A conference on sustainable development was held in June 2001 in Malmo, Sweden.

The conference was organised by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities & the City of Malmo, and was supported by the European Commission. The event was attended by approximately 700 delegates representing a total of 37 countries participated in the event.

Asia Urbs Secretariat provided funds for one representative from each of the Asia Urbs funded projects to attend the conference. Ayub Ali, Project Director represented the Sylhet Partnership Project. Ansar Ahmed Ullah, the new Desk Officer in Tower Hamlets, UK also attended on behalf of the Partnership.

This was the first opportunity for project coordinators to meet, network and share information on their respective projects, in addition to meeting with senior members of the Asia Urbs Secretariat.

Two half-day networking sessions were held where each coordinator made a presentation on their projects. Ayub Ali, Project Director, made a well-received presentation on the Sylhet Partnership Project.

These sessions also identified a number of issues relating to the future operation of the programme.

Conference Declaration
The conference concluded with a joint declaration on Sustainable Development being issued, aimed at the second Earth Summit to be held in Johannesburg in 2002. A copy of the declaration is available on request.

A four member Tower Hamlets delegation led by Cllr Belal Ahmed recently visited Horsens Municipality in Denmark.

Horsens Municipality is a partner to Tower Hamlets in assisting Sylhet City Corporation to improve its service provision.

The delegation called on Mr. Ole Have Jorgensen, Chief Executive, Horsens Municipality on the 2 Oct 2001. Mr. Jorgensen was updated on the progress of the Sylhet Partnership.

Horsens Municipality pledged further support in partnership working and Mr. Nielsen, Mayor of Horsens extended an invitation to Mr. Badar Uddin Kamran, Chairman of Sylhet City Corporation to visit Horsens, Denmark.

It is believed Mr. Kamran is likely to visit Horsens sometime in November 2001 on his way to London to the official launch of this Website in Tower Hamlets.

The meeting was attended by:

Cllr Belal Ahmed, Lead Member for Asia Urbs Sylhet Partnership David Richardson, Regeneration Manager, Tower Hamlets, UK
Ansar Ahmed Ullah, Regeneration Officer from Tower Hamlets, UK Ayub Korom Ali, Project Director, Sylhet Partnership Project
Knud Bragh Matzon, Director, Health International, Denmark
Lis Alminde, Senior Consultant, Health International, Denmark
Marianne Carstensen, Senior Consultant, Health International Denmark

The meeting agreed that Health International will identify key fields of primary care and community engagement current services on offer in Sylhet, and opportunities for closing the distance between services and need. Health International will look at new ways of planning and implementing health services.

Lis Alminde, Senior Consultant, Health International, will visit Bangladesh in Jan 2002 to make the initial assessment and hopefully start working in March 2002

3rd Project Steering Group Meeting Tower Hamlets 27th August 2002 Clockwise from the left: David Richardson, Shekil Chowdhury, Saiful Islam, Cllr Rofique Uddin Ahmed, Jamil Choudhury, Lis Alminde, Ayub Korom Ali, Mike Colyer back to top

Present were: Cllr Rofique Uddin Ahmed - Lead member for Asia Urbs Programme; Cllr Abdus Salique - Lead member for Asia Urbs Programme; David Richardson - Asia Urbs Programme Co-ordinator; Ayub Korom Ali - Sylhet Partnership Project Director; Ansar Ahmed Ullah - Asia Urbs Programme Manager; Mike Colyer - Tower Hamlets Head of Waste Management; Gary Watson - Tower Hamlets Head of Operational Services; Shekil Chowdhury - Sylhet City Corporation Mayor's representative; Jamil Choudhury - Sylhet Partnership Chairman; Saiful Islam - Sylhet City Corporation, Executive Engineer; Lis Alminde - Horsens Senior Health Project Manager.

1st Year Report-Project Director Ayub Korom Ali, Sylhet Partnership Project Director, reported that most of the 18 activities listed under the Asia Urbs contract period of 24 months has been delivered.

Skills base training for Sylhet City Corporation staff
Ayub Korom Ali has identified further training areas for the Corporation staff. Sylhet Partnership will wait for the Sylhet City Corporation to be fully operational (Sylhet Municipality has recently converted to Sylhet City Corporation; election for the Corporation Mayor is expected to take place early next year) before embarking on a new training programme.

