Achieving the Water and Sanitation MDGs in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has achieved significant coverage in water supply during the past decades primarily due to the availability of suitable ground water aquifers at shallow depth. This enabled private drillers to install hand pump tube wells at affordable cost and provided potable water to households based on demand. Nearly seven million hand pumps have been installed throughout the country of which about 1.2 million by the government agencies and the rest through private drillers, mostly in the rural, small towns, and periurban areas. The rural coverage in these areas reached 97% until the detection of arsenic in some areas. This has caused a decline in coverage to about 76%, and is likely to put Bangladesh off-track in achieving the MDG in water supply. With over 1000 people per square kilometer Bangladesh has one of the highest population densities in the world. 50% of the population is categorized as poor and 20% as hardcore poor. In absolute numbers, therefore, about 71 million people are under the national poverty line. In spite of this serious challenge, the effort to achieve nearly universal water supply coverage has become an example of global best practice. A comparable miracle is taking place in rural sanitation since the first South Asian Ministerial Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) in 2003, where the Government declared a goal to achieve universal rural sanitation by 2010. From a meager 35% rural sanitation coverage, the country has reached a remarkable 70% coverage over a period of three years, through the adoption of a Community and Local Government Led Total Sanitation Campaign (CLTS). The urban scenario, however, is more complex and challenging. Urban population is also increasing at one of the fastest rates across the world. The current urban population of 35 million is increasing at a rate of 3.5% per year and by the year 2050 nearly 50% of the people will reside in urban areas, of which over 30 million will be in the city of Dhaka, likely to be the second largest city in the world. A conservative projection indicates that nearly 30% of urban dwellings will live in slums and shanties. Although urban water and sanitation coverage figures appear impressive at 71%, only about 40% of the population receives intermittent water through piped systems, while the remainder does so through hand-pumps. Government figures generally claim that access to urban sanitation is around 70% to 75% in bigger towns. However, only Dhaka city has a sewer system which serves about 30% of the households, mostly high income groups, while the rest use different kinds of onsite systems from basic pit latrines to septic tanks. Population growth, commercial and industrial expansion, and the resulting pollution of urban watershed are all severely affecting the country’s potable water sources. Overcrowding in slums, shanties and low income communities with little or no reliable water and sanitation service is probably the single greatest challenge for Bangladesh in its efforts to achieve the MDGs for the water and sanitation sector. The inclusion of Water and Sanitation as one of the components of the Bangladesh Poverty Reduction Strategy is a significant recognition of the critical importance the Government has assigned to the sector as a means of poverty reduction. This has encouraged the main sector stakeholders and international development organizations to align with the Governments strategy and mobilize technical and financial assistance to support the MDGs for the water and sanitation sector. 

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