Environment: Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

BRAC WASH programme is implementing its activities in 248 upazilas (sub-districts) to provide hygiene education and increase access to water and sanitation to 51.2 million people.

Building on its long experience of providing water and sanitation services to communities, BRAC started its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme in 2006 in partnership with the Government. Our goal is to provide sustainable and integrated WASH services in the rural areas and break the contamination cycle of unsanitary latrines, contaminated water and unsafe hygiene practices, as well as ensure sustainability and scaling-up of WASH services. The programme aims to ensure access to sanitation services for 17.6 million people, hygiene education for 38.8 million people and safe water services for 8.5 million people in 150 upazilas of Bangladesh, with the support of the Government of Netherlands.

The core of this programme is the Village WASH Committee (VWC), made up of 11 members - six females and five males - representing all stakeholder groups. The VWC meet bi-monthly to assess the existing water and sanitation situation of the entire village and identify issues that need urgent action. They select sites for community water sources, collect money and monitor the usage and maintenance of latrines. The committee members are also responsible for identifying ultra-poor households eligible for BRAC and the Government’s Annual Development Programme grants. In addition, the committee members are also responsible to select poor households for providing micro loan support in order to install sanitary latrines and construct tube well platforms. To strengthen the capacity of VWCs, two key members from each committee (one female and one male) were provided leadership training at a BRAC facility. More than 39,000 VWCs have been made functional throughout the programme area and 80,000 members were trained.

We are an active member of the government’s National Sanitation Task Force. We are also represented in the Government’s Water and Sanitation committees at district, upazila and union level as a member, which are being organised by the local government institutions.

Extension and Expansion of WASH
The programme started its second phase on October 2011 in 20 new upazilas while consolidating in the existing 150 upazilas of WASH I for four years. These happen to be challenging and by implication, expensive areas to work in. However, WASH II aims to ensure improved access to and use of sanitary toilets for two million people, hygiene promotion of 4.2 million people and improved water services and its use for 0.5 million  people in these Upazilas. For the 150 original Upazilas from WASH I, the WASH II programme will continue working to ensure that the gains made in the first phase are sustained. Moreover, five new upazilas have been included due to low sanitation coverage in another project “Innovation in Sustainable Sanitation” to cover 0.67 million population.

From July 2012 onwards, WASH III is going to expand its working area in 73 new Upazilas under BRAC DFID/AusAid Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). The project aims to increase access to sanitation for five million population and to provide water facilities for 0.5 million by following the same strategy of WASH I.

Programme Components

Sanitation
We raise awareness on sanitation issues, which creates community demand for facilities such as sanitary latrines. In addition to reviving the existing Rural Sanitation Centres (RSC), we set up new RSC’s to increase access to sanitary latrines for communities in remote areas. Besides providing interest-free loans to local entrepreneurs to create quality latrine parts, trainings in production technology by experts from BRAC and the government’s Department of Public Health Engineering are also provided.

WASH provides technical support to those who can afford and are willing to construct latrines, ensuring proper design and site selection. Those who cannot afford to pay the full cost of sanitary latrines are provided with loans. On the other hand, two-pit latrine construction materials including superstructures and mini water tanks are given to the ultra-poor families free of cost.