Sanitation for 66 Mil People in Rural Bangladesh

Published on by in Non Profit

Sanitation for 66 Mil People in Rural Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, the largest NGO in the world BRAC is working its way up to help the country to get proper sanitation

It has reached more than half of the population since the start 9 years ago. It is one of the world's largest sanitation implementation programmes.IRC works with BRACto make it happen. In this interview, IRC sanitation expertIngeborg Krukkerttells her story about her work in Bangladesh. "

Bangladesh is well on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030," says Ingeborg Krukkert in IRC's headquarters in The Hague. "This is undeniably due to BRAC because it's serving half of the country. Bangladesh is a good example for others on how to achieve so much in such a short time. It is proof that change is possible."

IRC's Sanitation and hygiene specialist for Asia, Ingeborg Krukkert, travels to Bangladesh every two months to work with BRAC.Working on hygiene promotion and behavior change, she complements BRAC's groundbreaking programme with IRC's monitoring system to measure and enhance the true impact in sanitation and hygiene.

THE SETTING

Low-lying Bangladesh with its 230 rivers and population of 160 million people is the world's eight most densely populated country. The country only gained independence in 1971 and its economy is largely based on agriculture. Poverty is widespread, though recently the country witnessed a rise in health and education and successfully managed to reduce its immense population growth.

When BRAC started itswater, sanitation and hygiene projectin 2006, most people still practised open defecation. Only 1 in 3 people had access to sanitation. Now, almost 10 years later, BRAC states it has covered at least 80 % of the people living in the 152 districts where they work, reaching more than 66 million people which equals about half of the rural population of Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh even speaks of 96 % coverage. With sanitation being in the worst state of all Millennium Developmen Goals (MDGs) around the world (1 billion people defecate in the open and another 1.5 billion do not have a safe hygienic toilet), this remarkable shift made Bangladesh suddenly a frontrunner in the region.

"BRAC is the entry point for the community and local influential people. BRAC created a social movement by working with village WASH committees in all districts - men and women who are appointed to oversee the water and sanitation situation," Ingeborg Krukkert explains. "This is working as a real catalyst to empower communities, and the scope is immense: there are 65.000 WASH committees in all districts where BRAC works, 8000 field staff who visit households and do hygiene promotion, and most of them come from the area where they work. This has proven to bevery effective. BRAC is a well-oiled system that successfully has triggered behaviour change and hygiene."

Since 2006, IRC has been a partner in the programme to look beyond numbers and focuses on sustainable behaviour change. Krukkert: "BRAC wanted to measure behaviour change and was looking for a way to improve its programme. At IRC we have a track record of working on that, so why re-invent the wheel? IRC works with BRAC to adapt and implement our qualitative monitoring methodology, called QIS. It has been used successfully in many countries - including Indonesia, Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Ghana - to measure true behaviour change."

ThisQualitative Information System (QIS)is a monitoring system that can turn qualitative data into numbers to make it possible to compare progress in behaviour and to measure if change is sustainable over time. The survey combines closed and open questions with observations by interviewers. The observations are used to validate what people in the households say. IRC helps to build the capacity of the trainers and employees from BRAC so they can continue QIS without external support.

Source: Sanitation Updates

Read More Related Content On This Topic - Click Here

Media

Taxonomy