Ayub Korom Ali has also identified training needs for the Sylhet Partnership board members and the staff team. Andrew Bramidge of Cityside Regeneration is a likely candidate for the facilitation of this training.

Lis Alminde, Senior Project Manager reported on the Health & Poverty Demonstration Project work carried out in Sylhet. The project objective is to assist people in slums to improve hygiene and health environment in their settlements.

The project is jointly working with OMI & SSKS (local NGOs) slum dwellers especially with mothers to increase women participation, in 4 slum areas out of approximately 26 slums that exists in Sylhet.

Unicol have provided oil drums for barrel composting and will cover the costs of conversion. NGO Forum has shown interest in the barrel composting project. Shahjalal University's Environment & Engineering dept has offered to test the compost and to advise which plant would be best suited to benefit from the Sylhet Partnership compost.

Lis Alminde is due to be back in Sept 2002 to carry out a final evaluation and identify further funding sources.

The Health Programme could be a model for replication in other parts of Bangladesh, though the model has to be adjusted to Bangladesh's conditions and a Bengali version of PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation) has to be drawn up.

Year 1, 6 months programme and company forward strategy
Ayub Korom Ali reported that an amusement park (business demonstration project) consortium bid led by Sylhet Partnership has been submitted to the Bangladesh Govt. Sylhet Partnership is now waiting to hear the outcome.

Mike Colyer talked through the waste management project planned as a major activity for the 2nd bid to the EC. The Horsens element will focus on health awareness and community participation. Gary Watson talked about his experience of tax collection and how he could assist Corporation/Partnership in increasing tax collection in Sylhet.

Sylhet Partnership Project Director’s Presentation to Tower Hamlets Council 28th August 2002 Presentation at Tower Hamlets Town Hall back to top

An innovative Tower Hamlets Council-supported project aimed at forging closer ties between the East End borough and Sylhet, a region of Bangladesh, has proved a major success.

The Sylhet Partnership, which was set up in 2001, is a ‘not for profit’ organisation that seeks to bring practical, innovative and sustainable solutions to tackling key urban projects in Sylhet.

The seeds of the partnership were sown in the Economic and Twinning Accord that was signed in July 1996. This agreement committed Tower Hamlets and Sylhet to increasing co-operation and understanding between the two regions, while building upon their cultural and social relationship.

At a recent presentation to councillors, community representatives and private sector firms, Project Director Ayub Korom Ali underlined the key aims of the partnership:

• To strengthen the Sylhet Municipality skills base to develop high quality relevant public services;
• To alleviate urban poverty by creating employment opportunities;
• To ensure strong equitable governance and leadership through a partnership forum model.

He also outlined how this partnership has led to Tower Hamlets Council sharing its expertise with Sylhet City Corporation in Bangladesh to launch several successful community-based schemes.

One such scheme is Keep Sylhet Clean - a waste management pilot project. Consultation with local residents showed that the collection and disposal of rubbish was a top priority for people in Sylhet. These concerns were backed up by a Tower Hamlets assessment which showed that between 120 to 150 tonnes of rubbish is created each day in Sylhet but only 40 to 50 tonnes is collected.

So, working in partnership with the Sylhet City Corporation, Tower Hamlets suggested ways in which this rubbish could be reduced, from introducing community-based composting in the short term to building energy-from-waste plants in the long term.

The Sylhet Partnership has also played a key role in helping to develop solutions for health and hygiene problems in Sylhet’s slum areas.

Other joint projects include the development of an eco-friendly leisure and recreational complex and encouraging school pupils to do their bit and help to improve the local environment.

Tower Hamlets Mayor, Salim Ullah, said: "I’m very pleased with the achievements that the partnership has made in the last year and the benefit these achievements have had for the local community.

"Tower Hamlets is a home to a large Bangladeshi community and therefore has naturally strong links with Sylhet. This partnership has seen the communities from Tower Hamlets and Sylhet forge even closer ties and allowed the two areas to build on an already strong cultural relationship."

