as domestic policies depends, in part, on domestic support for these policies. However, citizens are unlikely to support policies that they view as an elite imposition because these policies do not address their concerns or sometimes militate against their core beliefs, as in the issue of gender equality [ 10 ] or same-sex marriage [ 11 ]. Governments fear high political costs when citizens believe that new policies clash against their interests and beliefs [ 12 ]. In some countries, international trade agreements are also viewed as elite impositions that enrich multinational corporations at the expense of workers [ 13 ]. Broadly, the populist rhetoric against globalization falls in this category. Climate change is an important global issue, but policies such as carbon taxes have invited populist backlash even in developed countries (such as the “yellow vest” protests [ 14 ] or the defeat of two carbon tax initiatives in the state of Washington [ 15 ]).

In addition to the concern about elite impositions, there is an emerging literature in development studies on “democracy recession.” In the last two decades, there has been a massive crackdown against NGOs worldwide. Governments have incentives to crack down on foreign aid when they perceive NGOs are working with their political opponents and when they perceive that NGOs do not have citizen support (therefore, the political costs of cracking down are low) [ 16 ]. Sometimes citizens believe, often abetted by autocratic governments that control the media, that NGOs work for western agendas instead of local concerns. Scholars term this as the NGOization of civil society [ 17 ]. The literature noted that as foreign donors route aid through NGOs as opposed to local governments, NGOs became visible in public service delivery–sometimes even more than the local government [ 18 ]. For example, NGOs flooded Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Not surprisingly, Haiti has subsequently acquired the label of the “Republic of NGOs”. Competition among NGOs for funding meant that NGOs were perceived as working on agendas dictated by their donors [ 19 ]. Thus, citizens sometimes become wary of even local humanitarian NGOs, especially when they work on “global” agendas.

The extent to which support in developing countries for climate action measures up with international concern is unclear, especially if it involves citizens incurring private costs. Moreover, while the threats of the climate crisis are visible, most developing countries do not have the resources to address the climate challenge. Given the level of poverty and other pressing needs, it is unclear whether citizens in developing countries view climate change as their top policy priority. If citizens perceive climate change as an elite “western” issue, their lack of support could spill over to even non-governmental climate action. In the context of Bangladesh, this paper examines citizen support (in terms of willingness to incur private costs) for a charitable organization that serves climate migrants.

Climate migration is a form of ex situ adaptation [ 20 ]. Riguad et al. estimate that by 2050, the number of climate migrants in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia alone will reach 143 million, and that environmental migration in Bangladesh will outpace other internal migrations. Under the pessimistic reference scenario, they predict that 13.3 million people will become climate migrants by 2050 [ 21 ]. The National Geographic declared that while Bangladesh is “already grappling with the Rohingya crisis, it now faces a devastating migration problem as hundreds of thousands face an impossible choice between battered coastlines and urban slums” [ 22 ]. Scholars expect large-scale migration from Bangladesh’s coastal areas to its capital city Dhaka [ 23 ]. This poses a policy challenge because Dhaka is already overcrowded, with a population of 18 million that is expected to increase to about 50 million by 2050. Dhaka is the most densely populated city in the world [ 24 ], and the living conditions in Dhaka slums are getting worse as about 2,000 people move to Dhaka every day [ 22 , 24 ].

New migrants require substantial private assistance, given the government’s widespread failure to provide basic public services [ 25 ]. Family networks certainly help but given the widespread poverty, this help is often inadequate. Consequently, local charities have stepped in [ 26 ], often mobilizing substantial funds from the local community. We assess individuals’ willingness to contribute to a (fictitious) charity, Bengal Humanitarian Organization, that provides healthcare to migrants. We expect a higher level of support for a charity that serves climate migrants (in relation to generic migrants) given the global advocacy of the climate problem by the Bangladesh government. The local media also reports high levels of concerns in international forums about climate issues. If local residents take cues from the global discourse, we should expect to see higher support levels for climate migrants.

In contrast to climate migrants, we expect a lower level of support (in relation to generic migrants) for a charity that serves Rohingyas, refugees from neighboring Myanmar. While there is widespread global sympathy for Rohingya refugees, the Bangladesh government treats them harshly, and the local media portrays them negatively, often blaming them for rising local crimes. In international forums, Bangladesh demands quick repatriation of the migrants to Myanmar. As we explain further in our Methodology section, we choose to use the term ‘religiously persecuted migrants’ in our survey experiment to elicit responses about the Rohingya because of the emotional saliency the term Rohingya carries in Bangladesh.

Our findings are mixed. As per our expectations, we find lower support (9% lower than the reference group) for a charity that serves Rohingyas. Much to our surprise, we find a lower willingness (16% lower than the reference group) to support climate migrants as well. Our results are robust even when we examine subpopulations such as recent arrivals in Dhaka and those who have experienced floods (both of which could be expected to be more sympathetic to climate migrants), as well as those who regularly follow the news (and hence are well informed about the climate crisis).

