BRAC Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Programme

Attaining the MDG Targets on Water and Sanitation in Bangladesh

BRAC Centre, 75, Mohakhali Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh Tel: (880-2)-9881265, 8824180 Fax: (880-2)-8823614, 8823542 E-mail: health@brac.net, faruque.a@brac.net Website:www.brac.net

Programme data sheet

Title: BRACs Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Programme. Attaining the MDG 2015 Target on Water and Sanitation in Bangladesh Location: 150 rural Upazilas in Bangladesh Duration: The programme will be implemented over a period of 5 years, i.e. January 2006 December 2010 Sector/Sub-sector: The programme will target the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene sectors in rural Bangladesh Budget: 58.73 million Requested contribution Netherlands Government: 52.96 million Other Contributions: 3.87 million (BRAC) and 1.89 million (local communities) Impacts: Additional sustainable sanitation coverage for 17.6 million people, hygiene education for 37.5 million people, and additional water coverage for 8.5 million people. Implementing Organisation: BRAC Contact Persons: Md. Aminul Alam, Deputy Executive Director, BRAC E-mail: aminul.a@brac.net Faruque Ahmed, Director, BHP E-mail: faruque.a@brac.net

Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... 3 Abbreviations........................................................................................................................... 5 Executive summary ................................................................................................................. 7 1 2 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 13 The context: Bangladesh and its institutions ............................................................. 14 2.1 Socio-economic and development context ............................................................ 14 2.2 Water and sanitation context in Bangladesh......................................................... 14 2.3 Sector policies ........................................................................................................ 15 2.4 Institutions and projects in the sector..................................................................... 17 2.4.1 Government of Bangladesh ............................................................................... 17 2.4.2 Non-Governmental Organizations ..................................................................... 18 BRAC in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sectors........................................................ 20 Programme objectives................................................................................................... 24 4.1 Programme Goal .................................................................................................... 24 4.2 Specific Objectives ................................................................................................. 24 Overall programme concepts and strategies .............................................................. 26 5.1 Hygiene and behavioural change........................................................................... 27 5.2 WASH: integration of hygiene, sanitation, and water............................................. 30 5.2.1 Sanitation ........................................................................................................... 31 5.2.2 Water.................................................................................................................. 33 5.3 Gender ................................................................................................................... 37 5.4 Reaching the poor .................................................................................................. 38 5.4.1 Target Upazilas and their selection ................................................................... 39 5.4.2 Programme strategies........................................................................................ 39 5.4.3 Cost Recovery, subsidies, cross-subsidies, revolving funds ............................. 41 5.4.4 Revolving Funds at the Upazila Level ............................................................... 42 5.5 Sustainability .......................................................................................................... 43 5.6 Collaboration and participation............................................................................... 45 5.7 Learning and Capacity Building for Scaling-Up ..................................................... 46 Outputs and Activities ................................................................................................... 49 6.1 Activities ................................................................................................................. 50 Programme Planning ..................................................................................................... 53 7.1 Programme Planning.............................................................................................. 53 Expected Impacts ........................................................................................................... 55 8.1 Direct Impacts ........................................................................................................ 55 Programme Management .............................................................................................. 57 9.1 Organisational Structure ........................................................................................ 57 9.2 Management Structure........................................................................................... 59

3 4

6 7 8 9

10 Financial Management and Reporting...................................................................... 62 10.1 Programme Finance............................................................................................... 62 10.2 Accounting and Financial Reporting ...................................................................... 66 10.3 Internal Audits ........................................................................................................ 67

10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8

Procurement........................................................................................................... 67 Asset and Inventory Management ......................................................................... 67 Human Resources Department.............................................................................. 68 BRAC Ombudsperson............................................................................................ 68 External Audits ....................................................................................................... 69

11 Review and Evaluation............................................................................................... 70 11.1 Baseline Surveys.................................................................................................... 70 11.2 Internal Quality Control........................................................................................... 70 11.3 External Review and Evaluation ............................................................................ 71 12 Assumptions and Risks ............................................................................................. 73 12.1 Assumptions........................................................................................................... 73 12.2 Risks Analysis ........................................................................................................ 74 Annex A Annex B Organogram ..................................................................................................... 76 Table of Authority for Financial Transactions .............................................. 77

Annex C Logical Framework Analysis .......................................................................... 78 Output:.............................................................................................................................. 79 Activities: .......................................................................................................................... 79 12.2.1................................................................................................................................ 80 Annex D Annex E Poverty Map of Bangladesh............................................................................ 85 Village Micro-Cycle .......................................................................................... 87

Abbreviations
ADP BBS BCC BDP BEP BHP BRAC BWDB CBO CSO DANIDA DMW/DGIS DPHE DTW GDP GoB IEC IRC IWRM JMP KAP LGD LGED LGI MDG MoLGRDC MOU NGO NPWSS NWMP O&M PPCP PRA PRSP PSF RED RNE RWH SACOSAN SDF SEWA SK SS TB UN UNO Union Upazila Annual Development Programme Adolescent Development Programme Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Behaviour Change Communication BRAC Development Programme BRAC Education Programme BRAC Health Programme Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (formerly known as) Bangladesh Water Development Board Community Based Organization Civil Society Organization Danish International Development Agency Directoraat Mileu and Water/Directoraat Generaal Internationale Samenwerking Department of Public Health Engineering Deep Tube well Gross Domestic Product Government of Bangladesh Information Education and Communication IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre Integrated Water Resource Management Joint Monitoring Project Knowledge Attitude and Practice Local Government Division Local Government Engineering Department Local Government Institution Millennium Development Goal
Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives

Memorandum of Understanding Non Government Organization National Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation National Water Management Plan Operation and Management Public Private and Community Partnership Participatory Rural Appraisal Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Pond Sand Filter Research and Evaluation Division Royal Netherlands Embassy Rain Water Harvester South Asian Conference on Sanitation Sector Development Framework Self Employed Women's Association Shastho Kormi Shastho Shebika Tuberculosis United Nations Upazila Nirbahi Officer Cluster of villages with an average population of 25,000 people, 10 unions form one Upazila Sub-district with an average population of 250,000 people

VO VSC WASH WATSAN WHO WSP WSSCC WSSS

Village Organization Village Sanitation Centre Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Water and Sanitation World Health Organization Water and Sanitation Project Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council Water Supply and Sanitation Sector

Executive summary
Bangladesh faces multiple challenges in the sanitation, hygiene and water sectors. According to the Joint Monitoring Report (WHO & UNICEF), latrine coverage stood at 33% by 2003, while the proportion of the population with access to safe water was about 75%. Moreover, in spite of concerted efforts to provide safe water, it is estimated that 25 to 30 million people are affected by arsenic contamination in drinking water. There are no reliable country-wide data on hygiene practices. This makes the goal of the proposed programme particularly relevant: to facilitate, in partnership with the Government of Bangladesh and other stakeholders, the attainment of the MDGs related to water, sanitation, and hygiene for all, especially for underprivileged groups in rural Bangladesh and thereby improve the health situation of the poor and enhance equitable development. The programme will be designed and carried out by BRAC, one of the largest NGOs in the world. Currently, BRAC undertakes its programmes and activities through 32,652 full-time staff and 65,412 part-time school teachers. Its development interventions are extended to 4.86 million households in over 65,000 (out of total of 86,000 villages in Bangladesh) and 4,378 urban slums in all the 64 districts of Bangladesh. BRAC, from the very beginning, has brought an exceptionally strong and consistent dedication to improving the lives, the position and to empowering women and poor families. It implements three major programmes, which are especially geared towards women and the poor: Rural Development, Non Formal Primary Education, Health and Nutrition. 95% of the members in BRACs programmes are women and 70% of the children in BRAC schools are girls. The goal of the proposed programme is to ensure that 17.6 million peoplespread over 150 Upazilas - have access to sanitation services that are effectively used, including consistent hygiene practices. In addition to this, more than 8.5 million people will be provided with safe water supply services. The programme will ensure that existing water supplies are sustained, well maintained and managed by the community. To achieve this goal, the following three objectives have been defined: Objectives 1:Provide sustainable and integrated WASH services in the rural areas of Bangladesh Objective 2: Induce safe hygienic behaviour to break the contamination cycle of unsanitary latrines, contaminated water, and unsafe hygienic behaviour. Objective 3: Ensure sustainability and scaling-up WASH services:

Central in the overall strategy is the participation and collaboration at the union and the village level where improved hygiene practices will be the backbone of the programme supported by improved sanitation and safe water supplies. The micro-strategy, described in detail later, is to stimulate bottom-up participation and planning through purpose-organized WASH committees at the village level whose members represent the entire village (and particularly the poor and women), including other committees and other agencies or NGOs that may be active in the village. At the Union Level, BRAC will pro-actively provide support to and collaborate with the Union WASH committees that have been set up the Local Government Department.

Overall, this is an innovative learning programme. It contains a preparation phase of 6 months followed by a start-up period of 1 years. During this initial 2-year period, there will be action research and experimental or comparative trials on issues such as the most effective ways to reach the very poorest families with an integrated package, trials/research into varied design/technologies for piped water, improved latrine technology in high water table areas, and certain essential software aspects such as working with union government, integrating water-sanitation-hygiene in the most effective way, community management of piped water, working effectively with other institutions. For the implementation of the programme, the Health Department will be supported by or collaborate with the following departments within BRAC: Collaborating Departments within BRAC Micro Finance Programme: BRACs micro-finance programme reached 4.86 million households through 142 thousand village groups (2004). Hygiene promotion has been incorporated in the regular meetings of the village saving groups. In addition, the Micro Finance Programme will manage the proposed revolving funds for Village Sanitation Centres and poor families. Education Programme: BRACs Non-Formal Primary Education programme has grown to about 49,000 schools (2004) to provide basic education to the children, in particular girls, of poor landless families. BRAC also runs a large number of secondary schools. The curriculum of all BRAC schools includes hygiene promotion. BRAC Training Division (BTD): BTD is responsible for capacity building and professional development of BRAC staff and programme participants. An internal gender sensitivity training programme is part of BTDs curriculum. Research and Evaluation Division (RED): provides contents support to BRAC programmes through action research. Furthermore, the implementation of the programme will be supported by the finances and accounts department, audit and monitoring department, HRD department, and the procurement department. Key themes of the programme Sustainability: BRACs regular hygiene education activitiesthrough the ongoing health, education, and micro-credit programmeswill continue after the end of the programme. BRAC will consider the programme to be a success only if water, sanitation and hygiene services are sustainable beyond the duration of the programme. Integration: Hygiene, sanitation and water will be integrated at the village and programme level. Strong gender orientation Women usually gain substantial benefits from effective and integrated water, hygiene and sanitation programme. As women are the main users of water and sanitation services, sustainable improvement of these services is only possible through gender sensitive approaches. Hygiene promotion often focuses on women only while men need to be targeted as well. Situational specific indicators have been developed to ensure a strong gender element in the programme. These range from working to ensure real participation of women in meetings, in decision-making about site selection, timing of water supply, technologies, and so on. With respect to hygiene promotion, the programme is applying separate methodologies for men and women, where many programmes overlook hygiene promotion for men.

Strong poverty orientation Even within the BRAC framework as well as in other organizations in Bangladesh--it has proven very difficult to reach the so-called hardcore poor. These people, who constitute on the average, about 1 in 5 families, are extremely poor, with little or no land ownership, with little or no disposable income, with insufficient food or resources to live lives of even simple comfort. Using BRACs experience in targeting the ultra-poor, this programme will pro-actively seek to engage these groups in the programme. The WASH committees that will be established in all villages in the programme area. BRAC will be the platform for the poor to participate in programme activities and thereby ensure that they will be fully benefited from it. The ulta-poor will supported with a partial grant to construct a sanitary latrine whilst the poor can avail of a loan through BRACs micro-credit programme for the same purpose. Relevant Technologies/designs To assure the safe quality and quantity of water needed for hygiene with selection based on need and demand. The technologies/interventions among which a selection will be made are: (1) repair of traditional water sources such as ponds, (2) repair of existing water supplies such as bore-holes/pumps/platforms, (3) implementation of new deep tube wells, and (4) small piped water schemes fed by bore holes, (5) small piped water schemes fed by surface water. In the past, only one latrine technology has been available. This will be changed to a range of options which are: (1) pit latrine with slab in areas where the soil is stable, (2) single pit latrine with rings, (3) single pit off-set latrine to enable another pit to be added as needed, (4) double pit with junction box and rings, (5) design will be made available for double pit latrine with attached bathing area and pucca superstructure. Private sector collaboration National soap producers have been already approached to establish new sales distribution channels through BRACs community health volunteers in areas where soap is not readily available. BRACs (un-paid) health volunteers will be allowed to make small profits through the sales of these soaps. This will enable direct sale to women who are not always able to make such purchases. A second element of private sector collaboration will be village sanitation centres which BRAC has already demonstration, at scale, to be viable and essential features of its work. Coordination The main functional coordination will be done at the Union Parishad (UP) level, which is the lowest tier of the local government. BRAC will actively participate in the Union's WATSAN Committee and actively support its activities, as well as ensuring that sufficient attention is given to hygiene promotion and education aspects. It is expected that the UPs will play an important role in facilitating the programme planning and implementation. Training will be arranged by the programme so that the UP members and other key personnel at the Union level develop the required capacity. The programme will harmonize its work with the development programmes of the Bangladesh Government and other donors and NGOs. The harmonization will be carried out at various levels - from the national government and local government levels to the field levels.

Capacity building of key-stakeholdersgovernmental, non-governmental, and community at all levels is a pre-requisite for long-term sustainability and scaling up of successful models. Considerable programme resources are dedicated to capacity building. Monitoring, evaluation, and documentation are integral part of the learning efforts in this programme. Two types of monitoring are envisages. The first is internal through BRAC health and monitoring departments and also through organizing checking/monitoring among groups and individuals in the villages and unions. The second is external monitoring, of which there are 4 elements described in the following text. Financial strategies Subsidies will be provided to the hardcore poor for sanitation, amounting to Tk. 1,000 (about Euro 12). Some of the poor families will be supported, for latrine construction, from a revolving fund that will be established from combined funds from the programme and BRACs micro-credit programme. For water supply, the hardcore poor will receive cross-subsidies from within the communities, although they too will be expected to pay an amount ranging from Tk. 10 to Tk 50 a month. For Deep Tubewells and small piped water schemes, the programme operates in accordance to guidelines established by the Government of Bangladesh. The proposed project requires individual households to make a total contribution of 30% for new deep tube wells and for small piped water schemes. Monthly water bills, ranging from T 10 to T 300, will include repayment and full O&M costs. At the end of the programme, the two revolving funds (revolving capital for production of slab rings and loan provision to poor families) will be used to establish a revolving fund in each Upazila for poor and hardcore poor families for the maintenance and upgrading of their sanitary latrine. This fund will be managed by BRACs micro-finance programme. Phasing The phasing of the programme is based on the micro-cycles that have been designed for an integrated implementation of water, sanitation, and hygiene activities in a typical village. Water and the development of the village WASH committee have been identified as the most strategic entry point on the basis of experiences elsewhere. Adaptations and further refining of this micro cycle will be done during the programme period. The programme will start with an inception phase of 6 months. After this inception phase, the programme will start its activities in the first 50 Upazilas, 50 more Upazilas will be added in month 12, and the final 50 Upazilas will be started in month 18 of the programme. Financial contributions and budget The total programme budget is 58.73 million. The contribution requested from the donor is 52.96 million. Other contributions come from BRAC 3.87 millionmostly through involvement from staff from other departments and from the local communities 1.89 millionas their own contribution to the new water services. Key hygiene behaviours and indicators for the programme (details of these appear on the following pages) Latrines All households have their own or a shared sanitary latrine. Use of hygienic latrines by all, irrespective of age. Dispose of infant/child excreta in latrine. Maintain latrines: pit not filled up, no visible faecal matter, and so on. Water for personal cleaning is in or near latrine.

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Hand washing and personal hygiene Water

Everybody wears sandal in latrines. Practiced by everybody after defecation and before taking food. Also after cleaning child/baby excreta. Strengthen Public Private and Community Partnership (PPCP) with national soap producers to make low cost soap available in households and all schools Safe water sources are used for all cooking and drinking. Safe water storage: Maintain water source For piped water, the water quality and quantity produced will meet agreed standards Integration of hygiene, sanitation and water: some indicators Raise the sanitation coverage to 80% in 150 Upazilas, including at least 50% of the very poorest households In all 30,000 villages, implement the sanitation programme, hygiene education/promotion related to both water and sanitation and, to the extent possible, at least one of the water activities. All schools in the programme area. A range of technology and design choices Action research A range of at least 5 technologies and interventions are available Small-scale piped water technologies and designs, household and group connections, with associated community management No more than 50 can be constructed until a complete post-operational assessment after completion is showing positive results. Decision to be taken during joint review at end of year 2. Gender: indicators At least 4 out of 5 households Water sources for drinking, cooking, within 50 meters or less. Household connections are be made available to poor and very poor families under special circumstances Women users in decision-making on the location of water points, selection of technology. timing of water supply finance/audit of piped water scheme, purchase A detailed hygiene education/promotion differentiated for men and for women. At least one woman and one man in each household is involved in hygiene promotion/education. Girls and boys in schools share equally in all tasks for cleaning school facilities. Separate toilets are provided for girls and boys WASH committees have half women members. Positive impact on income for women. BRAC: women for mid and high level management in programme team. Reaching the poor: some indicators Selection criteria will be followed. Financial transactions according to BRAC programme rules. Sustainability: indicators To help build toward sustainability; the programme will start with lower targets and achievements, gradually increasing. There will be internal checking/supervision/monitoring throughout

Coverage

Technology Sanitation Water Piped water

Benefits continue

Programme inputs

Income/ Employment Other Upazilas Poor families Finance Gradual phasing Supervision,

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checking, monitoring Sustained services UP and Union level Villages

Hygiene promotion will continue through BRACs regular programme after the end of the programme Collaboration and participation: some indicators National and district BRAC will work with the Union WATSAN committee to stimulate their leadership in the programme. WASH committees: poor, all institutions represented The village committees will undertake their own planning based on participatory assessment in their village. BRAC will ensure cooperation of other department personnel in support of this programme at all levels. Learning and Capacity Building: some indicators A wide range of capacity building activities for BRAC staff, UP and community members, local government Appropriate and good quality training programmes Action research/trials and comparisons of approaches to a number of as yet not fully known areas such as, for example: WASH committee development, piped and traditional water supplies, identifying and working with the hardcore poor, new financial arrangement, latrine technology in flood prone areas. BRAC will examine and use lessons from other programme/projects in Bangladesh and abroad.

Within BRAC

Capacity building Action research/trials

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Introduction
The Government of the Netherlands is committed to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, which seek to reduce poverty around the world. For the water and sanitation sector, this commitment has a tangible focus; specifically, the Government of the Netherlands will support extending access of 50 million poor people to safe, reliable and sustainable drinking water and sanitation. It is not surprising that part of this commitment will be realized within Bangladesh. The Government of the Netherlands, the intermediate development organizations1 and the people of the Netherlands have, from shortly after the moment of independence, have worked in partnership with governmental agencies and with the robust non-governmental sector of Bangladesh to support national development. The consultation process, of which this document is a result, started when BRAC submitted a concept note to representatives of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Dhaka. After an initial round of discussion, a more elaborate draft proposal was shared with the Embassy and with DMW/Department of International Cooperation (DGIS) in The Hague. On invitation of the DMW/DGIS, the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) worked with BRAC in the preparation of the final programme document. The proposed programme will initiate a holistic hygiene promotion and education programme to reach out to 37.5 million people, ensure that 17.6 million peoplespread over 150 Upazilas have access to sanitation services that are effectively used, including consistent hygiene practices. In addition to this, more than 8.5 million people will be provided with safe water supply services1 million people will get access to safe water supply through new water supply facilities, 7.5 million people will get access to safe water through the repair of existing water supply. It will ensure that existing water supplies are well maintained and managed by the community. In line with BRACs commitment to the poor, the programme focuses on providing sustained and well-used services to the poor and hardcore poor, and among these, to women in particular. The proposed programme builds on the existing framework of BRACs development programmes which are being implemented in 65,000 out of 85,000 villages in Bangladesh. Integration of the proposed programme into BRAC will transform it into an on-going programme with synergies within the larger BRAC framework. With BRAC, the programmes cost-effectiveness and efficiency can be better ensured. In addition, BRACs long-term and nation wide commitment provides opportunities for government agencies to draw on and benefit from its programmatic strategy. Key issues addressed by the proposal The proposal focuses on key issues which have proved to be most intractable within the water and sanitation sector. These are addressed in detail within this proposal: - hygiene and behavioural change - sustainability - reaching the poor and ultra-poor - gender sensitivity - integration of hygiene, sanitation, and water - technology (technology choice: low-cost sanitation technology for high water table areas; relevant technologies to address water quality problems, including piped water services).

These include: NOVIB, CORDAID, HIVOS, ECO which receive support as well as others such as IRC. NOVIB has provided significant institutional development support to BRAC.

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The context: Bangladesh and its institutions

2.1 Socio-economic and development context

With an estimated population of 140 million (estimate 2005), limited resources, and one of the highest population densities in the world, it has been hard for Bangladesh to sustain a strong economy and make sure that all of its citizens have the access to basic services. The per capita GDP is US$ 470 (2005) while 44.7% of the population live below the poverty line. The human development index (HDI), developed by UNDP, rated Bangladesh 139 out of 177 countries for three measurable dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life, being educated and having a decent standard of living. Countries were also rated on a scale for building the capacity of women in which Bangladesh ranked 103 out of 140, Half of Bangladesh's GDP is generated through the service sector though nearly two thirds of Bangladeshis are employed in the agricultural sector. This underlines the labour intensive and traditional character of the Bangladesh agricultural sector that mainly consists of marginal, subsistence farmers.

2.2 Water and sanitation context in Bangladesh

Water To avoid surface water contamination shallow tube wells were massively implemented in Bangladesh beginning in 1973. In the 1980s/90s, in addition to government programmes, the private sector and NGOs were encouraged to install more shallow wells in rural Bangladesh for drinking and other domestic purposes. Bangladesh managed to provide 97% of its population with access to safe and free drinking water through these wells. This resulted in a drastic reduction in the deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases. However, the intrusion of arsenic contamination into shallow tube wells turned this success into a disaster. Arsenic has been found in ground water over large areas in Bangladesh; 59 out of the 64 districts reported to have ground water sources with an arsenic concentration beyond the permissible level of 50 ppb. It is estimated that 25 30 million people are affected. Moreover, Bangladesh is facing other water problems such salinity, high iron concentrations, and declining ground water tables. The Joint Monitoring Project (UNICEFWHO) found that between 1990 and 2005, the percentage of the population with access to safe water only increased by 4%: from 71% to 75%: this in spite of a concerted effort to provide people with safe water. Furthermore, Bangladesh is now experiencing a developing water crisis. According to Bangladesh's Water Development Board (BWDB) more than 170 of Bangladesh's 230 large and medium rivers are suffering from pollution and poor water management. Sanitation Bangladesh has made significant progress in the field of sanitation. In 1983, about 1% of the population had access to sanitary latrines. With considerable national effort, this had risen to 33% in 2003, surpassing neighbouring countries such as India. However, a major effort is still required to achieve the targets set for sanitation in the Millennium Development goals and the more ambitious national goals that seek to achieve 100% sanitation by 2010.

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Bangladesh continues to face multiple challenges that make it difficult to ensure basic services to its citizens. In the water, hygiene and sanitation sector, these challenges include: reaching the poorest people, inconsistent hygiene practices, water quality, issues related to quantity (flooding, drought, and water management), improving sanitation technologies for the poor who live in high water table areas. The institutional setting is complex for addressing these issues. Capacity and management skills need to be improved, particularly at the intermediate level that links to the union and community. The Government has had limited success in targeting the poor and the hardcore poorthose with little or no disposable income. It has also proved difficult to ensure the sustainability of the provided water and sanitation services. However, the government has recognised some of the inherent programme weaknesses and has invited NGOs to support its efforts to attain the MDGs targets on sanitation and water. Similar to many other developing countries, Bangladesh lacks sufficient financial resources and capacity to implement its policies. Spending on the water and sanitation sector has been low: less than 2% of the total budget is devoted to the sector. Thus, external donors and the private sector account for the majority of the spending in the water and sanitation sector.

2.3 Sector policies

The Government of Bangladesh has developed a range of policy documents to guide national development, among others, relating to women and to decentralization. Some of the policies specifically focussing on sanitation and water are noted below. The National Sanitation Policies The Government of Bangladesh has set itself an ambitious goal: to achieve 100% sanitation coverage by 2010. This challenging target is much ahead of the MDGs and. would require a 12% per annum increase. This is daunting task especially as most of the yet un-reached people are likely to belong to the poor and hardcore poor segments of the population. The average annual increase has been 4% thus far. However, the GoB is taking initiatives to achieve this national sanitation target in collaboration with development partners and NGOs. The government developed a draft National Sanitation Strategy in 2005, which describes the ways and means of achieving the national target by providing uniform guidelines. The Union Parishads have been identified as the focal point for the Total Sanitation campaign. The Government has provided budgetary support to this decentralisation by allocating 20% of the Upazila Annual Development Programme for improving the sanitation coverage. Out of this amount, following a decision of January 2005, 25% is to be dedicated to hygiene and sanitation promotion activities while the remaining 75% has been allocated as direct support to the hardcore poor. In addition, Taka 5,000 has been allocated and disbursed to each Gram Sarkar for their local development, sanitation being one of the major activities. To ensure 100% sanitation by 2010 the Government emphasized the following initiatives under the National Sanitation Dissemination: Mobilize different government, non government and development organisations; Fulfil the coverage into three phases (2005, 2008 and 2010) for 100% sanitation by 2010 by local government institutions and NGOs; All city corporations, Upazila, pourashava, ward, unions develop task forces involved for dissemination; and, Observe October as Sanitation Month".

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Sector Development Framework In 2004, the Government made a Sector Development Framework (SDF) which guides planning, coordination and monitoring of all future sector development activities with a focus on devolution of authority to local government institutions, user participation, economic pricing, public-NGO-private partnership, and gender sensitivity. National Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation (NPSWSS 1998) The National Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation (NPSWSS) 1998 is the basic policy document governing the Water Supply and Sanitation Sector (WSSS) and providing policy guidelines. Its objectives are to improve the standard of public health and to ensure improved environment. It also mentions that the governments goal is to ensure that all people have access to safe water and sanitation services at an affordable cost. Central in this policy are the following elements: The need to provide any rural household with a sanitary latrine and the importance of behavioural change through user participation. The recognition of the role of the NGOs in the development of the WSS sector, social mobilisation and hygiene education in partnership with GoB. Only schools, mosques, and the hard-core poor will receive subsidies to provide them access to sanitary latrines. Credit facilities for the construction of sanitary facilities need to be made available to the poor. Private sector participation in the sanitation sector shall be encouraged. The role of women in planning, decision-making and management shall be promoted through their increased representation in management committees. Participation of user groups in planning, development, operation and maintenance shall be encouraged through LGI and CBOs Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP - 2005) The PRSP (tiled Unlocking the Potentials: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction) was approved by the government in 2005 with the objective to achieve accelerated growth through poverty reduction. PRSP strongly supports achieving the MDG targets and encompasses around policy triangle of growth, human development and governance. Sanitation and water sector is given a very high priority and is identified as one of its 7-point strategic agenda for accelerated poverty reduction. For rural and urban sanitation PRSP has earmarked 0.5 billion USD. Sector Development Programme (SDP - 2005) The Ministry of LGRD&C has formulated the draft SDP for the Water and Sanitation Sector in Bangladesh and currently is in the process of finalizing it. SDP draws a road map for development and coordination for the next 10 years. The sector investment plan that is drafted under the SDP will constitute the Medium Term Expenditure Framework of the PRSP for the water and sanitation sector. SDP also allocated possible roles of and investments by the public, private and NGO sector. The recommended development strategy in rural water and sanitation sub-sector of the SDP is incorporated in the BRAC WASH Programme and is expected to significantly contribute in achieving the objectives of SDP (and PRSP). National Water Management Plan (NWMP - 2004) One of the striking features of NWMP (National Water Management Plan) is its focus on enhancing the influence of the poor. It has also made a provision for waterborne sanitation and storm water drainage in major cities and has proposed resource allocation to achieve time bound targets.

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2.4 Institutions and projects in the sector

2.4.1 Government of Bangladesh
Public sector activities for water and sanitation are led by two agencies, with specialised activities undertaken by another 6 institutions. Local Government Division (LGD) The Local Government Division of Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperative is mandated to provide overall guidance to the sector. The Local Government Division is responsible for overall planning, identification of investment projects and coordination of activities of agencies under it (viz. DPHE, LGED, WASA) and local government bodies, private sector, NGOs and CBOs. To coordinate, monitor and evaluate the activities of the sector and to determine future work, Local Government Division will constitute a forum with representatives from relevant organisations. The LGD also liaises and negotiates with donors through the External Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for commitment of resources for the sector project. Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) DPHE has emerged as the principal national agency responsible for planning, designing and implementing WSS work throughout Bangladesh. Except Dhaka and Chittagong city areas, DPHE is responsible for the implementation of water supply and sanitation projects in the whole country. In both in rural and urban areas, DPHE increasingly collaborates with private sector, NGOs and CBOs. Social mobilisation and training was included in the DPHE activities in 1994 with the objectives of mobilising inter-sectoral support and to strengthen community participation for sustainability and self- reliance in water supply and sanitation. In addition, the introduction of Tara Pumps and the Shallow Shrouded Tube well, the Very Shallow Shrouded Tube well, Iron Removal Plant and the Pond Sand Filter for salinity-affected areas are major technological achievements of DPHE Research & Development project. Other government institutions that play a role in the WASH sectors are: - Local Government Engineering Department (LGED): Responsible for rural infrastructure and assists municipalities in implementing infrastructure including water and sanitation on a project basis. - National Institute for Local Government (NILG): Capacity development of local government bodies including Pourashavas. - Ministry of Education (MoE): School sanitation in cooperation with WSS projects, school health education. - Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW): Health and hygiene education with field staff at ward level - Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR): Water resource management, monitoring of water resources, allocation of water rights. - Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF): Responsible for pollution control and water quality including monitoring of drinking water quality. MoEF still to develop capacity to effectively perform its responsibilities.

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2.4.2 Non-Governmental Organizations

In addition to BRAC, the robust NGO sector in Bangladesh has many institutionslarge and small of both national and international origin --that work in the water and sanitation sector. A selection from these are noted here, as examples of approaches and activities that might provide useful insights or services for this proposed programme: CARE CARE has in the SAFE and later, the SAFER Project, worked to integrate water supply, sanitation with a dominant hygiene promotion/education component focused on the household. Its project, carried out in 2 districts with small partner NGOs, has involved action research and detailed monitoring on selected hygiene and sanitation behaviours such as hand washing. This approach, and the book that has been prepared about it, may provide useful insights into a strategy for behavioural change. ICDDR-B- International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research-Bangladesh. This internationally-known research and training institute has supported or collaborated in fundamental research related to arsenic contamination and its consequences since 2001. It also collaborates in basic impact research with BRAC. In addition to insights from work on arsenic contamination, the ICDDR-B also undertook several unique studies of handwashing in the 1990s which deserve to be studied2. WaterAid WaterAid supports projects with NGO partners and works in the field of capacity building and training, technical support and advice, research and development, advocacy and networking. The WaterAid programme has grown considerably over the past few years and the varied strategies it tries out may deserved to be studied, through field visits, for the insights they could provide. PROSHIKA PROSHIKA has installed 25,913 hand tube wells and 414,106 sanitary latrines. It has established 487 latrines production support with RLF credit support. It has tested 15,084 tube wells for arsenic and as a consequence of emergence of the arsenic problem scaled down its hand tube well project. Given the size and spread of this project, it may be important for BRAC to try to work in coordination and to ensure that there is no unwarranted competition with PROSHIKA projectsor for that matter with any other NGOat the local level. NGO Forum NGO Forum, an apex organisation, works exclusively in the water and sanitation sector in partnership of more than 600 local NGOs covers 10,894 villages in all districts of the country. Its partners have thus far covered 1.5 million households, installed 39,000 shallow tube wells and tested 44,000 tube wells for arsenic. It has installed 1.83 million latrine units and supported LNGOs and CBOs to establish 628 VSCs and local producers to establish 212 Village Sanitation Committees. The core communication package of NGO Forum is shared with all NGOs working in water supply, sanitation and health promotion, including BRAC. BRAC sits on the NGO-Forum Board. NGO-Forum also operates an information resource centre that might be of use to the proposed BRAC programme in providing key sector materials.

Much of the research on handwashing was undertaken by Dr. B.A. Hoque.

