Saikat Mojumder/ Drik
Weaving hope Annual report of WaterAid in Bangladesh April 2011 - March 2012
Who we are
What we do
WaterAid is an international NGO that enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water and sanitation. Together with improved hygiene, these basic human rights underpin health, education and livelihoods, forming the first essential step in overcoming poverty.
WaterAid use practical solutions to provide safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene education. We work with local partners, who understand local issues, and provide them with the skills and support to help communities set up and manage practical and sustainable projects that meet their real needs.
WaterAid transforms lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world's poorest communities. We work with partners and influence decisionmakers to maximise our impact.
We also work locally and internationally to change policy and practice and ensure that water, hygiene and sanitation's vital role in reducing poverty is recognised.
WaterAid Values Inclusive Inspiring Courageous Always learning Accountable
Contents Who we are
02
What we do
02
From the desk of the Country Representative
04
Our country programme
06
Our new Country Strategy Plan
08
Our aims and achievements
10
Our partnership
14
Our financing
16
Our supporters
18
Collaborative
WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman
From the desk of the Country Representative
WaterAid/ Zakaria Shahid Rumi
Year 2011-2012 has been a fabulous year for WaterAid in Bangladesh for many reasons. This was the first year of our new Country Strategy Plan, hence was transformational in both programmatically and financially. We put together our learning to design new programmes, operational strategies and action-points to better reach disadvantages people with effective and sustainable WaSH services. In addition, upholding WaSH as rights was another significant focus of our work during this period. Securing funding for our innovative, diverse and ambitious programme was also a significant milestone during the year. Last year Bangladesh walked its own rocky road politically and economically. Confrontational politics, labour unrest and price hike of essential commodities affected the lives of all, especially the poor. We have
seen significant increases in WaSH sector budget for the last couple of years which translated into increased access to water and sanitation for the poor. We hope that this trend would continue so that the aspiration of sanitation for all by 2013 can be achieved. WaterAid in Bangladesh also has gone through some programmatic changes during the last year. EEHCO, being the major programme, has been phased out and split into Rural and Urban WaSH programmes. New approach has been adopted in Climate Change programme. All these changes had an impact in the existing partnership as well as on human resource management at the partner level. The impact of these challenges initially slowed down the implementation in the 1st half of the year. However, the backlog has been recovered and programmes were on track during the 2nd half.
In the last year, we provided 0.14 million poor and disadvantaged people access to safe drinking water and 0.73 million people access to improved sanitation facilities. During the same period 0.37 million people were motivated to practice hand washing with soap after defecation. Almost half of the users were women. Around one-fourth of the people having access to safe water and onefifth of the people getting sanitation service in the reporting period were extreme poor. Also we have developed 29,534 householdbased solid waste management systems and 9,777 wastewater management systems and piloted two decentralised wastewater treatment plants. Ministry of LGRD&C has approved authorisation to Chittagong WASA allowing them to sign MoU with WaterAid partners in relation to provide water supply connections in city slums. Following the Dhaka WASA experience, WaterAid and its partners are now in a position to provide water and sanitation facilities in the name of CBOs for the slum dwellers in Chittagong. WaterAid and partners were instrumental in reviewing and drafting a number of national policies last year. They include Bangladesh Water Act 2012 (draft) which has clause to preserve Khash pond for drinking water, Urban Sector Policy, Followup of BanglaSan declaration and National Hygiene Promotion Strategy. Four demonstrations on rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge plants have been established at four urban sites to create influencing evidence.