Migration and climate change

An alarming increase in climate-related natural disasters is leading to population dislocation. Consequently, policymakers increasingly recognize the emerging challenge of climate migration. While developed countries are responsible for the bulk of accumulated emissions driving climate change, developing countries, particularly in the global south, are disproportionately affected by climate change and are already experiencing large-scale climate migration [ 27 – 29 ]. The majority of climate-induced displacement is typically internal to the migrant’s home country, though cross border climate migration is also expected to increase [ 30 ].

A key debate around climate migration with important theoretical and political implications is about who counts as a climate migrant. Biermann and Boas [ 31 ] argue against subsuming ‘climate refugee’ under the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Instead, they advocate for a new international framework dedicated to the specific needs of climate refugees. Betts [ 32 ] argues for creating a category of ‘survival migrants’, defined as those who move outside their country of origin for threats to which there is no domestic remedy. Drawing on the experiences of climate-induced displacement in the Pacific Island of Tuvalu, some scholars reject the image and discourse of climate refugees [ 33 , 34 ] because it is politically charged.

We also recognize that the term “climate migrant” is problematic since it could emphasize the “pull” of the destination more than the “push” of the source region as the driver of human movement. In addition to the negative connotations, this could also reduce the implied responsibility of the international community for their welfare. Indeed, The International Organization for Migration encourages the use of the term ‘environmental migrant’ defined as:

“A person or group(s) of persons who, predominantly for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are forced to leave their places of habitual residence, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move within or outside their country of origin or habitual residence [ 35 ].” Due to our focus on climate change, and the contested nature of the climate refugee label, we use the term climate change migrant in this study, while recognizing its limitations.

Bangladesh is identified among the first countries to face the consequences of climate change, including migration [ 30 , 36 , 37 ], and ND-GAIN Country Index ranks Bangladesh as the 20 th most vulnerable to climate change among 181 ranked countries [ 38 ]. About 40% of Bangladesh’s land area and 46% of its population are located in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone areas that are between 1 to 20 meters above sea level [ 39 ]. In fact, as per Raigud et al., a one-meter rise in sea level is estimated to result in a loss of more than 4,800 square kilometers of land area [ 21 ]. Because the Bangladesh government faces resource problems in constructing the “hard” adaptation infrastructure, such as seawalls, migration could be viewed as an individual-level climate adaptation strategy [ 40 – 42 ]. Hassani-Mahmooei and Parris [ 37 ] predict changes in migration from the west, which is drought-prone, and the south, which is vulnerable to cyclones and floods, towards the northern and eastern regions. Their model predicts between 3 and 10 million internal migrants over the next 40 years in Bangladesh.

Historically, there is a steady stream of rural migrants relocating to cities in search of livelihood [ 43 , 44 ], particularly in Dhaka. Climate migration is a continuation of an existing trend of rural-urban population movement. Newly arrived migrants require basic public services such as healthcare. However, governmental resources are already stretched thin with existing obligations. As scholars have noted, nonprofits often emerge to correct governmental failures in public service delivery [ 45 ]. While nonprofits secure funds from various sources, local nonprofits often rely on local funding. In this Tocquevilian [ 46 ] model of local level voluntary action, nonprofits raise resources from the communities they serve. Further, recent work suggests that climate migrants might be perceived differently from other migrants. In the context of Germany, Helbling (2020) reports that German respondents are more supportive of climate change migrants, in relation to economic migrants [ 47 ]. Hence, we examine whether Dhaka’s slum dwellers are willing to contribute to healthcare services for climate migrants who have joined their community.

Poverty is not always a barrier to philanthropy. As a percentage of income, the poor donate more to charities than the rich [ 48 , 49 ]. In the United States, those in the top 20 percent of incomes contribute, on average, 1.3 percent of their income to charity while the bottom 20 percent donated 3.2 percent of their income [ 50 ]. The reason may be that empathy often drives charitable giving [ 51 ].

However, migrant reception by local communities is complex. Weber and Peek [ 52 ] report that while there was a general warm and compassionate reception of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, community leaders expressed concern that evacuees were moving ahead of local people in need of public assistance on lengthy waitlists. Ishtiaque and Mahmus [ 53 ] find that rural-urban migrants primarily move to Dhaka to access the informal economy, find a job, or earn money, and 70% of respondents believed that their migration objectives had been fulfilled. This inevitably results in increased competition for resources, particularly in areas that already face resource scarcities. Dhaka slums are overcrowded and lack adequate public services, such as housing and health [ 25 ]. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on the reception of different types of migrants among communities that are already experiencing economic struggles.

