US, BD sign $202m grant agreement

Bangladesh and the USA has signed the 6th amendment of 'The Development Objective Grant Agreement (DOAG)' on Sunday under which the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide USD 202.25 million grant.

This grant will be given for three sectors namely (a) Good Governance, (b) Social, Human and Economic Opportunity and (c) Resilience, officials said.

The agreement has been signed between the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and the US at the state guest house Padma.

A K M Shahabuddin, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division, Ministry of Finance and Mr Reed J Aeschliman, Mission Director, USAID have signed the amendment on behalf of GoB and USAID respectively after the meeting between the visiting US delegation and Bangladesh officials.

On 27 September 2021, the last DOAG was signed between GoB and USAID for the period of 2021-2026 for which USAID is committed to contribute a total of USD 954 million.

So far up to the 5th amendment, USAID has provided USD 425 million under this 6th Amendment.

The United States of America has been a trusted development partner of Bangladesh since 1972. Under an umbrella Agreement titled "Economic Technical & Related Assistance" which was signed in 1974, the USA has contributed more than 08 billion USD till today in different sectors like Democracy and Governance, Food Security, Health and Education, Global Climate Change.

USA provides most of its development assistance through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and some other Government and non-government organisations.