We have conducted a study on ‘Allocation, targeting and effectiveness of sanitation subsidy in Bangladesh’ and disseminated at the national level. The study has had an impact on influencing the government to consider doubling the sanitation subsidy for the rural poor. We will continue tracking the WaSH allocation in National budget. Putting a lot of efforts and dedication towards in-country fundraising, we secured a total incountry grant of BDT 855.12 million (GBP 6.5 million) for 23 projects. Most of the proposals we submitted last year or the year before were successful while a few were not. WaterAid in Bangladesh has signed grant agreements with SIDA and SDC to fund its urban and rural programmes. SIDA support will continue for five years and SDC for three years. In addition to that SIMAVI (DWA), Unicef and P&G also provided grants for other programmes with different time-frame. The year 2011-12 was challenging for Bangladesh CP for many practical reasons including financial planning. Last year the total expenditure was Tk. 382.2 million with a burn rate of 82% against confirmed funding. The year was encouraging in terms of resource mobilisation, programme diversity and influencing sector capacity and WaSH policies of the government. The following pages depict the various aspects of our activities and achievements for 2011-12. Dr Md Khairul Islam Dhaka, May 2012
Our country programme WaterAid has been operating in Bangladesh since 1986 as one of the lead actors in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) sector and is well experienced in innovating, scaling up and managing large scale projects targeting poor, vulnerable and excluded. It has been registered with NGO Affairs Bureau since 1996. The geographic focus of WaterAid in Bangladesh includes urban slums, hard-to-reach areas and ecologically vulnerable zones such as hill tract and hillocks, dry and arid ‘barind’ tract, salinity-prone coastal belt, haor and flood-prone chars keeping an eye over the climate change implications. We, along with our partner NGOs, have successfully developed and implemented model approaches for providing sustainable community managed WaSH services and facilities for poor, extreme poor and socially excluded people in geographically and technically challenged contexts of Bangladesh. We continue to enhance sector stakeholders’ capacity for establishing systems in program delivery and monitoring to facilitate pro-poor, gender sensitive, cost effective, and sustainable WaSH services. We facilitate community people to demand their WaSH rights, capacitate and sensitise Government and other duty bearers to respond to the
peoples’ need, and advocate for the essential role of WaSH in human development. The country programme emphasises on consolidation of the past programme accomplishments, replication and scaling-up successful models for sustainability. We aim to address WaterAid’s objectives of ensuring water and sanitation rights, hygiene promotion, capacity development of sector stakeholders, generation and dissemination of critical knowledge, policy change and institutional development. Currently we have six programmes operational:
Rural WaSH programme emphasises to facilitate a structural change in access to WaSH services and rights of the poor people of rural Bangladesh.
Urban WaSH programme aims to achieve improvement in environmental health conditions in slums and low-income communities in targeted cities in Bangladesh.
Small Town programme aims at improving WaSH rights for citizens living in small towns through community led environmentally sustainable actions. It also intends to promote citizens’ voice in claiming WaSH services and participation in hygiene management.
Inclusion programme is based on the principles of social justice that aims at promoting WaSH equity and access for socially excluded people like tea state workers, sex workers, people with disability, sweepers, transgender and ethnic minority.
Climate Change programme addresses existing knowledge gap to promote understanding of climate change impact on public health, effective adaptation and exploration of climate resilient technologies in different hydro-ecological zones.
Influencing and Enabling programme focuses on influencing policy changes and developing institutional arrangements to meet national WaSH goal and MDGs.
In addition, WaterAid partners with Unicef and facilitate SHEWA-B project implementation. We facilitate capacity development of NGO partners, school authorities and local government institutions in 8 districts covering 29 upazilas and 309 unions.
Our new Country Strategy Plan We have launched our new Country Strategy Plan (CSP) last year that covers the period April 2011 to March 2016. The key features and shifts of the CSP 2011-2016 are: »
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Aligning the country programs in line with the global strategic aims Systematic approach to embrace RBA with the partners Multiple theme based as well as geographical oriented programs Climate change in relation to WaSH get prominence Equity and Inclusion remains cross cutting as well as a focused program Rural, urban, and small town evolve as separate program with distinct focus Thrust on Influencing through policy advocacy based on research Diversification of partnership Thrust on fundraising
The CSP of WaterAid in Bangladesh has been aligned with our Global Strategy and hence its objectives contribute to our global aims. The objectives of Bangladesh CSP are:
Aim 1: We will promote and secure poor people's rights and access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation
Aim 3: We will advocate for the essential role of safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in human development
Objective 1.1: Increased/improved WaSH access for the poor, excluded, marginalised & vulnerable people in sustainable and equitable manner
Objective 3.1: Strengthened operational linkages within the sector and also with other sectors in order to accelerate WaSH progress
Objective 1.2: Advanced WaSH entitlements of the poor, marginalised, excluded and vulnerable groups in equitable manner Aim 2: We will support governments and service providers in developing their capacity to deliver safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in human development Objective 2.1: Enhanced organisational accountability and capacity of the LGIs and service providers for effective WaSH services Objective 2.2: Improved sector governance including allocation and utilisation of resources by local and national institutions
WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman
Objective 3.2: Influenced government, donors and private sector for integration of WaSH in their development policy, priority and business plan Aim 4: We will develop as an effective global organisation recognised as a leader in our field and for living our values Objective 1: Improve organisational capacity and performance to gain further recognition as one of the WaSH leaders in Bangladesh
The complete CSP is available to download from www.wateraid.org/bangladesh
Our aims and achievements Aim 1: We will promote and secure poor people's rights and access to safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation Last year we made significant progress in promoting access of the underprivileged communities to improved WaSH services. We provided access to safe water to 0.14 million people, improved sanitation to 0.73 million people and improved hygiene to 0.37 million people. Over 47 percent users of WaterAid services were women. About one-fourth of people having access to safe water and one-
fifth of people having access to improved sanitation in this period were extreme poor. Low cost hand washing devices have widely been promoted in the last year. Partners came up with innovative ideas through using indigenous technologies and supplied devices mainly at household level. A total of 28,811 people from 6,573 HHs have adapted 3,558 hand-washing devices which reinforced their hand washing practice. Also we reached out to 608 schools with WaSH services, out of which the 207 schools are covered by SHEWA-B project.
WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman
Also we have developed 29,534 householdbased solid waste management systems and 9,777 waste water management systems and piloted two decentralised wastewater treatment plants. A handbook on RBA to WaSH was in place to build partner’s capacity to work with it and partners of Small Town and Rural WaSH program had been oriented and have initiated the participatory open budget process at Pourashava/Union Parishod level. Two municipalities have conducted prebudget consultation meetings with the citizens at Ward level for the first time. People, especially women as well as children participated in those consultation meetings raised their demands for safe drinking water, adequate drainage system and public toilets. In past one year we groomed 3,726 CBOs, supported them to be actively involved in negotiation WaSH rights with service providers at local level. Two-third of the CBO members have participated in planning and decision-making process regularly. The members were also equipped to take lead on monitoring water safety plan, safe sanitation, and hygiene practice at their locality. During the past one year, a number of training had been conducted at community, CBO and Upazila level attended by 18,193 participants, mostly on contemporary WaSH issues, skill development and WaSH rights. Global hand washing day were celebrated all over the working areas of WaterAid in Bangladesh with great enthusiasm. National sanitation month was also observed where people’s representatives, government
officials, local influential attended in colourful rallies and discussions to create mass awareness on environmental sanitation and hygiene. WaterAid developed two radio spots highlighting WSP messages to reach nationwide rural population. These spots aired in Bangladesh Betar (radio) regional transmission centre at Rajshahi and Sylhet played vital role in increasing awareness of people and motivating them to practice safe water handling and improved hygiene behaviour. WaterAid successfully piloted a rural pipe water system using solar energy for the cyclone aila affected community. The technology is simple yet very effective to serve 385 displaced households living on the embankment for over two years.
Aim 2: We will support governments and service providers in developing their capacity to deliver safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in human development Lobbying is going on with 94 LGIs to allow poor people voice their rights and participate in LGI systems and processes. Two planning workshops have been organised with mayor, councillors and staff of Pourashava including project staff on implementation strategies under Small Town programme. Councillors of three wards of Khulna City Corporation extended their support in solid waste management to the slum dwellers and low income communities.
Like Dhaka WASA, ministry of LGRD&C has agreed to give MoU signing authority to Chittagong WASA with WaterAid partners. WaterAid and its partners are now in a position to provide water and sanitation facilities in the name of CBO’s to slum dwellers in Chittagong. Point to be noted that Dhaka WASA has been providing water line on CBO’s name in the slums since 2007. Fulbaira Municipality prepared a plan of actions to achieve universal sanitation coverage through organising a sanitation planning workshop. Shakhipur Municipality developed its yearly plan for FY 2011-2012 using skills gained from planning workshop conducted by WaterAid and its partners. Counsellors of these two municipalities made a cross-learning visit to a model municipality where participatory development process has been a success.
In one Pourashava Conservancy Monitoring Team organised a mass gathering to ensure food hygiene at markets, residential hotels and restaurants. They have been doing their monitoring job at regular interval to promote food hygiene, use of safe water and waste disposal system. In collaboration with Centre for Science and environment (CSE) India two training took place on urban rainwater harvesting and decentralised waste water treatment with an objective to transfer the technical know-how among the sector professionals and to create evidence for broader policy advocacy. Four demonstration plants on rainwater harvesting have been established at VERC, BUET, IUB and PWD to create evidence and influence policy makers on urban rainwater harvesting system.