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VERC VERC has been working on WATSAN since its inception in 1977. It is working in six districts in providing technology support for latrine and water point installation and hygiene education for behavioural change. It has developed nine models of latrines. It has set up sanitation committees with the help of local masons it trained. VERC follows a participatory approach to 100% sanitation and the model has been successfully implemented in one village of Sitakunda in a period of about 10 months. This project might be usefully studied. Of course, BRAC has undertaken considerable work and research, in its own right, related to arsenic in drinking water. However, three projects for which field visits might also provide useful findings about interventions are: DPHE-DANIDA Arsenic Mitigation Component: This project is currently being implemented in eleven Upazilas conducting research and developing suitable mitigation options. SIDA- Arsenic in Tube well water and Health Consequences: In 144 Villages under Matlab, activities that took place included research on health consequences, treatment of patients, mitigation activities and nutritional susceptibility. WHO- Arsenic in Tube well water and Health Consequences: Activities included retrospective and epidemiological study of the Matlab population in respect to Arsenicossis; Establishment of AAS Equipment at ICDDR,B; Arsenic Mitigation. BRAC has also collaborated in Matlab.. . DPHE-UNICEF Ministry of LGRD & Cooperatives: UNICEF has collaborated with DPHE in the sector for decades. In addition, UNICEF has undertaken school projects for water, sanitation and hygiene over the past 15 years. Some of these schools might provide useful insights into the challenging issues of sustainability and behavioural change within the educational environment. DANIDA Coastal RWSP. In the large coastal area project which DANIDA has supported for the past 4 or 5 years, some work has been undertaken on toilet designs for high water table areas. This might possibly provide useful insights. Note: this section has emphasized learning and cooperation with Bangladeshi institutions. It is also suggested that targeted study visits be made outside Bangladesh. This should include a study tour to India (example: Kerala, West Bengal, Maharashtra or UP) to examine community management and small piped water schemes and the sanitation campaign.

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BRAC in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sectors

In February 1972, BRAC was established as a relief organization to help rehabilitate the waraffected people of Bangladesh. Gradually it turned its focus to poverty alleviation and empowering the poor, particularly women and children. This was done through organizing and mobilizing poor people, providing awareness and skill development, training and education, organizing savings groups, giving them collateral-free micro-credit, and generating employment for them. With multifaceted development interventions, BRAC strives to bring about positive change in the quality of life of the poor people of Bangladesh. BRAC is actively involved in promoting human rights, dignity, and gender equity through poor people's socioeconomic, political and human capacity building. BRAC tries to bring about changes at the national and global level in policies on poverty reduction and social progress. BRACs core competency is the delivery of health, education, micro-finance, and microenterprise services on a large scale to poor rural women. BRAC has developed and trained local women to deliver these services and organised local groups to receive the services. BRAC runs its programmes and activities through 32,652 full-time staff and 65,412 part-time school teachers, spending over Tk. 14 billion (US$ 245 million) each year. Its development interventions are extended to 4.86 million households in over 65,000 out of 86,000 villages and 4,378 urban slums in all the 64 districts of Bangladesh. BRAC Education Programme (BEP) is specially targeted to children who never went to school or dropped out at some point. With special emphasis on girls, BRAC runs 31,619 non-formal primary schools with 1.50 million students enrolled - 65% of them girls. The health, nutrition, and population interventions aim to cater for the health needs of the poor people through a nation wide network of 44,159 (September 2005) community health volunteers, 3,360 (September 2005) community health workers, 38 static health centres and 11,988 community nutrition workers. The programme serves 31 million people through its Essential Health Care, 82 million through the TB Control Programme, and 13 million under National Nutrition Project. The proposed programme will build on the strong BRAC foundation in water, sanitation and hygiene which is described in the following paragraphs. The programme will consolidate and enhance the current activities, through a combination of: relevant service provision; improving communication for behavioural change; intensifying the training and supervision of BRAC personnel, volunteers and partners; targeted action research and thorough monitoring. Involvement of BRAC in water and sanitation Hygiene, water and sanitation are addressed by BRACs Development, Education and Health Programmes, with a particular focus on increasing awareness, developing capacity at multiple levels and providing access to basic services. The BRAC Training Division, Monitoring Department, and Research and Evaluation Division act as support projects also contributing to promoting safe water and good sanitation facilities. Along with other NGOs, BRAC works closely with the government to achieve and address the national goal of 100% sanitation by 2010. Up to June 2005, BRAC helped to establish 841 slab ring production centres and a total of 2.4 million slab latrines were installed in BRAC working areas throughout Bangladesh. This project is supported by BRACs extensive network of community-based workers who provide hygiene education and promote the installation of slab latrines through household visits, informal education, saving-groups, and health education forums. In collaboration with the government BRAC achieved 100% sanitation coverage in one upazila, Shibpur. Data from

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BRACs health clinic in Shibpur suggest that this intervention has lead to a decrease of water borne diseases by 30%. BRACs arsenic mitigation project has tested more than 85 thousand shallow tube wells in four Upazilas. Between 50% and 90% of the wells were found to contain arsenic beyond the permissible level of 50 pbb. After awareness raising and screening, BRAC has started implementing safe water supply systems. To date, as many as 1,970 safe water units have been constructed. BRAC Development Programme implements safe water and good sanitation facilities along with other services through Village Organisations. The Village Organization (VO) is an association of poor and landless women who come together with the help of BRAC to improve their socio-economic position. BRACs microfinance staff meet VOs once a week to discuss and facilitate credit operations. The social development staff and health staff meet VO members twice a month and once a month accordingly to discuss various socio-economic, legal and health issues including water, sanitation and hygiene aspects. As of December 2004, BRAC had organised its 4.86 million members into 142,117 VOs across the country. With a view to provision of safe water and safe sanitation especially for the poor BRAC Development Project ensures following activities through VO: i. Awareness raising activities and technical education to the VO members ii. Making credit available with reasonable price to poor women for sanitation iii. Assisting in acquiring and installation of slab-latrine and safe water options iv. Supervision, follow up, and monitoring. BRAC Health Programme with WATSAN aspect BRACs Health Programme (BHP) aims to achieve a sustained health impact by reducing maternal, infant and child mortality and fertility and by improving the nutritional status of children, adolescents and women. These goals are accomplished through two sets of strategies: education and dissemination of information and provision of health care services. BRAC encourage and motivates rural people to use safe water and hygienic sanitation for the benefit of their health and collaborates with public sector in implementing national programmes. The Essential Health care programme operates in an integrated fashion with BRACs social and economic empowerment activities. The primary objective of this programme is to provide an essential package of health services in all of the areas where BRAC has established. The first tier is a cadre of community health volunteersall women, called Shastho Shebikas(SS), who are the front-line workers of BHP. The second tier is a cadre of female health paramedics, called Shastho Karmis (SK). As a relatively new addition to the BRAC Health programme, these women oversee the work of the Shebikas, and conduct health education forums where the communitys health concerns are addressed. The third tier is a network of clinical facilities, called BRAC Shushasthas. The Shushasthos provide technical and clinical back-up to the Shebikas and Karmis, who often refer patients to these centres. Shastho Shebikas: The Foot Soldiers of the Essential Health Care Project
BRACs community health volunteers, or Shastho Shebikas (SS), are the foot soldiers of BRACs Essential Health Care programme, and they play a critical role in every EHC programme component. Going door to door, the Shastho Shebikas are the first point of contact between community members and the network of public and private providers in Bangladeshs health system. All Shastho Shebikas are members of BRACs Village Organizations. Each Shastho Shebika is assigned to on average 300 households and go door- to door to educate and raise awareness. they also conduct courtyard meetings, and village meeting to raise awareness level. The Shebikas provide health education, sell essential health commodities, treat basic ailments, collect basic health information and refer patients to health centers when necessary.

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The Shebikas work to educate and mobilize community members regarding critical health matters. For example, they provide information on child health, educate and encourage the use of family planning methods, and inform family members on national immunization days and locations. They also provide other essential information regarding care during pregnancy, water and sanitation, personal hygiene, nutrition, and tuberculosis. The Shebikas also provide assistance to government health initiatives. The Shastho Shebikas work on a voluntary basis, but they are able to garner some income from the sale of essential health commodities during their household visits. Shebikas receive 500 Taka, about 8, to participate in a revolving fund. The collective work of the Shastho Shebikas serves as a backbone for all activities and aspects of the Essential Health Care programme. The Shebikas work to improve the health of their communities, and they also gain respect and income as active and knowledgeable community members. The activities of these dedicated health workers reflect BRACs philosophy that health information, activities, and services have immense potential to improve the health of Bangladeshs poor.

The SS and SK work to generate demand for safe water and sanitation facilities through household visits and health education forums on sanitation problems. The SS assists in providing loans to both households and local entrepreneurs for safe water and safe sanitation under the micro-credit system of BDP. The SKs use promotional materials like flip charts, posters, and leaflets to communicate their critical messages. In addition, information is also disseminated through popular theatre, workshops, rallies and campaigns as well as through the orientation of teachers, religious and community leaders. Another feature of this project is the promotion of private sector involvement in service delivery. BRAC provides interest free loans of Taka 10,000-15,000 ( 125 to 188) to local entrepreneurs for manufacturing slab latrines. BRAC Education Programme with WATSAN aspect The Education Programme fulfils BRACs goal of poverty reduction through access to education for those traditionally outside formal schooling. This programme has grown to about 49,000 schools in 2004, accounting for about 11% of the primary school children in Bangladesh. BRAC places a special emphasis on the education of girls and the involvement of families in their childrens school life. The BRAC schools teach the same competencies as the government schools, including the curriculum related to water and sanitation. The importance of maintaining literacy outside the school setting has been addressed with BRACs 878 rural community based libraries (Gonokendras) and 8,811 adolescent girls centre (Kishori Kendras) that give members access to a variety of reading materials which lead to raise awareness level of the readers especially related to safe water and safe sanitation. The Adolescent Development Programme (ADP) trains adolescent BRAC school graduates, both girls and boys, in vocational skills, health awareness including safe water and sanitation and hygiene. BRAC support Programmes with WATSAN aspect Other sections of BRAC, particularly the Training Division, Research and Evaluation (RED), and Monitoring Department provide continuous support that is essential to the success and smooth functioning of BRACs core programmes. The BRAC training division is responsible for capacity building and professional development of BRAC staff and participants in programmes through a wide range of training and exposure initiatives. The Training Division also serves development practitioners working inside and outside Bangladesh. Training courses are grouped into two broad categories: Human Development and Management, and Occupational Skills Development. It may be mentioned here that the respective programmes also conduct their own occupational skills development courses. Water and sanitation related training courses include mainly: Manufacturing slab latrines Safe sanitation management Safe water option management

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Community based safe water option management

The Research and Evaluation Division (RED) RED provides research support to BRAC programmes. RED conducts multidisciplinary studies related to poverty alleviation, health including water and sanitation, socio-economic development, agriculture, nutrition, population, education, environment, gender, and related fields. The BRAC Monitoring Department The BRAC Monitoring Department was established in the early 80s. Continuous monitoring helps the ongoing programmes maintain the right direction. The role of the monitoring department is to provide feedback through a group of professional experts to managers at different levels, which assists them in taking appropriate corrective actions. In monitoring the BRAC water and sanitation activities, some indicators used by the Department are: Number of households covered under safe sanitation and safe water Effectiveness of different safe water options Awareness level of the community level Number and volume of loans to the community people under sanitation programme. Choice of the community people about different safe water options

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Programme objectives

4.1 Programme Goal

To facilitate, in partnership with the Government of Bangladesh and other stakeholders, the attainment of the MDGs related to water, sanitation, and hygiene for all, especially for underprivileged groups, in rural Bangladesh and thereby improve the health situation of the poor and enhance equitable development.

4.2 Specific Objectives

Objective 1: Provide sustainable and integrated WASH services in the rural areas of Bangladesh The project seeks to: Provide hygiene promotion and education through multiple channels (interpersonal communication in household and group settings as well as relevant mass communication) for 37.5 million people in 150 Upazilas: Raise the sanitation coverage to 80% in 150 Upazilas, including at least 50% of the uncovered households below the poverty line, by: o Direct support to 4.5 million poor and hardcore poor households to gain access to adequate sanitation through a mix of loans and well-targeted grants and the creation of a facilitating environment. o Indirectly support 13.1 million people to gain access to adequate sanitation by creating a facilitating and motivating environment. Provide safe water supply in 150 Upazilas by: o Providing 1 million people with safe water through a mix of community-based piped water supply systems, deep tube wells. o Providing 7.5 million people with safe water by repairing water sources that are bacteriological contaminated due a lack of adequate maintenance. Provide safe water and sanitary latrines inputs to all secondary schools in the programme area with a specific focus on the needs of girls, including adolescents. Advocate for and facilitate additional sanitation coverage of the remaining 20% of the population through government projects and funding.

Objective 2: Induce safe hygienic behaviour to break the contamination cycle of unsanitary latrines, contaminated water, and unsafe hygienic behaviour. Implement an awareness campaign at the district leveland support awareness actions at the national level -- and to sustain political support for the project. Implement a social mobilisation campaign at the Upazila and village level to ensure the support of local opinion makers and LGIs.

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Implement a wide-spread, multiple, and participatory hygiene education and hygiene promotion for all people in the selected Upazilas that is gender-sensitive and combines interpersonal and mass communication approaches. Implement a training, education and community outreach activities with all schools in the programme area.

Objective 3: Ensure sustainability and scaling-up WASH services by: Involving all stakeholders at all levels, irrespective of gender and social status and strengthening their capacities to effectively participate in all stages of the project. Facilitating the testing, adaptation and scaling up of innovative water and sanitation technologies by involving all key-stakeholders and institutions. Ensuring effective management that continues beyond the programme period through networks and micro-credit facilities that support communities and households to maintain their WASH services, through continuing hygiene promotion/education, through technical and managerial support to institutions and staff.

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Overall programme concepts and strategies

The overall strategy is centred on hygiene and behavioural change, which is the backbone of the programme. Creating the conditions for behavioural change, and sustaining these new behaviours, will be the focus of the other project components, namely: relevant facilities, community organization, instutional mobilization and capacity development. The micro-strategy, described in detail later, is to stimulate bottom-up participation and planning through purpose-organized WASH committees at the village level whose members represent the entire village (and particularly the poor women), including other committees and other agencies or NGOs that may be active in the village. Thus the project will begin by learning how to reach out beyond the BRAC network. The plans are developed and negotiated at the village, and later aggregated at the Union level with a multi-stakeholder group. These action plans will have a similar core of contents, with variation beyond this for the different villages. The village Shastho Shebika (SS) will be supported by a trained WASH supervisor and the staff of the BRAC local offices throughout. Overall, this is an innovative learning project. It contains a preparation phase of 6 months followed by a start-up period of 1 years. During this initial 2-year period, there will be action research and experimental or comparative trials on issues, for example: the most effective ways to reach the very poorest families with an integrated package, trials/research into varied design/technologies for piped water, improved latrine technology in high water table areas, and certain essential software aspects such as working with union government, integrating water-sanitation-hygiene in the most effective way, community management of piped water, working effectively with other institutions. The targets will be fairly low during the first 2 years, and importantly, some failure in the action research must occur in order to develop a highly effective, large-scale project that is institutionalized. At every point the key activities will be checked/monitored qualitatively as well as quantitatively. It will be important that the results of this are fed back into the project cycle to improve subsequent activities. At the end of the 6month start-up period, among other things: All personnel, who will be activated over the next 1 years, will be in place and trained; Functional links among BRAC departments (community development, education, etc) will be in place; The programme indicators will have been reviewed with some revision; Some action research will have begun; Monitoring of the first processes and outputs, including the initial piped water schemes built before the programme started, will be ongoing and feedback for programme development.

There will be an internal BRAC qualitative review after 1 year, a joint Netherlands-BRAC review at the end of the second year, during which some of the funding may be rephrased or shifted to reflect the lessons learned.

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There are some key themes that persist throughout the programme. The red threads against which its success should be judged, are: Hygiene and behavioural change Integration of hygiene, sanitation, and water Effectiveness of technology Reaching the poor and ultra-poor Gender sensitivity Sustainability

The following sections describe each of these concepts. In each following section, a set of indicators is listed that would be used for internal BRAC checking, supervision and monitoring purposes. These indicators may be refined somewhat within 6 months of the start of the programme, in response to challenges and opportunities that arise with the commencement of work in this new programme.