Bangladesh was the first South Asian country to formulate a Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. In 2011, climate protection was given a stronger legal status by an amendment to the constitution, although its impact on domestic policy remains unclear. In recognition of Bangladesh’s climate leadership, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was awarded the 2015 United Nations Champions of the Earth award. Given the extensive focus on climate change in media and the strong advocacy by the Bangladesh government in global forums, we hypothesize:

• H1: Survey respondents will be more willing to support climate migrants in relation to generic migrants.

We also test for public support in the context of another migration crisis that Bangladesh is facing: Rohingya who have fled neighboring Myanmar due to religious persecution. This issue has gained considerable international attention. Myanmar leader and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi appeared before the International Court of Justice in The Hague to defend her country against the charge of genocide. However, the regional politics of the issue are complex. Although Rohingyas share the Islamic faith with most Bangladeshis, Rohingya have not been well received in Bangladesh. Ullah [ 54 ] highlights the systematic brutality towards the Rohingya population, which spans decades in Myanmar and Bangladesh. For the domestic audience, the Bangladesh government often portrays Rohingyas negatively, highlighting their criminality and illegality. The government seeks to confine them in camps, located around the Cox Bazaar area. It is very keen to repatriate them back to Myanmar; indeed, recently, it even cut off mobile phone connections to these camps [ 55 ]. In addition to the law and order issue, citizens fear that Rohingya refugees’ cheap labor depresses wages in the local job market [ 56 ]. The government is also starting to implement its plan on relocating Rohingya to an island called Bhashan Char, off the southern coast of Bangladesh. This is an incredibly controversial decision because of its vulnerability to cyclones [ 57 ]. Because of these negative narratives about Rohingyas, we hypothesize:

• H2: Respondents will be less willing to support Rohingyas in relation to generic migrants.

Methodology

We focus on the charitable giving of slum dwellers, who constitute the majority of the Bangladeshi population and compete with new migrants for valuable public and private resources. Hence, their willingness to donate to healthcare services for new migrants sets a high bar for us to assess the level of domestic support for climate issues. After receiving permission from the University of Washington’s Human Subject Division (IRB ID: STUDY00009013), we interviewed (over Skype) several well-established survey firms in Bangladesh. We hired Sustainability Services Limited, located in Dhaka, and compensated them for administering the survey. We informed them about the ethics guidelines, including respect for the local law as well as the issue of prior, informed consent. Consequently, all respondents were adults (18+) and their verbal consent was taken before administering the survey. The payment to this firm was facilitated through University of Washington.

With the survey firm, we discussed in length about the sampling strategy and survey methodology (including sending women surveyors to interview female respondents, given the traditional nature of the Bangladesh society). We also consulted the survey firm to ensure that the survey (see S1 Appendix ) in the Bengali language was both culturally appropriate and informative. For example, we had an extensive discussion on the appropriate name for the charity and what amount we should ask for in the question about donating. The firm managers also encouraged us to employ the phrase persecuted minority instead of Rohingyas in the survey instrument because the phrase Rohingya is extremely volatile in Bangladesh. Thus, while the persecuted minority clearly signals that we are asking about Rohingya, it will not unleash an emotional reaction from the respondent.

We recognize that Buddhists and Hindus could also be considered persecuted minorities in Bangladesh (although the prevalence of this persecution has decreased under the current Awami League regime) and we raised the issue with the survey firm in Bangladesh. We were advised that Hindus and Buddhist tend not to migrate to Dhaka but instead migrate to other places, like India. Furthermore, there are no media reports of large-scale violence against Hindus and Buddhists under the current Awami League regime. Indeed, this regime has cracked down on Islamic fundamentalist groups that worked with Pakistani Army during the Liberation war and were often in the forefront of fomenting violence against minorities. Thus, to guard against any confusion on the nature of religiously persecuted minorities, we chose the language in the treatment frame carefully: “religious violence is causing a large displacement of people.” Hence, we are confident that respondents interpret the term “persecuted minority” as referring to Rohingyas.

We first piloted the survey with about 200 participants to ensure that our questions were clearly understood. Then, the survey firm conducted a 1,800 in-person survey of individuals, exposing them to three different frames describing a fictitious charity’s work. Our firm administered the survey in the Korail slum in Dhaka. The survey team collected data from almost the entire Korail slum. They started with identifying five blocks based on the scoping study. The entire slum was then grouped into 20 clusters based on these blocks. Employing a single-stage cluster sampling considering gender, religion and occupations, the team interviewed 100 respondents in each cluster. When respondents did not give their consent to take part in the interview, the survey team moved to another respondent. Only one household member in each family was interviewed in this study.

Given that Dhaka has more than 3,300 slums, we recognize the issue of generalizability. These slums differ on many aspects, including the percentage of slum dwellers receiving medical services from NGOs (47% in Korail) and the composition of slum population in terms of areas/regions they come from. Based on our extensive discussion with the survey firm, we decided that given the heterogeneity among slums on different dimensions, Korail provided an appropriate survey site. However, we hope that our paper will motivate additional work in different sites to empirically assess the generalizability of our findings. Further, our regression analysis does control for some issues such as prior experience with extreme weather events, a dimension on which the composition of slum populations might differ.

