Implementing a pro-poor WASH strategy in Bangladesh and setting up community-based service monitoring for sustainability
Published on: 28/05/2024
IRC was an integral part of WASH Alliance International (WAI) and implemented a sub-programme in Bangladesh in order to contribute to reaching Sustainable Development Goal 6. The WAI sub-programme has covered both the demand and supply side of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. On the demand side, they have tried to change the behaviour of households with a special emphasis on women and the socially excluded. On the supply side, they have tried to strengthen the service delivery through private and public sector. IRC has helped WAI and its local partners in content development for national and sub-national level advocacy to strengthen the WASH services. Also, IRC has promoted evidence-based advocacy. To generate evidence, regular WASH service monitoring is essential, and IRC has helped the WAI local partners and relevant Local Government Institutes (LGIs) in capacity building for WASH service monitoring. IRC has played the role of guide to steer the programme to achieve sustainability and has helped the programme in understanding the findings from the sustainability check and to take action accordingly. In addition, it has provided knowledge management support to the sub-programme. Two documents have been developed which discuss the process and the learnings.
Learnings from the WASH SDG WAI sub-programme in Bangladesh (2018 – 2024)
The WAI sub-programme has supported the Government of Bangladesh in revising its Pro-Poor Strategy for the Water and Sanitation Sector in Bangladesh. The revised strategy had been commissioned in 2020. The strategy was supposed to help the poor households in attaining basic minimum water and sanitation services. Following the commissioning, WAI and local partners have supported the LGIs where the sub-programme is working, to implement the pro-poor strategy. IRC has provided technical support in this process. It has tracked down a number of factors deterring the proper implementation of the strategy. This learning note captures the process of revising the strategy, its key elements, a way to implement the strategy, the bottlenecks and recommendations to remove the bottlenecks in the future.
WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) service monitoring in rural Bangladesh: Prospects for social mapping-based community monitoring
To attain sustainability of service, local/sub-national level planning is important. And for proper planning, evidence is essential. However, there is no proper WASH service monitoring at local level (rural areas) in Bangladesh. Although the government is developing a national platform for WASH service monitoring, it will take time to become fully functional. As a stopgap, community-based social mapping can work for WASH service monitoring. This document explains, how WAI and its local partners have promoted community-based WASH service monitoring in its work areas. The document also elaborates the use the social mapping tool developed by IRC, how this spreadsheet tool can help the LGIs to collect, store and analyse WASH service level data with minimum resources and capacity.
The WASH SDG Programme (the Programme) was a five-plus year programme funded by the Dutch Government through the Inclusive Green Growth Department (IGG) within the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from July 2018 to March 2024, including a costed extension. Simavi was overall lead of the WASH SDG consortium.
In Bangladesh, the programme included two sub-programmes implemented by the WASH Alliance International (WAI) and SNV. WAI targets twenty Unions and seven Municipalities in its sub-programme. There were six local partners: Development Organisation for the Rural Poor (DORP), Hope for the Poorest (HP), Practical Action (PA), Stichting Landontwikkelingsproject Bangladesh (SLOPB), WaterAid Bangladesh-WAB (and its partner IDEA), and Uttaran (and its partner Dalit).
