The Organization

About CEGIS

While Bangladesh is making great strides toward holistic and sustainable development, CEGIS has been relentlessly trying since the inception of its predecessor EGIS in 1995 to support the country’s efforts for sustainable socio-economic development by providing scientific, technological and socio-economic know-how. It is a Public Trust under the Ministry of Water Resources of the Government of Bangladesh.

CEGIS is a scientifically independent organization certified by ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and performs integrated environmental analysis using technologies like GIS, RS, IT and databases. It provides solutions to issues and problems in a wide range of sectors, such as – but not limited to – water, land, agriculture, meteorology, forestry, fisheries, morphology, ecology, environment, climate change, archeology, socio-economy, power, transportation and disasters.

CEGIS has eleven separate technical Divisions each of which tries to meet the needs of its clients. It has highly qualified, experienced and multi-disciplinary groups of scientific, technical and socio-economic experts.

It works both independently (singly) and in close collaboration with government ministries, departments and organizations as well as non-government organizations (NGOs) of the country. It also maintains close cooperation and collaboration with regional and international agencies as well as with foreign nations.

History

Following the disastrous floods of 1987 and 1988, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) undertook a comprehensive review of the flood policy and flood protection management in the country. The floods had attracted international interests in helping Bangladesh to face such natural disasters. With the aid of foreign agencies, a Flood Action Plan (FAP) was drawn by the GoB. FAP was an initiative to study the causes and nature of floods in Bangladesh and to prepare guidelines for controlling it. It was based on several earlier studies by the UNDP along with a French Engineering consortium, the USAID and JICA. The World Bank coordinated the preparation of FAP.

FAP had 26 Components (FAP-1 to FAP-26). FAP-16 was a collection of environmental studies and activities and FAP-19 was concerned with the Geographic Information System (GIS). These two – FAP 16 and 19 - were supported by the USAID during the period 1991-1995. In 1995, the project ‘Environmental and Geographic Information System Support Project for Water Sector Planning (EGIS)’ was launched by combining FAP-16 and FAP-19. Phase I of EGIS (EGIS I) started in 1996 and ended in 1997 and was funded by the GoB and the Government of the Netherlands (GoN). On recommendations of a Joint Mission of the two governments (GoB and GoN), Phase II (EGIS II) of the project was started in 1997 and was ended in 2002.

With a view to developing national capacity for the betterment of the country and to continuing the successful efforts that EGIS had achieved by then, the GoB established CEGIS as a Public Trust on 16 May 2002 under the Trusts Act of 1882. Since then, CEGIS has been working as a self-financed not-for-profit government owned organisation to fulfill its mission under the Ministry of Water Resources of the GOB.