Among the respondents, 97.3 percent identified at Muslim, 2.5 percent identified as Hindu, and 0.2 identified as Christian (see S6 Appendix for a table on demographics of survey participants). The national averages are 89.1 percent Muslim, 10 percent Hindu and 0.9 percent other (including Buddhist and Christian). We have a slightly higher representation of Muslims. This makes our estimates more conservative because Muslims could be expected to be more sympathetic to their co-religionists, Rohingyas, who are facing religious persecution in the neighboring country.

Our sample was equally split among men and women which approximates the national average. 46.7 percent were employed, 21.5 percent were homemakers, and 12.2 percent were unemployed but looking for work. The national unemployment rate is much lower at about 4.4 percent, further supporting the claim about the lack of economic opportunities in Dhaka slums [ 58 ].

The survey experiment follows a between-subjects design, where individuals were randomly assigned to one of the three groups (see Table 1 ). The groups were asked for their willingness to donate to a fictitious charity, Bengal Humanitarian Organization, which provides healthcare to migrants. Depending on the group, respondents were told that the Bengal Humanitarian Organization provides healthcare to migrants generally, climate migrants, or religiously persecuted migrants.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.t001

Migrants have different characteristics. The vast literature on migration studies has examined public support when specific characteristics of the emigrant such as religion, gender, skill level, etc. are highlighted. We contribute to this literature by focusing attention to a specific characteristic that the literature has overlooked: climate change as a migration driver. Thus, the generic frame does not highlight any migration driver unlike the two treatment frames. Consequently, this research design allows us to assess the change in public support when one specific migrant characteristic (migration driver: climate change or religious persecution) is highlighted in the two treatment frames while all other information remains the same as the generic frame. This is also why we do not have any open-ended questions to investigate what types of migrants the respondents had in mind after reading the generic frame because we are not examining how respondents perceive generic migrants. Rather, we want to see how support for migrants might shift (in relation to the generic migrant) when one specific migration driver is highlighted.

To further elaborate, the generic migrant frame in our survey experiment is intended to capture migrants who move because of any reason including economic and/or educational opportunities. Thus, in the generic frame, the driver of the migration is not identified. In contrast, in the treatment frame, the migration driver is identified. While there is potential overlap between the generic frame and the other two frames, the objective of the generic category is to provide a benchmark (or reference category) to assess if the willingness to support the charity changes when a specific migration driver is identified in the treatment frames. Thus, in our survey experiment, frames are identical, except for one factor—the information about the migration driver. Therefore, they are not mutually exclusive. If the migration driver does matter (because it generates empathy or fear) in generating public support, then it has important policy implications.

Surveyors read a brief summary of the charity to respondents before asking them if they would be willing to donate 100 takas (the local currency) to the Bengal Humanitarian Organization. As per Mahumud et al. [ 59 ], on average, Bangladeshi households spend $1.4 per month on medicines, which amount to about 120 takas. Based on the advice of the survey company, we rounded it off to 100 takas.

To ensure that respondents understood (and were attentive to) the questions, we then asked them a set of comprehension questions. We limit this analysis to only those respondents (1,443 of the 1,800) who correctly answered all the three comprehension questions. Of the individuals who were excluded, 118 were in the generic group, 161 received the climate treatment, and 77 received the Rohingya treatment (our results hold when we examine the full sample, as shown in in Fig 2 ). Finally, the surveys asked questions about demographic information, media consumption, crime in Bangladesh, time spent in Dhaka, and experiences with floods.

Our dependent variable, willingness to donate, is a five-level scale (no, probably not, maybe, probably yes, and yes). We discussed this possibility of using some sort of a slider scale to ask respondents for their support for 100-taka donation on say 1–5 scale. Because this was an in-person survey (as opposed to an online one), the survey firm thought that the logistical issues will be difficult if we were to ask respondents to use the slider on the smartphone and might even be distracting. Hence, we decided to work with a 5-point Likert scale–which is consistent with most survey experiments in the climate policy field. In S2 Appendix , we also provide an OLS estimation where we treat the dependent variable as continuous as a robustness check. Our results about the lower support for both climate migrants and Rohingya (with the generic group as the reference category) remain unchanged.

Given the categorical and ordered nature of the dependent variable, we estimate ordered probit models using the full scale. We combine the predicted probabilities of donating (combining “probably yes” and “yes”, as well as “probably no” and “no”) in post-estimation simulations [ 60 , 61 ]. Following Dolšak et al., [ 62 ], we only combine the predicted probabilities of donating in post-estimation simulations in order to avoid losing precision in our results (as would occur if we collapsed the scale prior to estimation). Our ordered probit results are sample average treatment effects (SATEs), which average the expected percentage change of respondents offering support [ 62 ]. Because ordered probit coefficients are on a log-odds scale, they are more difficult to interpret then coefficients in a linear regression. Therefore, we run a simulation 10,000 times to obtain first differences between predicted values. This method requires the construction of alternative scenarios and is more useful for interpreting log-odds than trying to calculate odds or odds ratios [ 63 ].