5.1 Hygiene and behavioural change

Impact of improved hygiene A large and growing body of research shows that consistent hygiene behaviours can have an immense impact on health and well-being. Some findings of this research are: The simple act of washing hands with soap and water can prevent more than one in three cases of the diarrhoeal diseases. Roughly 1,000,000 deaths from diarrhoea a year would have been averted by consistent handwashing.3 Some new research evidence showed that frequent handwashing with soap and water reduced the prevalence of upper respiratory illnesses (mainly colds) by 40%. It is estimated that perhaps 1 in 3 children or more in Bangladesh suffer from helminths infestation. Research shows that children do not learn as well when they have worms. Consistent use of toilets, wearing shoes, covering food and handwashing could prevent much of the worm infestation. Six million people become blind in the world each yeara large proportion could have been averted by consistent face washing. Recent literature has also highlighted that roughly half the bacterial contamination of water comes from unsafe carrying of water from the well, unsafe storage and unsafe dipping/use. Having, maintaining and using a toilet is, in itself, an issue of personal dignity, proving privacy and, particularly for women, a greater measure of safety. It also reduces urinary tract infections as women will drink and eat at more regular intervals during the day. Overall, R. Varley, in recent research, has shown that hygiene promotion increases effectiveness of just providing safe water by about 3 times.

Curtis, Val and Sandy Cairncross. Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review. THE LANCET Infectious Diseases Vol 3 May 2003 http://infection.thelancet.com 275 Varley, R.C.G., Tarvid, J. & Chao D.N.W. 1998. A reassessment of the cost-effectiveness of water and sanitation interventions in projects for controlling childhood diarrhoea. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 76(6):617-631. Margaret A.K. Ryan, Journal of Preventive Medicine. August 2001

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Key behaviours and indicators This project has identified a number of key hygiene behaviours on which it will focus. This list which can also be understood as a set of indicators is still indicative in the sense that it will be refined and, in addition, others may be added depending on the local situation. Key hygiene behaviours and indicators for the programme Latrines All households have their own or a shared sanitary latrine. Use of hygienic latrines by all, irrespective of age. Dispose of infant/child excreta in latrine. Maintain latrines: pit not filled up, no visible faecal matter, and so on. Water for personal cleaning is in or near latrine. Everybody wears sandal in latrines Hand washing, both hands with soap or ash and enough water, is practiced by everybody after defecation and before taking food. Also after cleaning child/baby excreta. Soap (preferably non-abrasive) is available and used for handwashing and personal hygiene in half or more of the poor households. Safe water sources are used for all cooking and drinking. Safe water storage: clean storage pot, cover pot, do not dip fingers in pot. Maintain water source used for drinking/cooking: cement platform, no cracks, pump with closed top, and so on. For piped water, the water quality and quantity produced will meet agreed standards through regular water treatment, maintaining pressure in the pipes to avoid contamination and so on.

Handwashing

Water

The programme will focus on breaking the contamination cycle by inducing behavioural change for all individuals, households, and the entire community. Hygiene is the backbone of the entire programme. Programmes that do not ensure consistent hygienic practices are not sustainability. Hygiene and behavioural change Behaviours are the things people do, that is, their practices. Changing and sustaining behaviours depends, in general, on three things: Attitude (I or we want to do something) Skill (I or we am able to do it) Enabling environment (Persons around me are positive. I have the things needed to do the behaviour. We can afford them. These things work)4 While most people agree about the importance of hygiene practices, there is less agreement about how they should be developed and sustained. Basically, there are 2 schools of thinking about this, called hygiene promotion and hygiene education. What is the difference between these? Promotion is similar to social marketing or convincing people about something. Hygiene promotion begins by dividing the audience into different target groups, for example, fathers in the family, mothers, and pregnant women. Then reasons of acceptors themselves are used to convince people about adopting a new behaviour. For example, reasons for handwashing-for womenmight be: your hands smell lovely and you are a good example for your children. For latrine adoption for men: your women will be healthier and girls will be easier to get married if you have a good latrine. These reasons are developed into messages that are
4

Adapted from John Hubleys Communicating Health. ITP, London. 1990.

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delivered in ways and places that are most acceptable to each target group. For example, for men: through night meetings, at bus stops or markets, by male field workers, religious leaders. In summary, hygiene promotion Leads to behaviours identified beforehand (having latrine or handwashing with soap). Has different target audiences: for men, women, teachers, local leaders. has different messages that appeal to each target audience (not usually health reasons). Is done repeatedly in different places, times, methods (spoken, written, pictures) Is done by different people (field worker, VO leader, religious leader, teacher, and so on).

Hygiene promotion requires social mobilisation and advocacy of opinion makers at all levels. Bangladesh is one of the first countries where hygiene promotion was developed on a large scale, in the late1980s, for the national sanitation campaign. One of the learnings from that time is that it is very important to monitor and to listen carefully to what is really happening in villages and households. and to use that information to improve the sanitation promotion project. While there is overlap, hygiene education is somewhat different from promotion. Education focuses more on understanding the reasons behind something or trying to plan and usually takes place in classes, meetings or home visits. A simple example: handwashing would be explained to show that the soap takes up very small pieces of excreta and small germs from the hands which are washed away with water. Then the small germs and excreta can not get into food or in our mouths to make us sick. Discussion might include solving issues such as what is needed for convenient handwashing, where it can be done most easily, how to protect the soap and so on. In this programme, both promotional and educational approaches will be used. BRAC will take some time at the beginning of the programme to refine its approaches to hygiene promotion and education and to provide training about these. It will carefully and frequently check the results of its promotion and education activities. Monitoring should also be done using participatory tools together with community members, as BRAC has done often in other subject areas. This information will be used to continue to improve the programme, representing an approach to formative programme development in which BRAC has repeatedly demonstrated its skills in the past. BRACs specific hygiene activities Hygiene promotion has been integrated into many of BRAC community based activities, specifically for 5 basic hygiene behaviour messages. Now it will be consolidated and improved. The current structure has these elements: Messages on hygiene are spread through 156,400 village-based micro-credit groups with an average of 35 members each. In total, 5.1 million households participate in BRAC micro-credit programme. There is one Shastho Shebika (Community Health Volunteer) for every 300 households in Bangladesh and one Shastho Kormi for every 3,000 households. Hygiene education is part of daily routine. Hygiene education is part of the curriculum in more than 49,000 schools run by BRAC (and these also have water and sanitation facilities). Communities are mobilised through street theatre, miking, religious leaders. BRAC is member of the National Task Force for Sanitation and of a number of other Task Forces and WATSAN Committees at different levels and is therefore positioned

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to support national advocacy campaigns, although the predominant focus in this programme will be at the village and upazilla levels. This network is functioning independently from the proposed programme; hence, hygiene promotion/education will continue after the end of the programme. The proposed programme will be active on three fronts: community, household and individual. For this, different strategies need to be developed or refined from current work. Please note that hygiene is conceptualized with a strong gender differentiation and that care will be taken to ensure quality in this. For men, much of the emphasis is on decisions to support (time, materials, money) hygiene in the home, and their own roles as family leader, and through this, their own personal behaviour. This includes an emphasis on technology selection and maintenance inputs. Hygiene promotion for men will be consolidated and applied consistently throughout the programme. Having and using soap provides a health advantage. Where there is a problem of availability of low-cost, relatively non-abrasive (for skin) soap, BRAC may consider working with selected Bangladeshi private soap companies. One mechanism for this would be the sale (at low mark-up prices) through BRAC volunteers in areas where such soap is not readily available. One advantage of this is that it would, in some communities, enable direct sale to women who are not always able to make such purchases. It would be preferred that selected Bangladeshi soap manufacturers are selected who would be willing to provide soap at a wholesale price, to reduce the cost to the poor user family.

5.2 WASH: integration of hygiene, sanitation, and water

The second key project theme: hygiene, sanitation and water will be integrated within the programme cycle at the village and programme level. The purpose of this is to take advantage of synergies. For example, in many communities, hygiene is easier to promote before the water supply construction or repair is completed. Integration also reduces total costs as some resources and personnel can be shared. Lastly, and most importantly, the impact is greater... water, sanitation and behaviours when brought together provide a far greater health advantage than either one separately. Chapter 7 provides the details on phasing and integration of the activities for this.
Examples of synergies in integrated programming Hygiene promotion impacts on sanitation and water by: Improving use and maintenance of latrines at home and in schools. Improving use of water for personal hygiene, thus improve impact of water supply. Improving handling and storage of water. Enhancing cleanliness around the water point. Sanitation component impacts on hygiene and water components Sanitation provides the latrine facility for improved hygiene. Sanitation improves water quality, distance to pump to defecation site. Water component impacts on sanitation and hygiene Having sufficient, convenient water improves use of latrines. Must have sufficient water (quantity) at convenient distance for personal and household hygiene. Helps motivate people for hygiene and sanitation.

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Integration of hygiene, sanitation and water: some indicators Coverage At least 50% of the hardcore poor families in 150 upazillas have and use latrines, practice hygiene behaviours (as listed above), drink and cook exclusively with safe water. It is expected that another 50% of the hardcore poor families will receive support from the government's ADP block grant for sanitation. Raise the sanitation coverage to 80% in 150 Upazilas, including at least 50% of the uncovered households below the poverty line. It is expected that the additional 20% will be covered by the GoB and other stakeholders. In all 30,000 villages, implement the sanitation project, hygiene education/promotion related to both water and sanitation and, to the extent possible, at least one of the water activities. Continue (and if needed adapt) ongoing hygiene promotion and education activities for teachers, parents, and school committees through BRAC school programmes and expand these programmes so as to cover all schools in the programme area. Strengthen Public Private and Community Partnership (PPCP) with national soap producers to make low cost soap available in all schools. A range of technology and design choices for latrines are available, based on demand by women and men. Action research is completed and applied to develop low-cost latrine technologies giving 11 months of use (at least) in flood-prone areas. A range of at least 5 technologies and interventions are available to assure the safe quality and quantity of water needed for hygiene with selection based on need and demand. The technologies/interventions among which a selection will be made are: (1) repair of traditional water sources such as ponds, (2) repair of existing water supplies such as bore-holes/pumps/platforms, (3) implementation of new deep tube wells, and (4) small piped water schemes fed by bore holes, (5) small piped water schemes fed by surface water. Small-scale piped water technologies and designs, with associated management processes are tried out, carefully monitored to assure reliable supply of safe water, with household connections combined with public connections within 50 meters of the household. Socioeconomic participatory mapping will ensure that the poor are served. No more than 50 can be constructed until a complete post-operational assessment after completion is showing positive results. Decision to be taken during joint review at end of year 2.

Technology Sanitation

Water

Piped water

5.2.1 Sanitation
Sanitation means that nobody (including children) in the community defecates in the open and that latrines are properly maintained. For sustainable sanitation, changes in peoples behaviours are needed. Therefore the sanitation component must combine sustained behavioural changes (see section 5.1) together with construction in order to provide a health advantage.

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In the period of January 2002 June 2005, about 980 thousand latrines were installed, a large number within a population of 31 millions served by BRAC. However, it was not possible in all locations for a large proportion of the poor and, particularly, the very poorest to construct sanitary latrines. BRAC did achieve 100% household sanitation coverage in one upazila, Shibpur.
The Case of Shibpur: total sanitation Shibpur was a pilot project initiated by BRAC to meet the challenge posed by the Government of Bangladesh, of meeting 100% sanitation. Shibpur upazila consists of 9 unions, 203 villages and 56,782 households. When BRAC initially started its work at Shibpur, 50.19% of the households in that area actually had proper sanitation facilities; 46.4% of the households had no latrines and 3.4% of the households used unhygienic latrines. BRAC started its work at Shibpur in 2003 and during April 2005 BRAC achieved meeting its target of providing 100% in that area. Lessons Learnt: Seventy per cent of the households can install and use sanitary latrines by themselves if the message regarding safe water and proper sanitation use is disseminated to them properly. Support and cooperation between the government and local authorities is needed for this kind of project to be implemented. The sanitation materials should be accessible to the community people and teaching children at primary schools have been proven to be effective in spreading the word about good hygiene and having proper sanitation facilities.

The programme will return to Shibpur to continue monitoring the results of the pilot to see if 100% coverage continues and whether latrines are used and maintained as intended, with related handwashing behaviours such as handwashing. In the past, only one latrine technology has been available. This will be changed to a range of options which are: (1) pit latrine with slab in areas where the soil is stable, (2) single pit latrine with rings, (3) single pit off-set latrine to enable another pit to be added as needed, (4) double pit with junction box and rings, (5) design will be made available for double pit latrine with attached bathing area and pucca superstructure. Latrine coverage It has been estimated that it would take 10 years, given current government subsidies, to cover all of the poorest households in an upazilla. Furthermore, for the very poorest families, management and technical support are needed, in addition to motivation something which BRAC is well-placed to provide. For this reason, a subsidy of Tk 1,000 will be provided together with software support to enable the very poorest families to have, maintain and use a sanitary latrine. The target is 50% of the very poorest families, estimated, on the average to be about 5,000 families per upazilla, on the assumption that GOB will provide a subsidy for the remainder during this project period.. Current surveys will be used, and supplemented with local participatory project surveys to arrive at the exact number for each upazilla. Latrine technology A review will be undertaken of leaching speed, efficiency of leaching (and possibly of crosspollution using test wells) from latrine pits built according to the current model. Many other designs of rings, costing no more, can be produced if the research indicates potential problems. There is currently in the world no technology/design of latrine affordable for very poor people living in high water-table areas that experience annual flooding. What in fact happens now is that the pit latrines flood contents above the ground level for one to four months a year. The latrine can not then be used and it becomes a health hazard. Technical options may range from simple interventions such as ensuring that the depth of pit content remains fairly low up through more complex options such as attempting to develop truly low-cost eco

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sanitation/composting latrines. This is an important subject for study which will be undertaken perhaps together with other organizations such as NGO-Forum (which has an interest in the subject) or ICDDR-B. The results of this research, if successful, will be useful internationally for poor populations living in coastal areas. Environmental Sanitation In addition to the latrine installation activities the WASH Programme would address the broader "Environmental Sanitation" aspects, which include proper solid and liquid waste disposal and general improvement of the rural environment. The programme support will be in the form of promotion and education to motivate the communities to undertake environmental sanitation improvement activities. Special attention will be given to safe desludging of pit latrines and safe disposal of water from tubewell or tap platforms.

5.2.2 Water
The water component of the project aims to ensure water of adequate quality and sufficient quantity together with the practices needed to maintain and use the water effectively. The behaviours include handwashing, safe transport and water storage but also practices such as maintaining handpump platforms, drainage and repair. A range of technologies and interventions will be implemented, depending on the need and demand. The options are: (1) renovation of traditional water sources such as ponds, (2) renovation of existing water supplies such as bore-holes/pumps/platforms, (3) implementation of new deep tube wells, (4) small piped water schemes fed by bore holes, (5) small piped water schemes fed by surface water.

