Promotion of Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Rural Bangladesh

Funding Organization:
 Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

Implementating Organizations:
NGO Forum for Public Health (NGOF)
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS)

Duration: December 2011 – November 2014

Description:  Keeping its commitments to the MDG targets, NGO Forum for Public Health and Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies have been facilitating the implementation of the project ‘Promotion of Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Rural Bangladesh’ with the support of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The Project is under implementation covering 47 hard-to-reach unions under 5 agro-ecological zones in Bangladesh. Starting in December 2011, the Project is set to be continued up to November 2014.

Rationale: It is quite impossible to reach the national goal ‘water and sanitation for all’ keeping any particular area deprived of water and sanitation facilities. But the reality is that millions of people still living in dire necessity of water and sanitation facilities in the hard-to-reach areas i.e. the exposed coastal area, drought-prone area, haor area, char area and the flood-prone area of Bangladesh.

The salient aspects of the project include:

• Reaching the hard-to-reach
• Governance - linking the local government
• Contribution to poverty reduction
• Reducing climate change risks on water supply, sanitation and health
• Focusing on health and hygiene habits
• Women empowerment through WatSan intervention
• Advocacy and communication
• Addressing good governance
• Sustainability with innovations
• Scaling up of learning through HLP

Outcomes:

• Poor and excluded population are able to demand context-specific water supply and sanitation services with special focus on climate vulnerabilities in rural hard-to-reach areas.
• Poor, disadvantaged and vulnerable population in selected hard-to-reach areas have established their access to sustainable water supply, sanitation and hygiene facilities.
• Policy-makers, local governments and service agencies are sensitized and respond effectively in promotion of sustainable water supply, sanitation and hygiene services.

Target Population: Disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the selected hard-to-reach areas with special focus on the women and children of the poorest and excluded groups.

Hard-to-Reach Areas Definition: By taking into consideration the economic, geophysical and social context, the term ‘hard-to-reach’ is defined from two separate perspectives; hard-to-reach areas and hard-to-reach people. For this project it is defined as taking into account both hard-to-reach in terms of communication and in difficulty including the population in development actions.

Project Approach: The project is being implemented following a community-managed approach and, at all levels, participatory and bottom-up communication is being promoted for the adaptation of sustainable service delivery. Apart from the direct service delivery through local partners of NGO Forum, the project puts more of an emphasis on advocacy issues and on placing Union Parishads as accountable and playing a lead role in the initiative. The project emphasises a balance between service delivery and better management of services.

Partners in Operation

• Local Government Institutions (LGIs)
• Partner NGOs
• Village Development Committee (VDC)
• Union WatSan Committee (UWC) and Ward WatSan Committee (WWC)
• Private Sector Operators
• Journalists of mass-media
• Local allies (school teachers, students, religious leaders, cultural groups and so on).

Working Area:

1.Mirzapur UP

2.Dhamor UP

3.Alowakhowa UP

4.Toria UP

Atwari Upazila, Panchagarh.

THE PROJECT

Enhancing Governance and Capacity of Service Providers and Civil Society in Water Supply and Sanitation Sector

Overall Objective:

 To contribute to improved Public Health.

 Specific Objective:

 Good Governance in Promotion of Pro-poor Safe and Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Services.

Results :

Result 1: Capacity of Local Government Institutions (LGI) and civil society for facilitating effective delivery of safe water supply and environmental sanitation services

Result 2: Increased access to safe water supply, sanitation and hygiene practices for reducing health burden among poor and vulnerable communities in rural hard-to-reach areas

Result 3: Increased sensitization of relevant actors, service providers, LGIs and other stakeholders on the importance of effective water supply and sanitation services

SALIENT ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT:

 •Governance - Linking the Local Government and civil society

Project Duration:

4 years (January 2013 – December 2016)

Implementation Step

The Project will:

• Facilitate community mobilization
• Capacity building of partner NGOs, communities and local LGIs
• Promote context-specific WatSan services and management
• Run advocacy campaigns at policy level
• Run rooted advocacy for linking LGIs and community for pro-poor services
• Undertake knowledge management and sharing activities

This will promote community-managed and demand-responsive approaches following the pro-poor strategy for water and sanitation services along with arsenic mitigation.

The implementation method will follow the sequential steps as shown in the Flow Chart:

Dinajpur Region's Working Area

1.Mareya Bamonhat UP

2. Benghari BonogramUP

Upazila: Boda, Panchagarh

3.Sonahar Mollikadaha UP

4.Sundardighi UP

Upazila: Debigonj, Panchagarh

Donor:

Delegation of the European Union to Bangladesh