Report from Cllr. Rofique Uddin Ahmed and Cllr. Mohammed Abdus Salique of their visit to Asia Urbs Sylhet Partnership 28th - 31st January 2003 Cllrs Ahmed and Salique back to top

1. Purpose of the visit

1. to see and gain a first hand impression of the activities undertaken by the Asia Urbs Sylhet Partnership
2. to visit the Demonstration Projects undertaken by the Partnership
3. to attend Partnership Board Meeting
4. to take part in the launch of the Partnership Forward Strategy.

2. Meeting with Project Director
At the outset of our visit we joined the Project Director for a briefing on the project. The Director briefed us on the itinerary for our visit and also the overall progresses of the project.

The Project Director informed us that all the contracted outputs for the Asia Urbs funding has been delivered with some minor variations, ie the partnership as yet not been awarded any contract from City Corporation service delivery. However the PD is optimistic that this will happen in the future especially around waste management as the partnership is demonstrating visible result by implementing the strategy it has adopted.

A UK regeneration expert, Mr. Stephen Jacobs, has recently carried out an external evaluation on the overall programme. We discussed the comments and conclusion of the evaluation report with the PD and noted that the report on the whole has been positive about the partnership. A copy of the evaluation report is available - click here to download the Word file size 117k.

1. Composting Plant and Primary Collection Pilot Area
2. Health and Poverty project in Shahed Mia's Colony
3. Better Environment for Education (BEE) schools:
   • Kazi Jalal Uddin High School;
   • The Aided High School;
   • Roshomay Memorial High School.

During our visit to the Composting Plant the City Mayor, Asia Urbs Board Members and journalists from local and national newspapers accompanied us. We spoke to teachers and pupils of the schools visited. We also spoke the residents of the slum we visited. We were impressed with the work undertake and the feedback received.

Producing compost from rubbish is an innovative project is widely supported. We believe if the pilot project is replicated this will bring demonstrable impact on the cleanliness of the City.

4. Partnership Board
The Partnership Board meeting we attended discussed a number of items including the Forward Strategy of the partnership and the withdrawal of the Tower Hamlets seconded Director. The legal position of Tower Hamlets beyond December 2002 was also discussed and was clarified that from this date Tower Hamlets ceases to be the accountable body and therefore retains no legal responsibility for the partnership.

It was also noted that Tower Hamlets seconded Director would formally end his assignment in February and spend the month of March as annual leave before returning his substantive post in Tower Hamlets in April 2003.

5. Partnership Forward Strategy
The Board considered a forward strategy at its meeting of the 30th January 2003. The strategy is based on expanding the waste management project for the next two years with financial assistance from the DFID. It is anticipated that at the end of two years i.e. FY 2005-2006 the company will generate sufficient income to become totally self-sustaining.

The Board endorsed the strategy. A copy of the proposed Forward Strategy is available - click here to download the Word file size 259k.

Project Leader Ayub Korom Ali's Leaving Event 25th March 2003 Leaving event of Ayub Korom Ali (3rd right) back to top

Ayub Korom Ali's Farewell Party
Ayub Korom Ali, Project Director, Sylhet Partnership (Tower Hamlets Council seconded officer), has returned to Tower Hamlets Council after his two year contract ended in March 2003.

Before flying back to England, a farewell party for Ayub was organised on the evening of the 25 March 2003 at an exclusive restaurant in town. The event was attended by Sylhet Partnership staff, Sylhet City Corporation officials, NGO activists and distinguished guests including the newly elected Mayor of Sylhet City, Bodor Uddin Ahmed Kamran, Sylhet Partnership's Chairperson, Jamil Ahmed Chowdhury, Ex-Municipality Chairman, A F M Kamal, visiting lecturer Dr Kabir Chowdhury, Barrister Arosh Ali, Col Syed Ali Ahmed, journalist Aziz Ahmed Salim & Md Foyzur Rahman, Prof Kamal Ahmed Chowdhury, Chamber of Commerce Chairperson, Md Mohiuddin, Engineer Mohiuddin, Sylhet Partnership Board Member Shamim Zahan, City Commissioner Syed Ahmed Hussain amongst others.

Ayub Korom Ali in his farewell speech said, 'I have given my best shot to the Partnership. Now, I believe Sylhet Partnership will be able to sustain itself by generating its own income. The Sylhet Partnership will operate in co-operation with the Sylhet City Corporation, the civil society and the business community of Sylhet City'.

The guests were entertained to traditional Bengali cuisine.