In response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), “Ensure environmental sustainability” set by the United Nations, BRAC is pleased to announce its new initiative, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme. The programme is to be funded by the Royal Netherlands Government with an amount of over 50 million euros. An agreement to this accord was signed between H.E. Ms C.S.M Beemstetboer, Ambassador, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Mr Fazle Hasan Abed, Chairperson, BRAC in a simple ceremony held at BRAC Centre on 29th April 2006. The Government of Bangladesh has a goal of providing safe water and proper sanitation facilities to all by the year 2015. Sharing the vision along that guideline, together with the support of the Netherlands government, BRAC’s WASH Programme plans to achieve the target set forth by the Government of Bangladesh to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals.

With an aim to ensure access to sanitation services that are effectively used by 17.6 million people along with providing education on good hygiene practices to 37.5 million people in 150 upazilas and safe water supply services to 8.5 million people, this programme will start with an inception phase of 6 months. Following this, it will start its operations in the first 50 upazilas and eventually in a span of 18 months, will cover 150 upazilas.

BRAC plans to achieve its goal by participation and collaboration from national to village levels, where hygienic practices will be the backbone of the programme supported by improved sanitation and safe water supplies. Capacity building workshop/training for different stakeholders, including government officials, local representatives and village leaders will be organized for better and sustainable implementation of the programme.

BRAC’s past experiences reveal it difficult for the extremely poor families to have access to safe water and afford proper sanitation facilities. The WASH programme will thus be a blessing, as it will provide subsidies amounting to Tk.1000 to construct sanitary latrines through BRAC’s micro-finance programme. A number of poor families will be supported for latrine construction, from a revolving fund that will be created from the programme and BRAC’s micro-credit programme.
Alongside, cross-subsidies will also be provided to have access to safe water supply. To ensure quality and quality of water supply, existing nonfunctioning water sources like ponds, boreholes, pumps will be improved/renovated. Installation of tubewells at safe depth and rural piped-water schemes will be initiated with waters from boreholes and surface water. Its considerable amount of experience has given the courage to initiate a programme on sustainable and integrated water, sanitation and hygiene practices, which till date remains a big challenge for the Least Developed Countries. The combination of hygiene practices and safe drinking water is vital in smoothing the progress of the MDGs.

A unique feature of the programme is to apply separate methodologies of hygiene promotion for men and women, sanitation facilities for female students at secondary schools, which are otherwise overlooked. As part of a strong gender orientation, WASH focuses on women in all situations to participate in the programme and to raise their voice in decision-making process.

Since 1972, BRAC has been working with the twin objectives of poverty alleviation and empowering the poor with a holistic approach. It has made laudable contributions in the field of microfinance, health and education. The WASH Programme is a joint effort by BRAC’s Research and Evaluation and Training Divisions along with its Microfinance, Health and Education Programmes. The success of this endeavour will only be considered a success if water, sanitation and hygiene services are sustainable beyond the duration of the programme.

© 2005 BRAC Bangladesh
75 Mohakhali
Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh