call for a RAISE! National budget analysis for water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) sector in Bangladesh Background and context
policy brief
With the hosting of the first South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN-I) in 2003, the Government of Bangladesh launched its commitment to the target of ‘Sanitation for All’ by 2010 (subsequently revised to 2013). Also the country targeted ‘Water for All’ to be achieved by 2011. According to JMP report 2012, Bangladesh has a population coverage of 81% using an improved drinking water sources while the proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility is pretty low at 56%.
WaSH- a neglected sector WaSH sector has been ranked at low level of political priority. In last 4 years, Government’s WaSH investment remains very low with an average allocation of only 0.3% of GDP. Table 1: GoB allocation and spending (in million taka) FY 07-08 08-09 09-10 10-11 11-12
Published in
May 2012
GoB Education 42,790 37,280 40,818 48,930 52,610
allocation Health 31,015 27,078 31,676 34,729 33,124
WaSH 16,544 14,309 23,370 31,621 30,483
Education 34,356 34,403 43,816 47,806 n/a
Spending Health 28,119 29,027 29,139 27,355 n/a
WaSH 7,956 13,647 20,323 25,049 n/a
WaSH allocation is far below than other sectors like education and health; in terms of spending the situation is even worse (table 1). This actually leads to a weak WaSH sector, and holds back progress on health, education, gender and economic growth.
MDG targets: high requirements vs low investment A costing exercise conducted in 2009 by GoB and UNDP estimated that to meet MDG targets by 2015, a total of BDT 965 billion will be required to undertake the interventions on water and sanitation for the period 2009-2015. This means a 138 billion investment per annum. With a significantly low funding (8% of the requirement), the allocation gap till FY2010-11 is BTD 933 billion while even poorer expenditure makes the real gap BDT 940 billion (chart 1). Ch art 1: WaSH budget requirement to m eet MDG targets (in billion Taka) 13 17
FY 10-11
FY 09-10
FY 08-09
138
Moreover, most of the WaSH allocation (around 94%) was devoted to large scheme projects and was heavily biased towards capital constructions activities (eg drainage etc) resulting in inadequate focus on water and sanitation facilities. Ch art 2: Annual WaSH allocation Ru ral vs Urban Rural
19,312 12,496
9,991 4,317
4,047
2007-08
4,057
2008-09
3,417
2009-10
2010-11
Ch art 3: Annual WaSH expenditure Ru ral vs Urban Rural
Urban 21,819
7 10
16,477 9,657
138 2,235
5 5
Expenditure
28,203
Urban
138
Allocation
Requirement
Resource distribution: equity and inclusion On the other hand, the real allocation scenario suggests that sector investments are heavily urban biased and most allocations are channelled to the major cities, especially the capital. Allocation in rural areas in FY 2007-08, was three times less as compared to urban. The situation even worsens in FY 2010-11 when urban WaSH allocation was eight times higher than the rural area (chart 2). Similar was the trend for expenditure (chart 3).
5,721
2007-08
3,990
3,846
2008-09
3,230
2009-10
2010-11
Since allocation are highly concentrated in cities, especially Dhaka (around 35% of national spending is in the capital), the fund is not being used for the people who need it most (chart 4); ie areas that are geographically challenged (eg char, coastal belt, hills). 35.10
Chart 4: WaSH allocation and spending i n h i gh a nd low coverage areas (2007-2011)
30.90
Allocation (%)
0.09 Dhaka
0.12
Char areas
0.48
0.35
Coastal belt
Expenditure (%)
0.16
0.14
Hill areas
Arsenic mitigation Groundwater arsenic contamination brought down the safe water coverage to 81%. Almost 20 million people are at risk of drinking Arsenic infested water. There has been no screening of arsenic contaminated water points since 2003 and no public sector project on Arsenic since 2007. Without a comprehensive national level arsenic mitigation programme the situation will never be better and universal safe water coverage can never be achieved.
Capacity and accountability Capacity gap to pool, distribute and use resources causes WaSH progress to be slow, uneven and unjust. Political priorities lead government to favour other sectors resulting exclusion of the poor and marginalised. Special care both in terms of allocation and utilisation is the only key to achieve the country commitment in WaSH MDGs pledged at SWA second high level meeting.
GoB commitments * > Implement a special project on sanitation in FY13 to address the needs of geographically difficult areas and the most marginalised groups in rural areas and urban slums. > Take measures to approve the Arsenic Implementation Plan for water sector. > Implement, on a priority basis, a project to provide safe drinking water in areas with very high and high arsenic contamination and low safe water coverage and in hydrogeologically difficult, water scarce and hard to reach areas. > Implement the Sector Development Plan short term priorities and related sector policies and strategies with time-bound actions and backed by complementary instruments and government directives. > Increase allocation for sanitation and water supply in the development budget by 50 percent to reduce the resource gap to implement the SDP short term (2011-2015) priorities with particular attention to earmarking resources proportionately to sustain improvement in sanitation coverage. To this end, create specific budget heads for water, sanitation and hygiene in the Medium Term Budgetary Framework. * Pledged at Sanitation and Water for All Second High Level Meeting held in Washington DC on 20 April 2012
WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman
Policy recommendations » Increase WaSH allocation in the National Budget to achieve the MDGs targets in WaSH (100% access to safe water and sanitation by 2015) » Reduce the glaring disparity between the rural and urban WaSH allocation (18.1% vs 81.9%) » Prioritise hard-to-reach low coverage areas (Coastal belts, Haor, Chars and Hills) both in allocation and WaSH project formulation » Undertake arsenic mitigation projects with adequate allocation to tackle the problem » Put WaSH allocation under a separate budget line and capacitate LGD functional bodies to handle higher allocation effectively and efficiently
WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman
The policy brief was prepared by ASM Shafiqur Rahman of WaterAid in Bangladesh based on the WaSH budget analysis conducted by Abul Barkat, Avijit Poddar and Md Abdullah of Human Development Research Centre (HRDC) in May 2012. More detailed analysis and inferences can be sought from WaterAid through the following communications channel.
WaterAid in Bangladesh House 97/B, Road 25, Block A Banani, Dhaka 1213, Bangladesh Phone: +880 2 8815757, 8818521; Facsimile: +880 2 9882577, email: info@wateraidbd.org
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