Bangladesh

At just 17, Imtiaz from Bangladesh emerged as a powerful young voice for urban children at the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku, Azerbaijan. A child rights advocate and member of the National Children’s Task Force, Imtiaz delivered a powerful message: a safe home is the foundation upon which all other children's rights are built.

The measles outbreak is affecting all eight divisions in Bangladesh, prompting an emergency vaccination campaign across the country. In the last month, nearly 18 million children have been reached with at least one dose of the vaccine, according to government data.

The worrying increase comes ahead of the region’s annual monsoon season, which brings heavy rains and winds, and puts refugees fleeing by boat at heightened risk of capsize on choppy seas.

The country’s capital Dhaka, Cox’s Bazar - home to the world’s largest refugee camp - and other dense urban slum areas are seeing particularly high caseloads, with infants under nine months most affected.

More than 1,000, or 85%, of 1,200 girls who received income-generating support from Save the Children in Bangladesh were able to avoid marriage and continue with their education after being able to start generating independent incomes. A campaign running for 100 days from 27 November last year until International Women’s Day on 8 March has mobilised communities, faith leaders, and organisations to advocate for an end to child marriage globally with about one in five girls married before 18 – or about 28 girls every minute.

Senior government officials, development partners, and education stakeholders convened in Dhaka today to launch coordination under the Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative (CSESI), a national effort to strengthen Bangladesh’s education system against the growing impacts of climate change. Bangladesh faced extended closures last year, keeping children out of school for longer periods and resulting in learning loss. Supported by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), CSESI aims to integrate climate change adaptation and environmental sustainability into education sector plans, budgets, and strategies to mitigate these challenges.

Reduced funding, which has led to cuts in essential services like education and healthcare, and international aid cuts have meant that this has been a particularly difficult year for children living in the world’s largest refugee camp.

Shahidul Haque is Save the Children’s Advocacy, Communications and Media Director in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Having worked on the response for six years and living close to the refugee camps himself, he has seen firsthand how worsening conditions—exacerbated this year by recent aid cuts—are affecting a generation of children growing up in the world’s largest refugee camps.

Bangladesh experiences 19 landslides annually, with a 4% increase in these disaster events each year. They are particularly prevalent in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and surrounding districts including Chittagong because of intense monsoon rainfall, rapid urbanization, deforestation, and unregulated hill cutting. These events have caused over 700 deaths since 2000, destruction of infrastructure, and long-term displacement.

More than 1.8 million children will miss out on learning due to aid cuts impacting Save the Children’s education programmes in over 20 countries