Among all respondents, 75 percent answered “probably yes” or “yes” to whether they were willing to donate. For the remainder of this paper, we report the results for willingness to donate by combining the “probably yes” and “yes” categories. 86 percent of respondents in the generic group were willing to donate. However, 61 percent of respondents receiving the climate change migrant frame were willing to donate, while 77 percent of the respondents receiving the persecuted migrant frame were willing to donate. Despite the discrepancies between these numbers, it appears that survey respondents were very generous. Even though many live in poverty, a high percentage were willing to donate to a charity they had never heard of before. While these results are encouraging, it is possible that our results suffer from social desirability bias, one of the most common biases in survey research [ 64 ]. In this case, we suspect that social desirability bias manifests in the respondent’s desire to appear charitable. We hope that future research will test this bias by observing what individuals say they will give to migrants compared to what they will actually give.

Fig 1 shows the estimated average effect of both climate and Rohingya frames on our sample of respondents. Much to our astonishment, the data not only fail to support our hypothesis of higher support for climate migrants (H1) but instead indicate lower support. As the figure below shows, the probability of giving to the climate migrants is about 16 percent l ess than the probability of giving to the generic group. We speculate that this finding could reflect the disconnect between elite discourse and grassroots perceptions about the importance of climate migration. Further, respondents might view that because climate migration is a “western” issue, they might assume that migrants are probably receiving help from rich international actors. After all, the Bangladesh government is vocally asking for international assistance for climate change.

Note: This plot shows the change in the willingness to give for each frame. The generic frame is the baseline (0%). 95% confidence intervals also shown.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.g001

Alternatively, Bangladesh citizens might harbor some sort of skepticism about the anthropogenic nature of the climate crisis. For example, a survey conducted in Bangladesh reports that 52% of respondents (and 93% of Muslims in the study) believe that climate change is due to sinful activities and the wish of God [ 65 ]–which also implies that any help rendered to climate migrants goes against the wishes of God. While we do not have the data to arbitrate among different explanations for a decreased support for climate migrants in relation to generic migrants, our results are worrisome because grassroots perceptions are particularly important when mobilizing political action around climate change [ 66 ].

Another explanation for this surprising result could be the threat of economic competition. It is possible that our respondents might conceptualize climate migrants as permanent residents who will not be able to return home, while conceptualizing generic migrants as seasonal or temporary. Therefore, the opposition to climate migrants in relation to generic migrants could be because of the potential economic threats they pose to a community where resources are already scarce. Indeed, in their study of urban-rural migrants in India, Gaikwad and and Nellis [ 67 ] find that city residents belonging to the majority religious group (in the Indian case, Hindus) do not discriminate again rural-to-urban migrants based on religious profiles. Instead, they appear to care mainly about the economic impact of migration.

In line with our expectations, as Fig 1 shows, we find support for Hypothesis 2 that the Rohingya frame will elicit less support than the generic migrant frame. The probability of giving to Rohingyas is about 9 percent less than the probability of giving to a generic migrant. This is in line with our theory that the media and the Bangladesh government have perpetuated harmful narratives about these migrants, resulting in hostility among Bangladeshis.

The results for the sample average treatment and interaction effects discussed below and are provided in tabular form in S4 Appendix .

Our results hold when we include the full sample as respondents as well. As Fig 2 shows, both the Rohingya frame and the climate change frame elicit less support than the reference group (see S5 Appendix for interaction results in tabular form).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.g002

Sub population analysis

News consumption.

The news media might shape opinions about new migrants (see Question 15 in S1 Appendix ). Because the Rohingya are portrayed negatively while climate change is deemed a worthy issue, those with higher media exposure levels might show more support for climate migrants and less for Rohingyas. We do not find support for the conditioning effect of media consumption. The interaction between a respondent’s frame and their answers about media does not alter the basic results and is consistent across news sub-categories ( Fig 3 ). We suspect that this may be the case because if media is saturated with negative stories, then media might not have a conditioning effect on willingness to give.

Note: These points display the stimulated average effect of both treatments. For example, respondents who received the climate change migrant treatment are 11.7 percent less likely to donate if they had read the news in a newspaper and 16.4 less likely than the generic group to donate if they had not read the news in a newspaper. 95% confidence intervals are also included as horizontal lines.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.g003

Our findings raise a broader issue of how individuals access information on policy issues.