‘RAiN Forum’, a network supported by WaterAid has been nationally launched in the reporting period. The official lunching programme was live telecasted in a private TV channel, and participated by representatives from GO, NGOs, civil society and the academia. To enhance accountability of DCC in managing public toilets, a number of activities were initiated under the umbrella campaigns entitled “Making public toilets work.” The campaigns included: print and electronic media mobilisation, roundtable discussion with DCC zonal executives and bilateral discussion with policy makers. Over time, these efforts resulted in a decision made by the government to set up 96 public toilets in Dhaka city. The Local Government Division Secretary has approved this plan. WaterAid in Bangladesh is actively involved in the review process of key documents to be finalised by the government. Last year we contributed to the development/revision of a few National documents including National strategy for reaching the hard to reach areas, National Hygiene Promotion Strategy for water supply and sanitation and Disability rights law 2011(review). To influence government, donors and private sector for pro-poor WaSH policy and priority, number of policies have been reviewed and alternative comments placed. Some of the policies are: draft Bangladesh Water Act 2012 which included section on preserving Khash pond for safe drinking water, urban sector policy, follow-up of BanglaSan declaration etc.
As a means to improve the sector governance for pro-poor allocation and utilisation, a study conducted and disseminated for necessary policy changes. As an immediate result, Local Government Division issued a circular to double the sanitation subsidy considering special need of PWDs, extreme poor and female-headed household at rural areas. A workshop on effective performance monitoring of sanitation and hygiene in South Asia was organised by Policy Support Unit of the ministry of LGRD&C on 11 March 2012 at Hotel Pan Pacific Sonargaon, Dhaka. The country representative of WaterAid in Bangladesh facilitated the workshop. A discussion paper outlineing a monitoring framework for sanitation and hygiene had been presented in the workshop at the request of ICWG of the SACOSAN. With the technical support from Human Development Research Centre (HDRC), WaterAid in Bangladesh has initiated a study on national WaSH budget. The study would do a comprehensive analysis of national budget allocation and spending on WaSH sector over the past five fiscal years. We hope to use this study as the key document for budget advocacy in the coming year.
Aim 3: We will advocate for the essential role of safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation in human development During the reporting period, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded two research projects to WaterAid entitled “Bolstering demand for improved sanitation when adoption decision across households are Inter-linked” and “Landscape analysis and business model assessment in faecal sludge management: extraction and transportation models in Africa and Asia.” Seventeen members All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on WaSH has been launched to take forward WaSH policies and priorities in the parliament. The group has been sensitised and oriented on WaSH sector analysis and future WaSH challenges. However, it is uncertain what will happen to the group once the present parliament is dissolved in December 2013.
UK Minister for international development Mr Stephen O’Brien visited Aanantopur village of Chatra union under Pirganj Upazilla of Rangpur district on 17 November 2011. The visit was intended to develop an understanding of CLTS approach and the way it has been working to attain sanitation coverage and how this has been used by WaterAid and its partners to improve the life of poor people in rural Bangladesh. In May 2011, a delegation from Themes Water visited Shakhipur, Fulbaria and some urban slums in Khulna to see how WaterAid’s projects had help communities of those areas. A team of Unilever led by its chairman visited Shyamnagar of Stakhira district. A group from UK visited Koira of Khulna district. The visit was quite successful and as consequence WaterAid was awarded the Big Lottery fund for Koira project.
WaterAid in Bangladesh organised a press briefing “State of financing in water sanitation and hygiene.” In this program WaterAid’s recent report “Off-track, off-target: why investment in water, sanitation and hygiene is not reaching those who need it most?” has been launched. Published worldwide, the report portrays the inadequateness of fund in WaSH sector, uneven and unjust distribution of the same and called government and donors to raise allocation and prioritise disadvantaged communities. A regional WaSH media group has been established with facilitation of WaterAid regional team and active participation of Bangladesh team. The forum has further strengthened for next year with enhancement of forums online platform, publishing media scrapbook on this years' selected publications and enrolling new media friends in the forum. Bangladesh played an active role in this process and will host 2nd Regional Media Forum meeting in March 2013. WaterAid has started advocacy on draft National Urban Health Policy by engaging other stakeholders like DFID and ADB; and started supporting the efforts through facilitating different consultation workshops in the divisional cities. Two such workshops have already been held in June last. WaterAid has been engaged in preparing a publication titled “Bangladesh: an innovator in health” with a team consisting of members from ICDDR,B, University of Dhaka, Columbia University, NIPORT for writing a book chapter on equity for the Lancet.
