Weaving hope Annual report of WaterAid in Bangladesh

April 2011 - March 2012

Saikat Mojumder/ Drik

Who we are

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 transforms lives by

improving access to safe water,

hygiene and sanitation in the world's

poorest communities. We work with

partners and influence decision-

makers to maximise our impact.

What we do

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.

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.

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

WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman

WaterAid Values

Inclusive

Inspiring

Courageous

Always learning

Accountable

Collaborative

From the desk of the

Country Representative

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.

WaterAid/ Zakaria Shahid Rumi

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 one-

fifth of the people getting sanitation service in

the reporting period were extreme poor. Also

we have developed 29,534 household-

based 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 in-

country 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:

» 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

Objective 1.1: Increased/improved WaSH

access for the poor, excluded, marginalised &

vulnerable people in sustainable and

equitable manner

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

Aim 3: We will advocate for the essential role

of safe water, improved hygiene and

sanitation in human development

Objective 3.1: Strengthened operational

linkages within the sector and also with other

sectors in order to accelerate WaSH progress

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

WaterAid/ ASM Shafiqur Rahman

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 household-

based 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 pre-

budget 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

Water

33%

Sanitation

28%

Hygiene

26%

Org.

Effectiveness

13%

Sector wise expenditure ratio

for the year 11-12

Our financing

During the reporting year, total

expenditure of WaterAid in

Bangladesh was Tk. 382.2

million. The overall burn rate in

2011-12 was 82% against

confirmed funding.

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