In this survey, we did not ask directly about how respondents learn about policy issues in general or about government’s positions on climate migrants. This is for two reasons. First, people typically get much of their policy information from different types of mass and social media. Of course, we do not know if this information is authoritative and if they comprehend this information. Indeed, we are not making any claim on how well informed or poorly informed individuals are about climate change, migration, or any national policies. We recognize that as boundedly rational actors, individuals develop opinions about issues based on incomplete information. Yet, no matter how incomplete or poorly informed individuals are, public opinion matters. And this is what we examine in the context for public support for a charity that provides health services to climate migrants and Rohingyas (in relation to generic migrants).

Because the media plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion, we asked questions about each respondent’s exposure to different types of mass media (Q15 of the survey) and analyzed if exposure to different mass media might influence respondent’s support for climate migrants or Rohingyas in relation to generic migrants. We have not subsumed all types of media into one category because some respondents might rely on newspapers to access policy information, while others might rely on radio. In addition, it is possible that some media might cover climate issues more extensively or effectively than others. For example, television might provide more content about challenges faced by climate migrants in relation to radio. Or, the television footage might create more empathy for climate migrants. If so, those with higher exposure to television might reveal higher support for the charity supporting climate migrants. Our model does control for factors such as prior experience with floods, which might make them more prone to access or pay attention to specific type of climate information. Finally, because this is a survey experiment in which respondents are randomly assigned to different frames, unobserved heterogeneity in respondents’ characteristics should not influence support for any frame.

When we rerun the analysis for each media type separately, our results do not change (i.e. support for climate migrants or Rohingyas in relation to the generic frame). This gives us additional confidence that the medium through which respondents might receive information is not changing the support for climate migrants in relation to generic migrants.

Experience with floods

Might respondents with similar life experiences be more supportive of climate migrants? The “linked-fate” theory [ 68 ] suggests that individuals tend to help fellow community members with whom they share life experiences. Because climate migrants of Bangladesh are often escaping rising sea level, the willingness to support climate migrants depends on whether respondents had experienced floods themselves (see Question 17 in S1 Appendix ). After all, those who have experienced a natural disaster might have more empathy [ 50 ] for those who have had to suffer it as well. Though we can expect respondents to appreciate the monsoon season for replenishing water supplies and help farmer, climate change is likely to accentuate the frequency and severity of even regularly occurring weather events such as the annual flooding. Here as well, as presented in Fig 4 , our results remain unchanged.

Note: These points display the estimated average effect of both treatments. For example, respondents who received the Rohingya treatment are 11.2 percent less likely to donate if they experienced floods in the last year and 9.6 percent less likely to donate if they did not experience floods in the last year. 95% confidence intervals are also included as horizontal lines.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.g004

Recent migrants

Finally, to further explore the empathy argument, we asked respondents how long they have lived in Dhaka because there might be a difference between those who had recently migrated to the city and those who have lived there for a longer time (15 years). Arguably, recent arrivals might also have stronger connections with their relatives in villages and, therefore, show a higher level of empathy for climate migrants because of the increase in environmental degradation in Bangladesh’s rural areas. However, similar to other interaction terms, respondents are still much less likely to support climate refugees (and Rohingyas) in relation to generic migrants ( Fig 5 ).

Note: These points display the estimated average effect of both treatments. For example, respondents who received the Rohingya treatment are 10.2 percent less likely to donate if they have lived in Dhaka for less than 15 years and 9.9 percent less likely to donate if they have lived in Dhaka for more than 15 years. 95% confidence intervals are also included as horizontal lines.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.g005

We expected that Bangladesh citizens will support NGOs providing humanitarian services to climate migrants. After all, Bangladesh is directly impacted by climate change. Hence, our survey findings are contrary to our theoretical expectations. There could be several reasons. First, we suggest that perhaps this is because citizens have already formed their opinion about climate change and NGOs working on this issue. Given the media publicity on climate issues and the constant refrain about its global implications, citizens may feel that it is an elite issue or that NGOs have foreign funding. Second, respondents might believe that because climate change is a global issue caused predominantly by developed countries, the developed North should bear the cost of helping climate migrants, as opposed to citizens of developing countries. Third, the lower rate of willingness to give among climate change migrants in relation to the generic migrants could be related to perceived economic threats about permanent versus temporary migrants. Because we do not specifically explore the reasons for distrust in NGOs, we hope future work will explore this issue in greater detail.

The subject of public support for climate migration (in relation to other types of migration) is relatively new in the climate policy literature (although as we point out in the paper, there is extensive literature on levels of climate migration and whether climate migrants should be recognized as refugees). We hope this paper will contribute to this growing field given an increased focus on climate migration, especially in the context of migration as a climate adaptation strategy.