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Quantity of water: repair of traditional water sources Research shows that increasing the quantity of water used provides a health advantage. This is because households are cleaner, surfaces are washed, more water is used for personal hygiene. In addition, of course, water has multiple uses which were usually not considered in the usual interventions of the past decades. Thus improved water services are often used for household gardens and for small-scale production. Bangladesh has a great number of traditional water sources usually ponds or tanks that have been gradually abandoned in favour of tube wells, much to the dismay of many citizens and environmentalists alike. Thus one of the range of water interventions will be to increase the quantity of water available through the renovation and cleaning of traditional water sources with community effort and some small materials input (such as sheeting or small amounts of cement). It is common to split sources and this water is to be used for purposes other than drinking/cooking. This is a low-cost intervention whose major inputs are the labour needed for mobilizing people. NOTE: The project will check these several times after completion to identify the specific results and benefits, as well as community reaction. Bacterial quality of water Safe water is water that does not negatively affect health. For human consumption this means that the water has to be free from chemical (arsenic, salt, fluoride, nitrates) and bacteriological contamination. In fact, the great public and international concern that has surrounded arsenic contamination tends to have disguised the fact that more people become ill as a result of bacterial contamination. Two interventions are helpful to combat bacterial contamination from wells that are in use and can provide good quality water (free from arsenic). One is the careful transport, storage and handling of water meant for human consumption. The second intervention is the repair and good maintenance of water points. Thus, for minimal financial input, the quality of water can be improved through simple repairs. These include making a platform without cracks, with good drainage, to which the handpump is tightly secured and ensuring drainage. The focus of this effort will largely be on stopping water from draining back into the well from the surface. Other simple repairs can also be made, of course. The intervention may also need some orientation or training. Follow-up checking/monitoring, including some water testing for bacterial contamination, is also needed in this case. Water supply options in arsenic affected areas BRAC has been involved in raising awareness about clean water since the 1980's. After the discovery of arsenic in groundwater, BRAC initiated an arsenic mitigation project and as an initial step tested all 802 tube wells in its field offices and tube wells in Hajiganj upazila of Chandpur district. Twelve per cent of the field office tube wells were found to contain arsenic beyond the permissible levels. In Hajiganj upazila, 93% of the 11,954 tube wells tested positive for arsenic. In 1999, BRAC, in collaboration with UNICEF and DPHE, completed a pilot project on community-based arsenic mitigation in one union of Sonargaon upazila. BRAC so far has distributed 23 PSF, 147 RWH, 207 Bishuddhya filters, 719 Alcan filters, 99 ThreePitcher filters as the different, alternative safe water options. Based on the pilot project that was initiated by BRAC-RED, nine more Upazilas were taken up for arsenic mitigation activities. BRAC monitored the effectiveness of different arsenic mitigation technologies. Dug wells showed potential in the arsenic affected areas but the presence of iron, bacteria, manganese, and also arsenic in many of the dug wells made this option ineffective. The newly introduced household and community-based activated alumina filters (Alcan filter) were found to be technically sound but none of the owners changed media when it was exhausted after two years of use. This media option was not accepted by the villagers because of the cost of the media and presence of excessive amounts of iron. Safi and 3-Pitcher filters also had the

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same problems along with having the reputation of providing water with a distinctive smell that the community members did not approve off. Acceptance of Bishuddhya filters was found to be high among villagers who were living close to river/canal, similarly villagers who were drinking from the provided deep handset tube wells were found to be highly satisfied. Monitoring of the above mentioned options are tedious and community members are reluctant to do it. A breakthrough study carried out by BRAC and WSP found that people return to their contaminated tube wells when alternative, arsenic-free, water sources provide less convenience. Arsenic mitigation through community or household filters have proved difficult to implement and sustain. Piped water supply was found to be a technical option that provides convenience as well safe water. Thus the preferred technologies for combating arsenic contamination are: deepening existing tubewells (to 50 meters depth or beyond), construction of new deep tube wells and piped water supply. The first two are commonly being implemented in Bangladesh at this time. In this project, deep tube wells will be provided for a cluster of 40 households and lowered tube wells will be used by a cluster of 5 households. Community managed water supply A third technology that can deal with the problem of chemical pollution is piped water supply fed from surface or tubewells. A study conducted by BRAC with WSP showed that people are willing to pay for piped water supply. Indeed, the demand for piped water is growing rapidly throughout rural Asia, including Bangladeshas happened 20 years ago in South America where community-managed piped water is common. One advantage is that household connections provide a substantial health advantage. The classic research by Stephen Esrey showed that household connections are about 4 times more effective in reducing diarrhoea than public water points. Other advantages include convenience for women and children if the piped systems functions as intended. If constructed with foresight, the systems can also be extended to more households over time. Balanced against these substantial benefits are some major challenges. A piped water supply is different from other alternative options, as it needs larger capital investments, efficient management and skilled work force for operation and maintenance. Piped systems are three to four times more expensive to construct per person served. They are also more expensive to operate. Therefore the public is usually expected to pay more, as will be the case in this project where a 30% capital cost recovery is expected. Tariff setting is difficult to do rationally. For example, tariffs based on number of people in a household often hurt poor families; tariffs without water meters miss people who abuse the system by using it for commercial purposes. Piped water can add to inequality. Household connections tend to be taken by richer families. When poor families use public water standposts, then they might as well have had a less costly deep tube well which would give roughly the same service. Piped connections using motorized or electric power can be unreliable. Treatment (which should use the simplest and most reliable technology available) from surface sources can be unreliable and needs recurrent expenditures. Stopping leakage is a very great problem where there are house connectionsand ground pipe leakage is common requiring extra monitoring. One result of the leakage problem is that managers of piped water systems often reduce the number of hours of water availability and therefore undercut many of the advantages of the systems requiring storage of water in the household little different from point sources. If the pipes are allowed to run dry as often happens, then reverse osmosis can lead to contamination of water. The temptation for the public to misuse the system is great. Illegal house connections and illegal use of the system (for example by irrigating crops) is frequent and requires special care. In short, if the piped water system is not managed carefully, it provides few benefits and can become dangerous.

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From this, it can be concluded that rural piped water will be developed on an experimental basis initially for up to 50 village schemes, with very careful monitoring, before a decision can be taken to continue. Close social and physical monitoring should begin at once of the 8 existing piped water schemes some of which have recently been completed and others of which are being implemented. Lessons learned from these should be used in the systems to be developed under this programme. The smallest geographical unit for the piped water system will be a village and the average feasible number of households in a village for such a system is around 350. At the operational level a local water management committee will be formed in each village and the villagers will play a key role in selecting the members of the committee. An MOU will be signed between the community and BRAC, and between all the individual households and BRAC. The communities will be required to make a 10% up-front contribution before the start of the project and repay another 20% to the project through their monthly water bills. To allow for cross-subsidies, three different service levels will be offered to community members: One or several house connections: monthly user fees will cross subsidise the monthly user charges of hardcore poor households. A single yard connection: monthly user fees will cross subsidise the monthly user charges of hardcore poor households. Shared stand posts; the hardcore poor will receive a subsidy through a so-called water scholarship that will be opened in their name. They will be required to pay the full monthly user fee but part of this fee will be paid through their water scholarship to emphasise that one needs to pay for safe water supply. The monthly water bills will cover; repayment of the community contribution; O&M; and depreciation. The capacity of the communities will be developed to carry out the day-to-day O&M and small repairs. Larger repairs will be carried with the logistic support from BRAC and DPHE.
Lessons learned Adequate time is required for social mobilization, awareness raising, and reaching a community consensus on selecting, installing, and distributing the safe water options for the affected communities. Socially acceptable and culturally adaptable alternative safe water options are easier to implement, and cost sharing is also possible. Though community contribution is important for sustainability of these options but flexibility of contribution money should be considered for implementing options among the rural poor especially arsenicoses patients.

To the extent possible (and this will be monitored), all project communities will receive an integrated package of safe water, in sufficient quantity, after mobilization for sanitation and hygiene promotion/education are well advanced. In terms of outputs, sanitation, water and hygiene should go together. BRAC will reach more than 8.5 millions who currently suffer water problems. Approximately 1 million people will be provided with safe water from new sources (DTW and piped water supply). Continuation of small piped water scheme implementation depends on results of monitoring and the 2nd year review. Research5 has shown that 29% of the arsenic-free water sources are bacteriological contaminated due to lack of adequate maintenance. The programme will provide and estimate 7.5 million people with safe water by repairing these water sources. Arsenic Policy Support Unit and ITN Bangladesh 2004: Risk Assessment of Arsenic Mitigation Options
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5.3 Gender
BRAC, from the very beginning, has brought an exceptionally strong and long dedication to improving the lives and position of women. Women in Bangladesh are extremely disadvantaged in terms of measurements of human development. Their low status in society is due to their social position, lack of empowerment and lack of access to economic and informational resources. BRAC implements three major programmes, which are especially geared towards women: Rural Development, Non Formal Primary Education, Health and Nutrition. 95% of the members in BRACs programmes are women and 70% of the children in BRAC schools are girls. BRAC recognizes the fact that although it may appear that men and women work under the same conditions, unequal power structures contribute in hindering womens full participation and establishing a gender egalitarian work environment. BRAC will provide hygiene education to at least one woman in each household in order to ensure hygiene practices by the household members. Hygiene and sanitation, to be effective and gender-sensitive must also target men. Thus BRAC will provide hygiene promotion/education to different ways, channels and messages appropriate to men for approximately one man from each household. Women usually gain substantial benefits from an effective and integrated water, hygiene and sanitation project. Latrines help them tremendously, in terms of health, safety, privacy, dignity and convenience. Women who are pregnant, who are menstruating, who do not want to restrict their food and liquid intake during the day they must all have hygienic, private toilets. Well-located water points reduce their burden. Hygiene promotion and education not only improve the health of women, but as gate-keepers of the lives of their families, promotion/education for women improve the health of their children and husbands. For BRAC, this programme also focuses on empowerment. What is the empowerment of women? How can this programme work to empower women? Some of the methods of BRAC which will prevail in this programme are: Focus on women in all situations: from individual to household, households to groups, groups to community, community to networks. Thus there must be institutional and household actions to create conditions for empowerment. Improve the womens access to information Have frequent contact. The health SS needs to go to womens home often Help women become more responsive. Help them improve their skills in talking, deciding, recognizing their own needs and ideas. BRAC staff must be sensitive to gender related issues within BRAC as well as the poor women living in the villages. Form groups that, with support, become self-managing. Link the groups. Help the women in the WASH group link to the other groups in the village. Help women show their presence in groups. They need to express themselves and be heard in public meetings. Women must sit together with local government and participate. Ensure that when decisions are being made about this programme, that women either make the decisions, or have voice and choice in them. Use techniques that help this, such as first working with women and men in separate groups, and then coming together for feedback. Provide orientation and training. Women should have clear and known roles such as the WASH-SS women or as monitors. Improve the womens opportunities for income, where possible.

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Gender: indicators Within 6 months after the start of the programme, BRAC will revise the following list of indicators and use the revised list for internal checking, supervision and external reporting. At least 4 out of 5 households have toilets located Benefits continue conveniently for use and affording sufficient privacy. Water sources for drinking, cooking, domestic use and perhaps other uses are located within 50 meters or less. Household connections are be made available for very poor families under special circumstances (e.g. with a disabled child? Female-headed with no adult male at home?). Women users decide on the location of water points, given Programme inputs technical guidance by the programme. Women have an equal voice with men on the selection of technology. For piped water, women decide on the timing of flow. A detailed hygiene education/promotion project is designed and carried out for men and another for women. At least one woman and one man in each household are involved in hygiene promotion/education. Womens groups audit, and possible sign, the books for piped water schemes. Women have a specified role in tendering processes, group purchases and physical auditing. Girls and boys in schools share equally in all tasks for fetching water and cleaning sanitation and water facilities. Separate toilets are provided for girls and boys with water nearby. Toilets will be clean and kept open during school hours. WASH committees have 50% number of women, who will be helped, where needed to Where possible, the programme has a positive impact on Income/employment income for women, for example in the sale of soap. BRAC will pro-actively attract women for mid and high level Other management positions in the programme team.

5.4 Reaching the poor

BRAC works with people whose lives are dominated by extreme poverty, illiteracy, disease and other handicaps. BRAC looks at poverty from a holistic viewpoint. Poverty has to be viewed not only in terms of insufficient income but also as a complex syndrome that manifests itself in many different forms. Therefore, BRACs interventions comprise a range of programmes. Secondly, BRAC believes that poverty cannot be eradicated without the reconstruction of gender role in the society. Empowerment of women is thus a precondition for sustainable poverty alleviation. However, even within the BRAC framework as well as in other organizations in Bangladesh-it has proven very difficult to reach the so-called hardcore poor. These people, who constitute on the average, about 1 in 5 families, are extremely poor, with little or no land ownership, with little or no disposable income, with insufficient food or resources to live lives of even simple comfort. They often are part of the invisible society in the village. To address this problem, BRAC has embarked on the Specially Targeted Ultra-Poor (STUP) programme and Public Private Partnership (PPP) project, which, using participatory and consultative processes as

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well as financial support is working to reach and empower the poorest of the poor in the community. For the present programme, special strategies will be put in place to reach all poor and hardcore poor in the community. This strategy relates to macro and micro levels that include selection of geographic areas and target audience, special programme and financial strategies. These are described on the following pages.

5.4.1 Target Upazilas and their selection

Upazilas The target groups of the programme are the whole community with special emphasis on poor and hardcore poor households in 150 Upazilas that do not have access to safe water supply and sanitary latrines. Secondly, the final selection will be harmonised with the ongoing projects from the government and projects supported by DANIDA and the World Bank. For the selection of Upazilas that will be covered by the programme the following criteria will be used: Low income levels and economic development and high percentage of population living below the poverty line. Sanitation coverage below 50%. High incidence of arsenic contamination of existing water sources (Upazilas and villages). Technical and economic feasibility of providing safe water within the framework of the programme (villages). Willingness to collaborate with BRAC during the planning and implementation of safe water supply systems and willingness to pay for the provided services (villages). Presence of BRAC network and scope to collaborate with local line departments of the government.

5.4.2 Programme strategies

To ensure that the poor and the hardcore poor benefit from the programme, two broad categories of strategies have been devised: General strategies followed by BRAC towards the alleviation of poverty. Programme specific strategies to maintain a focus on the poor and hardcore poor BRAC framework The proposed programme will be implemented within the framework of the existing programmes. For instance, hygiene education is already imparted to the poor through the BRACs health programme, micro-credit programme, and education programmes and so on. Furthermore, the poor will be able to avail of a loan to construct sanitary latrines through BRACs micro-credit programme. The WASH committees that will be established in all villages in the programme area. BRAC will be the platform for the poor to participate in programme activities and thereby ensure that they will fully benefit from it. It is linked to BRACs Village Organisations (VO) which are set up to strengthen the capacity of the poor for sustainable development and enable the poor to participate in the national development process. For instance, the WASH organisations will play an important role in hygiene education, identification of the poor and hardcore poor, the planning of the piped water supply, and so on.

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BRAC will actively support representatives of all groupsmen and women, poor and welloffand committees to be part of the village WASH committee. Strategies specific to this programme Within the programme the following strategies have been designed to ensure that a clear focus on the poor and hardcore poor is maintained. Selection of the extremely poor families. Specific support measuresa loan from a revolving fund and a granthave been included in the programme to ensure the poor and the hardcore poor access will be able to construct a sanitary latrine. The total sanitation strategy will create inter-community pressure to construct sanitary latrines and adapt hygienic behaviour. The better-off groups within the communities are expected to play an advocating role. The village WASH committees will have representatives of all income groups within the communities. The use of well-designed PRA-methodologies will ensure that all these groups will be able to participate in a meaningful manner in the decision making and planning process. The monthly water user charges of the poor and hardcore poor will be crosssubsidised through the monthly user charges for better-off groups in the villages.
Noor Banu hails from Sundargonj upazila of Gaibandha district. She was married to Abdul Baten of Rajarhat from Kurigram. Abdul Baten was born in a poor family of Kauwadoba village. He was married at the age of 20. From the very beginning his life was shrouded with constant poverty. He lost one of his eyes in an accident while husking paddy even before he got married to Noor Banu. His state of poverty aggravated day by day. With no other scope of employment he turned himself into a house aid to run his family. His misfortune intensified when one day he broke his limb as he slipped while working. He underwent the treatment by a kabiraj (uneducated village doctor).

Selection criteria of hardcore poor Socio-economic mapping or equivalent participatory activities will be carried out to identify, with the community, the extremely poor families in the programme. This will be crosschecked, for example, by home visits. Mapping (or its equivalent) can be a useful way to ensure that each family has access to hygiene, sanitation or sanitation promotion and safe water. The selection of hardcore poor households for additional support or cross-subsidizing will be based on the criteria defined by the GoB, which if needed will be refined according to local circumstances6: Landless households. Pavement dwellers or homeless households. The main earning person or the head of the household is a day labourer, owning less than 50 decimal of agricultural land or residing in a rented premise less than 200 square feet, and having no fixed source of income. Households headed by disable person, woman, or elderly person (65 +).

Source : National Sanitation Strategy. February 2005. Local Government Division; Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives; Government of Bangladesh.

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Reaching the poor: some indicators Within 6 months after the start of the programme, BRAC will revise the following list of indicators and use the revised list for internal checking, supervision and external reporting. Selection criteria will be followed. Upazilas Poor families Poor families selected for loans will meet criteria and will include BRAC and non-BRAC families. Extremely poor (hardcore) families will meet criteria and this will be checked by mapping or other means that includes village participation. Programmes for the hardcore poor will be developed initially on an action-research basis and may be changed or improved subsequently. Financial transactions (cross-subsidies, loans, etc) will be conducted according to BRAC programme rules.

Finance

5.4.3 Cost Recovery, subsidies, cross-subsidies, revolving funds

The beneficiaries of the WASH Programme will be required to make a financial contribution to the services for water component. The programme will follow policy guidelines of the GoB wherever possible. Sanitation In line with the policies of the GoB, the proposed programme has allocated financial support for hardcore poor families to install slab latrines. Each of these hardcore poor families will receive a sum of Tk. 1,000. The remaining sum, approximately Tk. 500, will be contributed by these families in the form of labour and other related costs. Additionally, poor families will be supported through a loan from a revolving fund that will be established from combined funds from the programme and BRACs micro-credit programme. Deep Tubewells Guidelines of the Government of Bangladesh state that user groups of DTWs are required to make a contribution of 25% of the total construction costs and bear the total costs of O&M7. The proposed programme requires individual households to make a total contribution of 30%. The user groups, with a typical average size of 10 families, will be asked to make an up-front contribution of 10% of the total investment costs. BRAC will provide the user groups with a loan to cover the remaining 20% of the users contribution. Through a monthly user fee, the users of the deep tube wells will: Repay the loan in a period of 5 years against a subsidised interest rate of 10% or possibly less. Cover operation and maintenance costs, which are estimated to be around 10% of the total investment costs per annum. Reserve funds for a complete renewal of the piped water supply system. The life span of the system is expected to be around 15 years.