WaterAid in Bangladesh was invited by the government of Bangladesh to take part with a high level government delegation comprising of the Parliamentary Standing Committee Members on Ministry of Health to visit Thailand and India and learn about different health and related initiatives in those countries. The invitation was awarded as recognition of WaterAid’s contribution and lead role in WaSH sector with an intention to let WaterAid advice government on national health policy and programmes including institutional development.
Aim 4: We will develop as an effective global organisation recognised as a leader in our field and for living our values WaterAid has conducted a study on the users of water and sanitation services provided by WaterAid throughout the country as part of annual post-intervention monitoring and follow-up. The study was initiated in April, fieldwork was carried out in May and a preliminary report completed in July 2011. WaterAid in Bangladesh prioritised ‘Equity and Inclusion’ and promoted the principles in the broader development sector during the last year. We have arranged meetings, shared ideas, promoted concept of E&I with other organisations including ADD, Handicap international, B-SCAN, Brac, ICDDR-B, Save the Children etc. We arranged roundtable discussions, workshops, meetings with national organisations, newspapers to promote the ideas of E&I.
We put a lot of energy into in-country fundraising in this year, and secured a grant of Tk 855.12 million for 23 projects from SIDA, SDC, SIMAVI (DWA), Unicef and P&G. In November 2011 we signed an agreement with SIDA to assist the urban poor of three major cities in Bangladesh for five years in attaining their WaSH rights. In the same month we signed another grant agreement with SDC for 3 years. The support will mainly fund Rural WaSH programme of WaterAid in Bangladesh. The grant has been partially supporting the Climate Change and Inclusion programme of the CP.
We contributed in development process of National MIS on WaSH. We helped Bangladesh Wash Alliance (BWA) to compilation of baseline WaSH information of Khulna and Barisal divisions that was appreciated by PME group of Dutch WASH Alliance for data quality.
Our partners The partnership of WaterAid in Bangladesh has been shifting gradually to diverse approach and speciality. One of the major highlights in partnership strategy is to explore new strategic partnerships beyond programme implementation in order to add more values in secondary and tertiary level influence. Apart from implementation partnership, strategic partnership with research, academic and other development organisations including local governments has been initiated. Implementing partners All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG); Association for Realisation of Basic Needs (ARBAN); Bangladesh Association for Social Advancement (BASA); Brac Development Institute (BDI); Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India; Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM); Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK); Green Hill; Institute of Development Affairs (IDEA); Mahideb Jubo Somaj Kallayan Somity (MJSKS); Nabolok; NGO Forum; Population Services and Training Center (PSTC); Practical Action; Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS); Rupantar; SHARAN; Shushilan; Solidarity; Unnayan Shahojogy Team (UST); Village Education Resource Center (VERC); Voluntary Association for Rural Development (VARD); ZIBIKA; Strategic partners Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE); Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA); Dhaka City Corporation (DCC); Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakha;
Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (CWASA); Chittagong City Corporation (CCC); Public Works Department (PWD); Local Government Division (LGD); Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET); Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB); Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP); Centre for Urban Studies (CUS); Human Development Research Centre (HDRC), Department of Law, Dhaka University; Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD); Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA); Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN); SUPRA; ARCAB; CARE; Private sectors Real State Housing Association Bangladesh (REHAB); Robi Axiata Ltd; Networks FANSA; WSSCC; EWP; Horizontal Learning Programme; BanglaSan; Supporters Commonwealth of Australia; World Health Organization; The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); GTF; PSU-Government of Bangladesh; Save the Children Finland; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA); The Embassy of Switzerland; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA); SIMAVI; Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte Ltd (PGIO); Thames Water; Unilever PLC; H&M; The Stone Family Foundation; Michael Herbert; WaterAid Sweden
Our financing
Sector wise expenditure ratio for the year 11-12
During the reporting year, total expenditure of WaterAid in
Org. Effectiveness 13%
Bangladesh was Tk. 382.2 million. The overall burn rate in
Water 33%
Hygiene 26%
2011-12 was 82% against confirmed funding.
Sanitation 28%
If we take a sector wise view, our major expenditure has been in water. Sanitation and hygiene comes next and we have spent on 13 percent of our resources for organisational effectiveness which includes salaries and management costs.
Audited report