Netherlands
Government agrees to fund Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme
worth 54 Million Euros
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. |