Source: Shirin Biswas and Marieke Adank 2004. Cost Recovery and Financing of Rural Water Supply in Bangladesh. A Case Study. National Resource Centre. NGO Forum.

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Community Managed Piped Water Supply The GoB has not yet issued clear guidelines for the users contribution to the investment costs of village-based piped water supply schemes. However, the GoB has stated that users should contribute 20% of the investment costs for deep hand tube wells and other technologies for difficult areas. Within the framework of a World Bank project, the communities need to make a total contribution of 50% of the total investment costs. However, the World Bank is experiencing problems to find partners for this project as the partners need to pre-finance the community contribution and this is apparently perceived as too risky by most stakeholders in the sector. Calculations of the monthly user fee by BRAC indicate that a required contribution of 50% will result in a monthly user fee that is beyond the ability to pay of the hardcore poor. This finding is further substantiated by the fact that in India communities are required to make a contribution of 10% of the total investment costs. Considering these arguments, the community contribution to the initial investment costs has been put at 30%. This is similar to the contribution for a deep tube well. The communities will be required to make an up-front contribution of 10% and pay a monthly water user fee to: Repay the loan in a period of 5 years against a subsidised interest rate of 10%. Cover operation and maintenance costs, which are estimated to be around 10% of the total investment costs per annum. To ensure that the poor and the hardcore poor are able to pay for the monthly water user charge, their monthly user fees will be cross-subsidised through the user fees of middle and high income groups in the communities. For this purpose, three different services levels will be introduced8: Shared stand post for small cluster for poor and hardcore poor families. These families will pay a minimal user fee between Tk. 10 and Tk. 50 per month. Individual yard connection for middle-class families. These families will pay a user fee of Tk. 150 Tk. 175 per month, part of this user fee will be used to cross-subsidise the monthly water bill of the poor and hardcore poor families. Individual and multiple house connections for better-off families. These families will be a monthly user fee of around Tk. 300, part of this fee will be used to crosssubsidise the monthly water bill of the poor and hardcore poor families. Other water activities The cost of renovating ponds and existing water facilities will require labour from community members. Inputs from BRAC will relate to supplies, mobilization and some technical advise if needed.

5.4.4 Revolving Funds at the Upazila Level

Within the programme two types of revolving funds will be created: A revolving fund to support micro-enterprise to start the production of slabs and rings needed for the construction of slab latrines. A revolving fund to support poor families to installation of slab latrines.

Figures mentioned in this section are estimates for average village and are not indexed for inflation.

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Revolving fund for micro-enterprise development Presently, around 4,200 private producers in Bangladesh are producing parts of latrines, mostly rings and slabs. They are known as Village Sanitation Centres (VSC). Most of these producers are located in rural areas and they are the most preferred provider by the people in the villages9. In the last few years, BRAC has provided interest free loans to local entrepreneurs who produced 350 thousand slab latrines. The programme will continue to promote the private sector involvement in service delivery by providing them with interest-free loans of Taka 10,000 ( 125) to local entrepreneurs for manufacturing slab and rings. The entrepreneurs will be trained and be provided with different types of designs. The fund will be managed through BRACs micro-finance programme, which has extensive experience with loans to micro-entrepreneurs. In 2004, BRAC disbursed 56 thousand loans to support micro-enterprises with a total value of 58 million10. The loans will be repaid in a period of 8 to 12 months through equal monthly instalments. Revolving fund for poor families Poor families will be entitled to get a loan of Tk. 500 (approximately 6) from a second revolving fund to install a slab latrine. The revolving fund will be established with funds from the programme and funds for BRACs micro-finance programme. Similar to the revolving fund for micro-entrepreneurs, the fund will be managed through BRACs micro-finance programme. In 2004, BRACs micro-finance programme reached 4.86 million households who are organised through 142 thousand village groups. In that year, the project disbursed 368 million to 3.99 million borrowers11. At the end of the programme, both revolving funds (revolving capital for production of slab rings and loan provision to poor families)with a total value of Tk. 99.59 million ( 1.24 million)will be used to establish a revolving fund in each Upazila for poor and hardcore poor families for the maintenance and upgrading of their sanitary latrine. This fund will be managed by BRACs micro-finance programme.

5.5 Sustainability
Sustainability and Quality versus Counting Systems Success of the project will be judged on the quality as well as the quantity of the work. A community cannot be said to have sustainable access, if the safe drinking water supply only works for a few hours a day or only in the rainy season. In the case of sanitation, latrines must be accessible and people must want to use them. Soap and water must be available at the latrine and people should know why it is important that they wash their hands. Sanitation and hygiene need to be addressed at the community level as unhygienic behaviour by some can contaminate water sources of all. Hygiene education aimed at behaviour change has become as important as hardware. When it is not emphasized sufficiently,, there is a real risk that investment will bring short term gain, Source : Dr. Avizit Reaz Quazi and Azahar Ali Pramanik 2004: The Sanitation Movement in Bangladesh and the Private Sector. IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and NGO Forum. 10 Source : BRAC 2004. BRAC Annual Report 2004 11 Source : ibidem
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but long term disappointment and frustration. Participatory approaches for hygiene education and planning for sanitation and water related interventions have proven successful in many cases. However, scaling-up of good practices remains a major challenge. BRAC will consider the project to be a success only if water, sanitation and hygiene services are sustainable beyond the duration of the project. New committees which are planned in communities, the integration and bottom-up planning must be developed carefully and therefore sustainability will require lower targets initially, supervision/monitoring throughout and after construction. To assure sustainability the following measures will be undertaken: BRACs regular hygiene education activitiesthrough the ongoing health, education, and micro-credit programmeswill continue after the end of the programme. Monitoring and checking by community members and by BRAC will continue after the construction period to ensure that for latrine coverage and use remains at the same levels, that piped water supply service continuing at the same level with cost recovery, continued maintenance of traditional water sources, and, if possible, selected hygiene behaviours. Results of the checking and monitoring will be fed back into the project. This may mean that issues such as construction of new latrines or pits will need to be worked on. As mentioned earlier, revolving funds for maintenance and upgrading of sanitary facilities will be established in each Upazila. These funds will be managed by the micro-credit programme of BRAC. The capacity of local WASH committees, local government officials, village committees, and so on will be built as part of the programme. These support of people, who work at the intermediate level, is essential for sustainability of the water and sanitation services. The implementation of the piped water supply schemes is being financed by loans from BRACamounting to a total of Tk. 30 Crore ( 3.75 million). The repayment period for the piped water supply schemes is estimated to be between 5 and 7 years. During this period BRAC will be in touch with the communities to monitor the quality of the services.: BRAC involvement in the development of poor communities in rural areas is longterm and is based on long-term strategies and processes. A process approach is considered to be necessary to guarantee the sustainability of the water and sanitation services.

Provision of services should not violate the environmental sustainability of the entire ecosystem. Environmental sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainability: indicators Gradual phasing Supervision, checking, monitoring Sustained services To help build toward sustainability, the programme will start with lower targets and achievements, gradually increasing. To help build toward sustainability, there will be internal checking/supervision throughout, including continued monitoring after construction of latrines and water facilities. Hygiene promotion will continue through BRACs regular programme after the end of the programme. Its water schemes will continue operating with a high degree of service, also for the poor and extremely poor.

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5.6 Collaboration and participation

At the national level, coordination will mainly be done through the National Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, which is formed by the Local Government Division under the Ministry of LGRD&C and consists of members from GOB, donor and NGO sector (including BRAC). The other coordination channel is the LCG Sub Group for Water and Sanitation where the government agencies and the main donors and NGOs working in the sector participate to exchange views and coordinate in an informal way. At the national level the programme will give emphasis to learn lessons from other initiatives and disseminate the programme progress and key findings. At the district levels BRAC participates in the monthly district development and coordination committee meetings which are organized by the district administrative head (Deputy Commissioner) and includes participation by the major NGOs. The project objectives and progress will be shared with the other development partners to optimize and to resolve and any difficulties. BRAC also participates in the Upazila development and coordination meetings and would similarly discuss the project issues. The Upazila level coordination is vital for the project as from this level the support from the government agencies located in the Upazila headquarters and its outreach offices can be organized. The support of the government machineries is essential for success of the project, especially for the sanitation and hygiene promotion work. At this level it would be ensured that there is no duplication of works in the upazila with the government's and other NGOs project and that there is synergy with the programme. The main functional coordination will be done at the Union Parishad (UP) level which is the lowest tier of the local government. BRAC will actively participate in the Union's WATSAN Committee and actively support its activities, as well as ensuring that sufficient attention is given to hygiene promotion and education aspects. It is expected that the UPs will play an important role in facilitating the project planning and implementation. Training will be arranged by the programme so that the UP members and other key personnel at the Union level develop the required capacity. Bottom-up management: local planning At the village level, BRAC will set up a new committee for sanitation, hygiene and water. This WASH committee will be composed of people who represent all sections and other groups in the village, particularly poor families and groups linked to other institutions and other NGOs, to ensure coordination and to ensure that the benefits of the programme are accessible to all community members. In particular, all community members will, through one channel or another, receive hygiene promotion/education to varying degrees of intensity. Participatory planning will take place, with the committees planning for a core of common activities but also formulating plans for activities that reflect their own situation and their own assessment. The community schemes prepared with the village WASH committee will be formally endorsed by it. BRAC will develop effective means for establishing committees that are pre-poor yet represent key groups in the community. It will also ensure that simple rules are understood, and followed for adding or dropping committee members (for example, if someone does not attend 3 meeting in a row, they may be replaced) as well as rules that enable a committee to be disbanded if it is not functioning. Transparent and open decision-making will also need to be ensured, particularly where this involves provision of subsidies or cross-subsidies to the hard-core poor. In communities where there is a piped water system, it is preferred to have one committee, handing water, sanitation and hygiene to ensue integration. This will be tried out. In view of the difficulty in setting up and sustaining new committee, progress will be reviewed after 6 months and again after one year, with the option of modifying the plan. For example, in some communities, it may be as effective but easier to work through an existing

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committee. The UPs together with BRAC staff will guide the programme in setting priorities and mobilizing the village committees. Piped water Community managed supply models for water have emerged as one of the most successful models to deliver safe water to the communities. The strongest advantages of community managed supply are flexibility and suitability. At the heart of community managed water supply is control that is the ability to make strategic decisions about how a system is designed, implemented, and managed. Participatory approaches towards planning, implementation, and O&M provide for the needed space for communities to gain control over the governance of the water, sanitation, and hygiene services. To ensure control by the communities for piped water schemes, implementation cycles will be designed in such a way that they provide sufficient room for participatory planning, conflict resolution, capacity building, and so on. Well-designed and tested participatory methodologies are needed for monitoring, community action planning and behavioural change. The programme will make use of BRACs existing capacity in this field and will need to adapt and test other existing methodologies for the programme. The programme will harmonize with the development project of the Bangladesh Government and other donors and NGOs. The harmonization would be done at various levels - from the national government and local government levels to the field levels. Collaboration within BRAC Professionals of other departments such as the Development Project and local/regional offices have skills in water implementation and community/committee mobilization that are needed for this programme. Thus, within BRAC, it will be important that formal arrangements are made and implemented to ensure the skills and support of these other departments are used within this programme. Collaboration and participation: some indicators National, District BRAC will be actively involved in the National Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation and monthly district coordination meeting. BRAC will work with the Upazila WATSAN committee to stimulate their leadership in the programme. BRAC will work with the Union WATSAN committee to stimulate their leadership in the programme. WASH committees at the village level will represent/link with groups related to the other institutions in the village, to ensure coordination and to ensure that the benefits of the programme are accessible to all the poor and hardcore poor. The village committees will undertake their own planning based on participatory assessment in their village. BRAC will ensure cooperation of other programme/department personnel in support of this programme at all levels.

Upazila Union Villages

Within BRAC

5.7 Learning and Capacity Building for Scaling-Up

The effectiveness of the programme will be evaluated in terms of the quality and sustainability of the provided services. Capacity building of key-stakeholdersgovernmental, nongovernmental, and communityat all levels is a pre-requisite for long-term sustainability and

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scaling up of successful models. Considerable programme resources are dedicated to capacity building. However, across Bangladesh many innovative hygiene promotion strategies, water and sanitation technologies have been successfully developed and tested. Many of these technologies do not have the perspective to go to scale but remain isolated islands of success as they often require unrealistic investment, skills that are not widely available, and so on. To enhance learning in a meaningful way, space and resources for learning are created within the programme and key-stakeholders at different levels are involved in implementation of programme activities. Monitoring, evaluation, and documentation are integral part of the learning efforts in this programme. The capacity of key-stakeholders at all levels will be strengthened through a series of tailormade training projects and learning-by-doing. For instance: The capacity of BRAC field staff will be build through a series of training projects on hygiene education, sanitation, and so on. Training programmes will be developed to strengthen the capacity of LGI representatives/staff and WATSAN committees. Training courses will be developed for mid and high-level government officials at the BRAC-University and other institutions. Upazila-level workshops will be organised to share the experiences with implementation of piped water supply schemes. Exchange visits for BRAC staff to other organisations such as the Self Employed Womens Association (SEWA) that are involved in community managed water supply, sanitation, and hygiene. Study visit to India to examine community management of piped water and sanitation projects. Visits to examine the work of other institutions in Bangladesh as, for example, outlined in section 2.4.2. An international training programme for key programme staff and other stakeholders in the sector will be developed during the inception phase of the programme. The aim of the programme is to revisit key concepts of the programme; initiate micro-trials, revisit WASH programmes implemented by BRAC and other stakeholders. BRAC has invited IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre to facilitate such programme.

BRAC will undertake a number of action research activities and will try out and compare different approaches to address key issues. These will aim to: Develop optimum village-based planning and committee management Develop and test the strategies for implementing and sustaining community-managed piped water supply Judge the effectiveness and costs of renovation of tradition water supplies (ponds, tanks) Ensure an effective and efficient system for identifying and serving the hardcore poor Have speedy and careful implementation of subsidy and cross-subsidy systems Try to develop more effective, truly low-cost latrine technologies for flood-prone areas. Others as needed. This list illustrates that the programme is taking a learning approach to ensure effective programming and it also builds capacity of those involved. BRAC has invited IRC to provide inputs into the learning process during the initial stages of the programme.

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Learning and Capacity Building: some indicators Capacity building To help ensure sustainability, a wide range of formal capacity building activities will be implemented for BRAC staff, UP and community members, local government and village committees Capacity building will be of good quality reflecting BRACs participatory capacity building and planning styles Action research/trials and comparisons of approaches to a number of as yet not fully known areas such as, for example: WASH committee development, piped and traditional water supplies, identifying and working with the hardcore poor, new financial arrangement, latrine technology in flood prone areas. BRAC will examine and use lessons from other programmes/ projects in Bangladesh and abroad.

Action research/trials

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6 Outputs and Activities

Objective 1: Provide sustainable and integrated WASH services in the rural areas of Bangladesh Under objective 1, the following outputs have been defined: 1.1 All programme villages have active WASH committees and all unions have an active WATSAN Committee 1.2 Individual or shared sanitary latrines for 80% of the population in the programme area. 1.3 Access to safe water supply for drinking and cooking purposes in the most needy villages and Upazillas in the programme area. 1.4 Safe water and sanitary latrines for boys and girls for all secondary schools in the programme area. 1.5 Additional and complementary efforts from the government and other stakeholders to achieve 100% sanitation in the entire programme area. Objective 2: Induce safe hygienic behaviour to break the contamination cycle of unsanitary latrines, contaminated water, and unsafe hygienic behaviour. Under objective 2, the following outputs have been defined: 2.1 Sector wide and sustained support through advocacy campaign at union, Upazila, district and national level for the programme. 2.2 Safe behaviour is practiced by all men and women at the individual, household, and community level 2.3 Safe behaviour is practiced in all schools by all teachers, boys and girls. Objective 3: Scaling-up WASH services and ensure sustainability by: Under objective 3, the following outputs have been defined: 3.1 Effective coordination with stakeholders at all village, union and Upazila levels. 3.2 All stakeholders have the capacity to fully and effectively participate in all stages of the programme and continue sustaining the services. 3.3 BRAC has the capacity to efficiently and effectively implement the programme and disseminate lessons learned to and exchange with other stakeholders. 3.4 Innovative water and sanitation technologies and approaches have been tested and adapted and implemented in the programme area. 3.5 Support network at the national and intermediate level to ensure the sustainability of the programme outputs beyond the programme period.