Climate change has emerged as an important global public policy issue. However, it is not clear whether climate concerns are equally salient at the domestic level, especially in developing countries that struggle with the challenges of poverty and development. In addressing this question, this paper speaks to the broader issue of why domestic support for some international treaties tends to be spotty. Governments might sign treaties as a way of virtue signaling and ingratiate themselves with important global audiences that have championed these treaties [ 69 – 71 ] but they may not have the local support to implement it. This sort of implementation gap might reflect the fact that international norms are not cohering with local priorities and customs [ 9 , 72 ]. Worse still, some domestic audiences might view these norms as international and elitist fads that do not address pressing domestic concerns [ 73 ]. Indeed, the issue of disconnected elites that are pandering to global audiences figures prominently in the populist discourse [ 74 – 76 ]. While much work pertains to the lack of domestic support to governmental action in response to global policy commitments, this paper extends this argument to the sphere of local support for non-governmental action.

Our paper raises an important question about the lack of political attention to climate issues within developing countries, although many will face severe consequences. In the United States, Canada and Australia, a strong fossil fuel lobby has created a climate countermovement [ 77 ]. This sort of industry-inspired backlash to climate issues tends to be missing in many developing countries; although countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia have pushed back against policies to limit deforestation, they have not questioned the science of climate change. Climate change seems to suffer from policy neglect in domestic politics because public attention tends to be focused on either bread and butter issues such as jobs, or cultural issues that often lead to religious or ethnic mobilization. This is worrisome because climate policies and rapid decarbonization will require large-scale mobilization and citizen participation, which could be impeded if citizens view climate change as a “western” issue championed by (elite) individuals and organizations that often depend on foreign funding.

While the Bangladesh government is vocal on climate issues in global forums and has formulated many national-level policies, the salience of climate change in domestic politics remains unclear. Neither the Awami League (the ruling party) or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (the main opposition party) focuses on climate migrants’ issue. This is not limited to Bangladesh only. Its neighboring country India stakes out a climate leadership position in international forums. However, election manifestos of the two major political parties barely contained the mention of climate issues in the recent 2019 elections [ 78 ].

We hope our unexpected findings on lower-than-expected local support for climate migrants, even in a climate hotspot country, will spark new research to understand domestic support for climate adaptation. Bangladeshis are very generous despite the level of poverty in Bangladesh. As part of their religious faith, many Muslims regularly provide some sort of zakat or a religious contribution [ 79 ]. However, their support for both Rohingyas and climate migrants is below that for generic migrants. This should raise concerns about how Bangladesh will mobilize citizens to address the high level of population displacement that climate change is expected to cause.

This survey experiment has limitations, which highlight areas for further research. First, the high percentages of individuals willing to donate to the charity suggest that the results may suffer from social desirability bias [ 64 ]. A future project could compare how individuals say they will give and what they will actually give. Additionally, this study is specific to one slum in Dhaka. It would be worthwhile to examine whether survey results would differ based on geographic location and proximity to migrant populations. Third, our research design examines whether respondents are willing to donate100 takas. To further validate our study, future work could look at different “price points,” especially which are substantially higher than 100 Takas. The reason is that as the financial commitments of the donation increase, respondents might view their support for generic migrant as opposed to the climate migrant and Rohingyas differently.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. survey questionnaire..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.s001

S2 Appendix. OLS regression.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.s002

S3 Appendix. Balance table.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.s003

S4 Appendix. Ordered probit results.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.s004

S5 Appendix. Ordered probit results–full sample.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.s005

S6 Appendix. Demographic profile of survey participants.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249315.s006

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Development measures for slums of Dhaka city : case study area Korail slum

Sinthia, Sanjida Ahmad

Iraqi Journal of Architecture and Planning

Vol. 20, Issue 1 (30 Jun. 2021), pp.42-55, 14 p.

University of Technology Department of Architectural Engineering

Publication Date

Country of publication, no. of pages, main subjects.

Architecture Engineering

Abstract EN

-Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is extremely populated, unhygienic and environmentally degraded city.

The growing number of population and environmental degradation are due to natural disaster and economic depression that peoples incline to migrate from other cities to Dhaka for better living.

These are mostly resulted from the failures of the government in initiation of proper policies, measures in development.

So, investing resources in slum development projects should preferably be based on comprehensible indication of which specific intervention is more effective.

What impact do upgrading projects have on the welfare of the population and how can they be improved to meet the needs of the urban poor? This research will focus on specific indication of intervention and suggestion for the redevelopment of the urban poor in case of Dhaka city.

This is now prime time to established planning and environmental management policy and sustainable development of the city area.

Urban land management, rehabilitation and socio-economic development of the slum dwellers are also very important issues.

The key focus of this paper is to find out sustainable development process for urban slum dwellers and build sustainable living place for them which are free from eviction, criminals, rent seekers and other miscreants

American Psychological Association (APA)

Sinthia, Sanjida Ahmad. 2021. Development measures for slums of Dhaka city : case study area Korail slum. Iraqi Journal of Architecture and Planning، Vol. 20, no. 1, pp.42-55. https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1264760

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Sinthia, Sanjida Ahmad. Development measures for slums of Dhaka city : case study area Korail slum. Iraqi Journal of Architecture and Planning Vol. 20, no. 1 (Jun. 2021), pp.42-55. https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1264760

American Medical Association (AMA)

Sinthia, Sanjida Ahmad. Development measures for slums of Dhaka city : case study area Korail slum. Iraqi Journal of Architecture and Planning . 2021. Vol. 20, no. 1, pp.42-55. https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1264760

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SLUM DWELLERS IN DHAKA CITY-A STUDY IN KORAIL SLUM

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The Metropolitan University Journal Vol 3

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

Housing as a right has already passed the test of opinio juris, the ambition of the new century being this right to be seen fully implemented in practice. Housing is both a human right and a vital means of promoting peace and respect for human rights-'Home of human rights' in fact. This two track importance make the right to housing something more than a 'mere right'. In spite of its recognition in 'Fundamental Principle of State Policy', many a people are now inclined to call it the 'Fundamental Right' to Housing. This paper aims to provide some reflections on the glaring reality prevailing in Bangladesh in this regard. Extensive field work in Chittagong Metropolitan Area as well as academic inroad into the existing literature on housing rights finds out that the dream of 'Housing for All' is not so lofty a dream as it is usually professed in the policy making level. Recommendations follow the arguments addressing the issue on short, mid and long-term basis.

Nusrat Rezwana Tithi

In the last two decades, dramatic growth in the number of slums is seen due to increased urban population of Bangladesh. Living condition in slum is abominable. Slums have been developed and are functioning for a combination of demographic, social, economic, and political reasons. Generally Slums are lacking from access to safe water, drainage and sanitation facilities, basic health care, affordable public transport etc. The study has been carried out to assess the present conditions of basic service facilities of the slums of Dhaka City. Keeping the objectives in view the data were collected from slums through field survey. Drinking water and waste water samples are tested in laboratories. Colour, turbidity and coliform especially faecal coliform have been much higher than the standard in the samples. Poor physical environment with non-existent solid waste disposal system is very common phenomenon in Surveyed slums. Comprehensive and sustained wastewater management in combination with sanitation and hygiene is central to good health, food security, and economic development for the slum people.

Shayer Ghafur

Shariful Islam

In Bangladesh, urbanization has started growing fast since the eighties, with the poor people subsisting on very poor or low public utility services. Around 4 million people are living in nearly 400 urban slums in Dhaka. The causes for the ineffectiveness of slum improvement projects are relevant to implementation, lack of coordination and financial support of the government, and implementation problem due to poverty and migration. From all the viewpoint, this project is incorporated with the existing socio-economic and spatial condition, the physical infrastructure and environmental condition of the slum area and some proposals for improving the overall condition of Kallaynpur Pora Bastee.

Antora Khan

Lives and Livelihoods on the Streets of ... Syed Masud Ahmed Shamim Hossain Antora Mahmud Khan Qazi Shafayetul Islam Md Kamruzzaman ... Research and Evaluation Division, BRAC, 75 Mohakhali, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh Telephone: (88-02) 9881265-72, 8824180-7 ( ...

Journal of Health, Population, and Nutrition

sabina rashid

The health and rights of populations living in informal or slum settlements are key development issues of the twenty-first century. As of 2007, the majority of the world's population lives in urban areas. More than one billion of these people, or one in three city-dwellers, live in inadequate housing with no or a few basic resources. In Bangladesh, urban slum settlements tend to be located in low-lying, flood-prone, poorly-drained areas, having limited formal garbage disposal and minimal access to safe water and sanitation. These areas are severely crowded, with 4–5 people living in houses of just over 100 sq feet. These conditions of high density of population and poor sanitation exacerbate the spread of diseases. People living in these areas experience social, economic and political exclusion, which bars them from society's basic resources. This paper overviews policies and actions that impact the level of exclusion of people living in urban slum settlements in Bangladesh, with a focus on improving the health and rights of the urban poor. Despite some strategies adopted to ensure better access to water and health, overall, the country does not have a comprehensive policy for urban slum residents, and the situation remains bleak.

Md. Muhibbullah

The present study was an attempt to assess the living status of slum dwellers at Uttara, periphery, Dhaka. A slum is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing, squalor, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, and other basic services. Analysis showed that the average money spend for food and groceries was Tk.2,757.41 (44.86%) whereas the average monthly house rent including utilities was Tk.1,968.33 (32.02%). It was note that educational expense of children was Tk.555.00 (9.03%). per month while cost for health care per month was Tk.457.5 (7.44%). It was observed that they live in unhygienic surroundings. In the slum area, the youngest and adult age group (0-24 years) had morbidity rate of 30.8% followed by population in the age group 35-39 years (17.9%). Morbidity was lowest (5.1%) for the population belonging to age group 30-34 years, followed by morbidity of population aged 40 and above (each group has morbidity rate 12.8%). Slum people were found to be engaged in day labourer, small job services, rickshaw pulling, and little business.

Abdullah Al-Muyeed

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