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6.1 Activities
Objective 1: Provide sustainable and integrated WASH services in the rural areas of Bangladesh Under objective 1, the following outputs have been defined: 1.1 All programme villages have active WASH committees and all unions have an active WATSAN Committee. 1.1.1 Carry out a participatory baseline survey in all villages to assess WASH related needs and collect basic information regarding the community. 1.1.2 Form a WASH committee in each of the villages in the programme area. 1.1.3 Train the WASH committee members on WASH (1 day): Participatory Planning and Implementation (2 days); Leadership Development (3 days). 1.1.4 Actively support poor women and disadvantaged groups to effectively participate in these committees. 1.1.5 Development of village WASH action plan together with the WASH committee. 1.2 Individual or shared sanitary latrines for 80% of the population in the programme area. 1.2.1 Set-up 1,500 rural sanitation centres through local entrepreneurs and support them with training and a loan from a revolving fund. 1.2.2 Provide motivational support to individual households who are constructing a sanitary latrine. 1.2.3 Identify and select half of the hardcore poor families in each Upazila (on average 5,000) and provide them with the materials (rings, slabs, and superstructure) to construct a sanitary latrine. 1.2.4 Provide poor members of BRAC saving groups in each Upazila (on average 1,000) and provide them with a loan and technical support to construct a sanitary latrine. 1.3 Additional and complementary efforts from the government and other stakeholders to achieve 100% sanitation in the entire programme area. 1.3.1 Re-activate if necessary and participate in Upazila WATSAN Committees. 1.3.2 Re-activate if necessary and participate in Union WATSAN Committees. 1.4 Access to safe water supply for drinking and cooking purposes in the most needy villages and Upazillas in the programme area. 1.4.1 Decide on the needed intervention to ensure safe water supply for drinking and cooking purposes in the most needed areas. 1.4.2 Together with the WASH committees upgrade and repair existing water supply systems such as shallow tube-wells. This low-cost interventions will be carried out in all those villages where repair of existing and arsenic free interventions will suffice. 1.4.3 Together with the WASH committees provide clusters of poor and ultra-poor households with arsenic free water through DTW and other technologies. Selection of the villages will be done on a need basis. 1.4.4 Together with the WASH committee implement community managed piped water supply systems in the neediest villages where other safe water options are not feasible. The implementation includes hardware as well as software (for instance gradual handing over, etc.) 1.5 Safe water and sanitary latrines for boys and girls for all schools in the programme area. 1.5.1 Conduct assessment to determine sanitary services in all educational institutions in each of the 150 Upazilas.

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1.5.2 1.5.3 1.5.4

Organise series of training projects and meetings with school management committees and teachers in all schools in the programme area. Repair, upgrade, or construct separate sanitary latrines (with adequate water supply) for boys and girls in all secondary schools. Monitor the maintenance and use of these latrines during the remaining programme period.

Objective 2: Induce safe hygienic behaviour to break the contamination cycle of unsanitary latrines, contaminated water, and unsafe hygienic behaviour. Under objective 2, the following outputs have been defined: 2.1 Safe behaviour is practiced by all men and women at the individual, household, and community level. 2.1.1 Continue (and if needed adapt) ongoing hygiene promotion activities through BRACs existing programmes such as micro-finance, education, and mainstream health programmes. 2.1.2 Continue ongoing and initiate new hygiene promotion projects that are specially designed to reach men and the hard-core poor. 2.1.3 Develop and distribute IEC/BCC materials in all Upazilas. Separate materials and distribution channels will be developed to reach men and women. 2.1.4 Develop and initiate hygiene education/promotion projects to reach men and women, union, school and upazilla levels. 2.1.5 Strengthen Public, Private and Community Partnership (PPCP) with national soap producers to make low cost soap available to the rural poor. 2.2 Safe behaviour is practiced in all schools by all teachers, boys and girls. 2.2.1 Continue (and if needed adapt) ongoing hygiene promotion and education activities through BRAC school programmes and expand these programmes so as to cover all schools in the programme area. 2.2.2 Continue (and if needed adapt) ongoing hygiene promotion and education activities for teachers, parents, and school committees through BRAC Education Programme and expand these programmes so as to cover all schools in the programme area. 2.2.3 Strengthen Public, Private and Community Partnership (PPCP) with national soap producers to make low cost soap available in all schools. Objective 3: Scaling-up WASH services and ensure sustainability by: Under objective 3, the following outputs have been defined: 3.1 Effective coordination with and support of stakeholders at all village, union and Upazila levels and national level through social mobilisation and an advocacy campaign. 3.1.1 Actively participate in the National Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation organized by the Local Government Division. 3.1.2 Actively participate in District and Upazila development coordination meetings organized by the district and upazila administration. 3.1.3 Conduct coordination meetings at the upazila level (UNO and staff from government line agencies) - one meeting in every six months. 3.1.4 Conduct coordination meetings at union level to discuss WASH issues/options. 3.1.5 Organise experience sharing workshops at National level.

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3.2 All stakeholders have the capacity to fully and effectively participate in all stages of the programme and continue sustaining the services. 3.2.1 Facilitate existing WASH related partners/institutions to strengthen and enhance their interventions. 3.2.2 Orientation of school teachers association and School Management Committee in each Upazila. 3.2.3 Orientation of Village Doctors, Imams and Rural Bazaar management committee in each of the 1,500 unions. 3.2.4 Training project for 150 engineers (DPHE) on issues related to piped water supply such as site selection, cost recovery, community involvement, etc. 3.2.5 Orientation of Union Parishad chairmen and members. 3.2.6 Strengthen Public, Private and Community Partnership (PPCP) for ensuring sustainable WASH services. 3.2.7 Networking with LGIs and local CBOs and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). 3.2.8 Organize 15 advocacy workshops at District level. 3.2.9 Organize 150 advocacy workshops at Upazila level. 3.2.10 Organize 1500 advocacy workshops at Union level. 3.3 BRAC has the capacity to efficiently and effectively implement the programme and disseminate lessons learned to and exchange with other stakeholders. 3.3.1 Organise one WASH training programme of 4 to 6 weeks for key programme staff and key staff of government institutions during the inception phase of the programme. 3.3.2 Formation of a WASH trainers team of 50 persons through a ToT project. 3.3.3 Carry out 10 joint action researchesin collaboration with RED, key project staff, and external consultantsin areas such as reaching the hardcore poor; hygiene promotion and education; multiple-use of water; cost-recovery; and so on. Four selected research paper will be presented at international symposia. 3.3.4 Support 5 BRAC staff members to obtain a masters degree and 1 BRAC staff members to obtain a PhD in WASH related fields at a renowned international institute. 3.3.5 Organise exposure trips for key staff members to piped water supply projects, SSHE projects, and hygiene promotion and education project, and so on. 3.3.6 Carry out two joint internal reviews at the end of the first and third year of the programme under the supervision of the director of BRACs Health Department. 3.3.7 Provide WASH training for regional coordinators (one week), Upazila Coordinators (2 weeks), programme organisers (two weeks), programme assistants (one week), community health workers (two days), community health volunteers (two days) and BRAC field staff (one day orientation). 3.3.8 Provide training on accounts operation for 150 Accounts Assistants. 3.4 Innovative water and sanitation technologies and approaches have been tested and adapted and implemented in the programme area. 3.4.1 Test and adapt different water supply technologies through micro-trials during the first three years of the project. 3.4.2 Test and adapt different low-cost sanitation technologies through a series of microtrials during the first two years of the project. 3.4.3 Further develop and test low-cost sanitation technologies for areas with a high water tables. 3.5 Support network at the national and intermediate level to ensure the sustainability of the programme outputs beyond the programme period. 3.5.1 One day WASH orientation for LGIs representatives. 3.5.2 Organise workshops at national, district and upazila levels to disseminate lessons learned and outcomes of the programme.

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7 Programme Planning
The planning and implementation of the programme activities at the village level will be done through micro-cycles. These micro-cycles address the following issues: The development of the village WASH committee where all groups in the village effectively participate in the planning, implementation, and O&M of programme activities. The integration of hygiene, water, and sanitation components at the implementation level. A strategic sequencing of the aforementioned three components. Experiences elsewhere show that improvement of the water supply is the best entry point for a community based WASH activities. This assumption will be tested during the first two years of the programme. A hand-over phase of approximately 6 months has been built in the micro cycle. The purpose of this hand-over phase is to gradually withdraw from the village, monitor the sustainability of behavioural changes and provided services, and if needed take corrective action.

The total duration of a micro-cycle is 3.5 years. An example of a micro-cycle is shown in Annex E. This micro-cycle is designed for a typical village where a community-managed piped water supply scheme will be implemented.

7.1 Programme Planning

The programme starts with an inception phase of about 6 months. This inception phase will be used for: Hiring and deployment of programme staff. Training of staff at all programme levels. An international training programme will be developed for key programme staff and selected stakeholders in the WASH sector in general. Further development of programme procedures and strategies on the basis of the revisiting of earlier WASH programme implemented by BRAC. Initiating of micro-trial and action research in a number of selected areas such as hygiene promotion and education, Multiple Use of Water, and so on. At the end of the inception phase an external auditor will carry out a systems audit to ensure that all financial management systems are suited for the financial management of the programme. At the end of the inception phase (and also at the end of the year 1) BRAC will carry out an internal review of the programme to consolidate lessons learned and further sharpen the indicators that have been defined in this programme document. After this inception phase of 6 months, the programme will gradually start its implementation activities in the selected Upazilas: In month 6, the programme will start in the first phase of 50 selected Upazilas. Activities in these Upazilas will be finalised in month 48 (after 3.5 years).

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In month 12, the programme will start in the second phase 50 selected Upazilas. Activities in these Upazilas will be finalised in month 54 (after 3.5 years). In month 18, the programme will start in the third and final phase of 50 of the selected Upazilas. Activities in these Upazilas will be finalised in month 60 (after 3.5 years).

On the basis of the overall planning, the village micro-plans, and the budget a detailed annual implementation plan will be developed and submitted to the donor.
year 1 Inception phase 50 Upazilas 50 Upazilas 50 Upazilas Internal review System audit External review year 2 year 3 year 4 year 5

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Expected Impacts

8.1 Direct Impacts

Sustainable and equitable access to WASH services The programme will break the contamination cycle in the rural areas of 150 Upazilas in Bangladesh by: Increasing the sanitation coverage in 150 Upazilas in sustainable manner from 33% to 80%. This equals to additional sanitation coverage for 17.6 million people, out of which 4.5 million belong to the poor and hardcore poor. BRAC will coordinate and advocate for the coverage of the remaining 20% by the GoB and other stakeholders. Providing 8.5 million people with sustainable access to safe drinking water that is free of arsenic, and any other contamination. Providing all secondary schools in the 150 selected Upazilas with separate sanitary latrines for girls and boys and access to safe water. Special provisions will be made for adolescent-girls. Implementing a holistic hygiene promotion and education programme, covering 37.5 million people.

Breaking the contamination cycles will make contribute to the attainment of other MDGs: GOAL 1 (target 1 and 2 halve the number of people living in poverty and suffer from hunger): poor families are forced to spend large sums of money on the treatment of water borne diseases and have to forgo their income when they fall sick. By breaking the contamination cycle the incidence of water borne disease will decrease. Women and girls often suffer from UTI-related diseases as they drink too little during the day in the absence of a latrine. GOAL 2 (achieve universal primary education): by providing appropriate sanitary facilities for girls and boys, the drop-out rate for girls will reduce as they will be no longer forced to be absent from school during the menstruation period due12. GOAL 3: (target 4 - Promote gender equality and eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably): (1) women and girls are most affected by sub-standard water and sanitation facilities. For instance, many rape cases take place when women go for open defecation; (2) the programme will actively promote poor women to participate in programme activities and it will build their capacity for that purpose. GOAL 5 (target 6 reduce child mortality by 50%): the health situation will improve through a reduction of the incidence of water-related diseases such as typhoid, worms, diarrhoea, and so on. GOAL 7: (target 9 Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources): Open

12

A fact that is often overlooked that younger girls are often forced to be absent from school for parts of the day as they have to go home to use a latrine.

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defecation and hanging latrines increase the eutrophication of these water bodies and negatively impact on the biological status of thereof. The programme will stop or slow the euthropication process of those local water bodies and eventually improve the environmental quality . Strengthening of capacities to ensure scale up and sustainability of WASH services The institutional WASH framework in Bangladesh will be strengthened at all levels through an extensive series of training and exposure programmes, workshops, and so on for all key stakeholders such as officials from local line departments, community leaders, religious leaders, and so on. The strengthening of the institutional framework will ensure the sustainability of the WASH services that are being provided within the framework of this programme and will enhance the scaling up and replication of similar programmes.

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Programme Management
9.1 Organisational Structure

General Structure The programme will be implemented within the existing BRAC infrastructurehardware and software. As traditionally water and sanitation related programmes have been implemented by BRAC Health Department the proposed programme will be managed and implemented by this Department.

Organisatonal Linkages
Executive Director Deputy Executive Director Operations

Management Support BRAC Health Department Human Resource Development

Project Support Micro Finance Department

BRAC'S WASH PROGRAMME

Procurement Department

Education Department

Accounts Department

Training Department

Audit

Monitoring

Research and Evaluation

Figure 1 : Organisational Linkages For the implementation of the programme, the Health Department will be supported by or collaborate with the following departments within BRAC: Micro Finance Programme: BRACs micro-finance programme reached 4.86 million households through 142 thousand village groups (2004). Hygiene promotion has been incorporated in the regular meetings of the village saving groups. In addition, the Micro Finance programme will manage the proposed revolving funds for Village Sanitation Centres and poor families. Education Programme: BRACs Non-Formal Primary Education Programme has grown to about 49,000 schools (2004) to provide basic education to the children, in particular girls, of poor landless families. BRAC also runs a large number of secondary schools. The curriculum of all BRAC schools includes hygiene promotion. BRAC Training Division (BTD): BTD is responsible for capacity building and professional development of BRAC staff and programme participants. An internal gender sensitivity training programme is part of BTDs curriculum.

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Research and Evaluation Division (RED): provides contents support to BRAC Programmes through action research. RED will use the budget allocated to them for this purpose.

The following department will support the Health Department in the management of the programme: Finance and Accounts Department: This fully independent departments directly reports to BRACs Executive Director is responsible for all financial transaction and accounting. BRAC Finance & Accounts Division has won the World Bank 2004 CGAP Financial Transparency Award. Internal Audit and Monitoring Department. The Internal Audit Department undertakes routine internal audit, investigation, and physical inventories to maintain organisational transparency and accountability. The Monitoring Department is responsible for the progress monitoring of individual programmes and projects. The monitoring department is strongly advised to include indicators to monitor the sustainability of the programme outputs. This department directly reports to BRACs Executive Director. Procurement Department is responsible for all procurement goods and services within BRAC. Human Resources Department (HRD). In collaboration with the concerned programmes and departments, the HRD hires the required staff and supervises their professional development.

All of the above departments have staff in the HQ and the local field offices. The programme has allocated funds to attract accountants in all area offices. However these accountants will report to the FAD in the HQ and not to the area managers or project managers. Structure at the Upazila and Union Level The programme will be implemented at the area level within the existing BRAC infrastructure. As water and sanitation is the integral part of BHP, the programme will be implemented and managed through BRACs extensive existing network of area (Upazila) and union level. At the area (Upazila) level, the programme will be managed and implemented by the Upazila Coordinators who will be supported by 9 programme organisers (water, sanitation, hygiene, and SSHE) and accounts assistants. Programme assistants, who will be closely supervised and monitored by programme organisers, will implement the union and village level activities. Accounts assistants will keep track of accounts for all levels of programme activity. BRAC will involve its existing female health workers and volunteers networks to make significant contributions in this intervention. A reliable and efficient supervision network, similar to other successful models implemented by BRAC such as EHC/BHP, will provide accurate information regarding programme progress and efficacy. Sastho Shebika (community health volunteer) and Sastho Kormi (community health workers) will work at the community level providing the most direct contact with the community members. They will report their activities back to programme assistants who will organize and implement WASH activities at the community level. For the implementation of the programme, the programme will be supported by or collaborate with the existing micro-finance programme. In addition, the micro-finance programme will manage the proposed revolving funds for poor families. Similarly, the existing education programme incorporated hygiene promotion in its curriculum to educate the BRAC schools students.

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PMU

Finance and Accounts Department

Regional WASH coordinator

Accounts Assistant

BRAC Health Programme (SS and SK)

WASH Upazila Coordinator

Accounts Assistant

BRAC Micro Finance Programme

Programme Organiser Water (2), Sanitation (1), Hygiene (5), SSHE (1)

BRAC Education Programme

Programme Assistant (1 per union)

Communities

Figure 2 : Organisational Linkages at Upazilla and community level

9.2

Management Structure13

The programme and will be implemented within the existing BRAC infrastructurehardware and software. As traditionally water and sanitation related programmes have been implemented by BRAC Health Department the proposed programme will be managed and implemented by this Department. Within this Department the Programme Management Unit (PMU) will be responsible and accountable for overall management and coordination of the programme and will directly report to the Director. The Deputy Executive Director Operations will provide overall policy guidelines to support implementation of the programme. The PMU will be headed by the Programme Coordinator who will be supported by three programme managers in the field of hygiene, water, and sanitation. The PMU will be supported by an internal technical support team comprised experts in the field of hygiene promotion and education, gender, MIS, water technology, training, and so on. External technical support will be provided by to the programme by recognised national and international organisation in the field of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. The programme will be implemented and management through BRACs extensive existing network of offices at the district and union level. At the district level, the programme will be managed and implemented by the Regional Coordinators who will be supported by Regional Sector Specialists, Regional Accountants and Upazila Coordinators. The Upazila Coordinators will be based at the Upazila level and will be supported by Programme Organisers, Accounts Assistants and Programme Assistants.

13

For an Organogram refer to Annex A

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BRAC will involve its existing female health volunteers network to strengthen the sanitation and hygiene promotional activities, that will be supported by the community female Shastho Karmis (SK). Qualifications of Key Programme Staff
Position Programme Coordinator Programme Manager (PM), Water Qualification and Experience Masters/MPH/equivalent with at least fifteen years experience in managing and implementing national level public health related programmes/projects in any recognized organization/institution. Masters preferably in Social Science/Water Management or equivalent with at least ten years experience in environment and water management issues in any recognized organization/institution. Experience in community-based water management and implementing piped water projects in rural areas will be considered as an added advantage. Masters/MPH/equivalent with at least ten years experience in public health management in any recognized organization/institution. Experience in communitybased health care management and should have knowledge on sanitation project management in the rural areas. Masters/MPH or equivalent with at least ten years experience in public health management in any recognized organization/institution. or Masters in Social Science/Behavioural Science/MPH with at least ten years experience in community-based health care management with special emphasis on managing BCC/social mobilisation programmes/projects in the rural areas. B.Sc. in Civil Engineering/Water Resource Engineering/equivalent with at least three years experience in pipe water system designing and implementation in any recognized organization/institution. Experience in community-based water management and should have knowledge on water project/safe water options management in the rural areas. Masters in Social science/MPH/Behavioural Science/equivalent with at five years experience in sanitation and public health management in any recognized organization/institution. Experience in community-based health care and sanitation related issues management in the rural areas. Masters in Social science/Development Studies/Gender/equivalent with at least three years experience in gender and/or sanitation and public health management in any recognized organization/institution. Master in Social science/Behavioural Science/other relevant discipline/B.Sc in Civil Engineering with at least five years field level experience in public health management in any recognized organization/institution. or Graduate with at least ten years field level experience in public health programme implementation in any recognized organization/institution. Masters, preferably in Accounting (16 years education) with at least one-year experience in keeping branch/regional level accounts, prepare financial statements and run other financial activities in a systematic and efficient way in any recognized organization/institution. Or Bachelor degree in commerce (14 years education) with at least three years experience in accounts keeping, and run other financial activities in a systematic and efficient way in any recognized organization/institution. Bachelor degree in commerce (14 years education), preferably experienced in keeping branch level accounts, maintenance of book of charts and prepares financial statements and run other financial activities in a systematic and efficient way in any recognized organization/institution. Or Higher Secondary Certificate in commerce (12 years education) with at least three years experience in accounts keeping at branch level in any recognized organization/institution.

Programme Manager (PM), Sanitation Programme Manager (PM), Hygiene

Sector Specialist, Water

Sector Specialist, Training Sector Specialist, Gender Regional Coordinator

Regional Accountant

Accounts Assistant

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In additional, all mid and higher level programme staff will meet the following requirements: Proven ability to manage and implement community-based development programmes. Proven sensitivity and openness towards gender. Experience in working with government, NGOs and development partners. Proven ability to work independently and in challenging circumstances. Comprehensive understanding and knowledge of relevant sectors in the country. Strong administrative and organizational skills. Strong interpersonal skills in communication and leadership qualities. Good oral and written communication skills both in Bangla and in English.

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10 Financial Management and Reporting

BRAC has taken great efforts to ensure organisational and financial transparency and integrity within the organisation and all programmes implemented by BRAC. BRAC is a value driven organization. It strongly believe that values are the formulation on which an organization is based and describes what the organization stands for. Values establish moral and ethical practices, which serve to guide all organizational activities. The organizational principles, standards and qualities are also reflected through its practicing values. BRAC has identified a number of organizational values and it places equal importance on all the values. Followings are the BRAC Values which are known as Codes of Ethics of BRAC: Concern for people, especially the poor; human dignity; belief in human capacity; gender equity; fairness; honesty and integrity; discipline; creativity and innovation; participation; accountability; cost consciousness; team work; openness; sharing information; transparency; professionalism; quality products and services; concern for the environment14 All procedures related to (a) financial management and reporting; (b) internal auditing; (c) procurement; (d) human resource development are based on existing procedure laid down in BRAC Memorandum of the Society and Rules and Regulations; by-laws; and, rules and regulations. Procedures presented in this programme document are a summary thereof. Procedures related to external monitoring and auditing are based on the rules and regulations laid down by the donor organisation.

10.1

Programme Finance

The total programme budget is seized at 58.73 with a total financial contribution required of 52.96 million from the Donor and a contribution of 3.87 million by BRAC and 1.89 million by the local communities. The financial contribution of the donor will be transferred to BRACs programme bank account which is handled by FAD only. As per BRACs guidelines, internal transfer of funds to area offices and other departments of BRAC will originate from this department solely.

14

Source : (Ref. BRAC Strategy 2002-2007)

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Budget Summary
Sl No Major Budget Lines Cost in Bangladesh Taka 205,533,613 489,016,260 977,100,500 909,483,975 221,829,641 1,627,172 105,703,550 1,116,886,433 240,152,095 116,980,627 3,311,438 4,384,313,864 274,620,331 39,231,476 4,698,165,671 151,369,988 309,796,291 4,236,999,392 Cost in Euro

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Establishing the WASH committee Hygiene Promotion Sanitation Water SSHE Capacity building key stakeholders Learning BRAC Human Resources (Salary and Benefit) Travelling and Transportation Logistic supply and equipment External monitoring SUB-TOTAL HO Logistics and Management Support Research and Monitoring TOTAL BUDGET Community Contribution BRAC Contribution The Netherlands Contribution

2,569,170 6,112,703 12,213,756 11,368,550 2,772,871 20,340 1,321,294 13,961,080 3,001,901 1,462,258 41,393 54,803,923 3,432,754 490,393 58,727,071 1,892,125 3,872,454 52,962,492

Disbursement Schedule Donor Contribution Project Period

st

Disbursements in Euro 1 half 1,080,837 4,361,896 6,081,872 8,257,177 1,440,370 2nd half 6,355,260 9,899,182 11,395,446 2,768,763 1,321,690

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Observations

1 Grant Management As per Government rules and regulations, a specific bank account is maintained in favour of BRAC to receive foreign currency. This bank account is called mother account. All funds are received through this mother account. Head office maintains programme wise accounts chart and cash book. So it can be easily identified the fund position for individual programme. If donor requires, a separate bank account will be maintained for a specific programme/project. After receiving the fund through the mother account, this is transferred to that specific programme/projects bank account. Head office maintains bank accounts. Joint signatures will be required to withdraw specific amount from the bank. To withdraw money above a certain limit signature of the member of the Governing Body will be required. All of the signatories are authorized by the Chief Executive Officer. Branch office also maintains bank accounts. Joint signatories of the bank account are the concerned Accountant with the Area Manager or the Program Organizer. The signatories are authorized by the Chief Executive Officer. Head office transfers fund monthly to the branch through bank accounts as per branch requisition.

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Field office part is the main part in programme activity because programme is actually implemented in field level. Account is prepared separately in each branch. In this context every branch acts like a cost centre. Every cost centre prepares receipts and expenditure account for programme activities. Head office receives monthly accounts for a month on the 6th day of the following month. Field data are also hand delivered to head office in diskettes. Necessary documents and vouchers are verified with head office accounts. 2. Transfer to Health Department: As per their central budget and depending on the size of the funds that need to be transferred the Director BHP or the Programme Coordinator requests the FAD to transfer funds to be spent on a specific purpose. After joint approval by the FAD and the authorised manager within BRAC funds are transferred to the Health Department. 3. Transfer to BRACs area offices: As per their area programme budget, the area accountant and the area manager or area programme manager jointly request the FAD to transfer funds to be spent for a specific purpose. After joint approval by the FAD and authorised manager within the programme funds are transferred. 4. Transfer to other departments of BRAC: For the transfer of funds to other departments within BRAC a similar procedure will be followed as described under the transfer to the Health Department. A total of 1% of the programme funds are reserved for the Monitoring and the Research and Evaluation Departments to be used for action research related to the proposed programme. Other departments that will receive funds from the programme include FAD (costs of financial management and accounting) and BRACs Micro Finance Department (revolving funds). 5. Management of the revolving funds: Within the programme two types of revolving funds will be created: (a) a revolving fund to support micro-enterprise to start the production of slabs and rings needed for the construction of slab latrines (Tk. 15.5 million); (b) a revolving fund to support poor families for the installation of slab latrines (Tk. 835.4 million). Revolving fund to support micro-entrepreneurs BRAC will provide financial and technical assistance to local private entrepreneurs in view to establish Village Sanitation Centres using revolving capital. In doing this, BRAC will follow the following steps: During baseline survey, Programme Assistant (PA) will identify existing local private entrepreneurs, while they will also assess their capacities. In consultation with the respective Village Wash Committee, PA will select the potential local private entrepreneurs to provide loan in order to strengthen the VSC capacity and enhance the quality. Additionally, if necessary, PA will identify the potential entrepreneurs to establish new VSC. The Upazila Coordinator (UC-WASH) will finally select the entrepreneurs and forward the scheme proposals to Regional Coordinator for approval with recommendations. BRAC will have a provision to sign a Contract between BRAC and the microentrepreneur, which contains specific Terms and Conditions. The Terms and Conditions include, loan refund procedure, amount determined for monthly instalment, training provision, quality of products, and so on. However, the loans will be repaid within a period of 12 months through equal monthly instalments against an interest of 10%.

Revolving fund to support poor families

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The fund will be managed through BRACs micro-finance programme, which has vast experience with providing loans to VO members and micro-entrepreneurs. All the active VO members will get this loan amount to install latrines, if necessary, re-construct the latrines or maintenance of latrines in addition to allocated micro-credit amount. However, the loans will be repaid in a period of 12 months through equal monthly instalments against an interest of 10%. BRAC follows certain procedures to provide this loan, which is already practicing in the existing micro-finance programme/system. 6. Programme contribution to hardcore poor for latrines: Hardcore poor families will be supported with materials to construct a latrine, which are procured in bulk by BRACs procurement department. 7. Programme contribution to the construction of safe water supply systems: The procurement of materials and the selection of contractors will be done jointly by BRAC (procurement department) and the communities. However, payments will originate from BRAC only and will be audited as per BRAC guidelines. 8. Community contribution to the construction of safe water supply systems: local communities will be making an up-front contribution to repair or construction of safe water supply systems of 10% of the total investment costs. The additional community contribution between 10% and 20%will be covered by a loan from BRAC to the community against a slightly reduced interest rate of 10%. The community will repay this loan through their monthly water bills. The financial risk will be born by BRAC. 9. Preparation of annual operational plans: On the basis of the programme plan, annual operational plans will be made which will, amongst others, include an annual procurement plan. 10. Inflation: all projected programme incomes and expenditures (including programmes contribution to the implementation of WASH services) are indexed for an estimated annual inflation of 5%. In case, the annual inflation exceeds 5% the budget will be revised in consultation with the Netherlands Embassy. 11. Funds spent in area offices a total of 91% of the project funds will be spent through the area offices. 12. Community contribution to safe water options the village WASH committee members and the responsible Programme Organizer will jointly coordinate and implement the different activities related to the piped water project. The detailed responsibilities of the joint management committee in regard to collection of community contribution are as follows: Assess the willingness to implement the piped water scheme in their village If interested, form village piped water management committee Divide the respective village into different clusters, considering the physiographic and socio-economic characteristics of the villagers Open a joint bank account Collection of at least 10% un-front community contribution of the total project implementation cost and deposit in the account. The overall supervision of the village level activities will be coordinated by the upazila coordinator of the respective Upazila.

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10.2

Accounting and Financial Reporting

BRACs Finance and Accounts Department (FAD) will have the sole responsibility for the financial management and accounting of programme funds. The programme has allocated funds to cover the salaries of accountants at all area offices however these accountants will report to the director of FAD. The director of FAD reports directly to BRACs Executive Director. A comprehensive accounting manual guides the accounts personnel to prepare financial statements and reports following accounting standard, run other financial activities in a systematic and efficient way. Contents of accounting manual include significant accounting policies regarding revenue recognition, preparation of financial statements and combination, donor grants accounting, depreciation, investment in related undertakings etc. in additions to chart of accounts and maintenance of books and records. Head Office BRAC has many projects through which it performs all its programme activities. Head Office (HO) performs the central treasury function, deal with programme related transactions at HO, compiles programme accounts, prepares budgets, and conducts financial monitoring and supervisory activities. Regional Offices As development organization the programmes of BRAC are mostly implemented through field offices. Field offices maintain separate set of books of account for each programme under a well designed computerized accounting system and system generates periodical financial reports & statements. HO gets these reports and statements through concerned Regional Office (RO). Reporting This report is prepared at the end of each quarter for each programme as per donor's requirement. It contains actual expenditure for one quarter, budget for that quarter and an analysis of budget variance. The quarterly report will include: Budget Actual Variance Reason for Variance The Annual Financial Report provide the followings: Cash Flow Statement Income and Expenditure Statement Balance Sheet Segmental Statements The Annual Accounts is audited by the international auditor Ernst & Young, Chartered Accountants, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and S. F. Ahmed & Co., Chartered Accountants, Dhaka, Bangladesh (local partner). The audited Annual Accounts is published by 30th March of the following year. The audited Annual Accounts are available in the Annual Report of BRAC as well as in the website. To ensure the proper financial management, all the programmes are audited by the external auditors. Audit reports for all projects, along with FD-4 certified by the Auditors, are submitted

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to the NGO Affairs Bureau, Prime Minister's Office. A total of 31 external auditing missions, from 6 audit firms, reported on different BRAC projects in 2004.

10.3Internal Audits
Internal audit (financial monitoring) is another important part in grant management. At the beginning of the year internal auditors prepare an audit programme. According to the audit programme internal auditors visit branch office twice in a year. They check hundred percent vouchers in branch office. After completion of the audit work auditors prepare audit report and submit it to the Director of Monitoring. Along with the audit report they submit a forwarding to give reply on the audit report. Internal auditors also submit copy of the audit report to Branch Manager, Regional Manager and Programme Head. If there are major findings a meeting is organized in head office to discuss about the findings on the audit report. In head office a unit of the internal audit department audit on all of the head office transactions. They run their audit work continuously within three working days after payment basis. Internal auditors check hundred percent of the vouchers. The internal audit department will also audit procurement procedures and will check prices in the market. After completion of the audit work auditors prepare an audit report and submit it to Director of Monitoring and Head of Finance & Accounts.

10.4Procurement
Procurements will be carried out as specified in BRAC procurement guidelines. The requisition of the procurement of material originates from the programme and after approval by the Finance and Accounts Department the requisition is transferred to the Procurement Department. A committee is formed to process every major procurement over Tk 50,000. At least three quotations are obtained from well-reputed suppliers and a selection is made on the basis of best quality and lowest price. Subsequently, a comparative statement of the quotations is prepared and forwarded to the respective authorities with the recommendation for selection. After approval, the order is given to the selected supplier. After satisfactory delivery of the materials, the payment is made by the Finance and Accounts Department makes the payment by cheque. In case, the procurement exceeds the value of Tk 1 Crore, a tender is floated in a daily national newspaper. For procurements less than Tk 50,000, three (or more) spot quotation are collected from the market and scrutinised by the director of the Procurement Department. BRAC Internal Audit Department carries out an annual audit of all procurements.

10.5Asset and Inventory Management

Inventory Management: BRAC maintains perpetual inventory system for all types of stock recording so that stock records always reflect the physical movement of stocks and their current balance. Different staffs of line management counts some items by rotation in every months and tally with stock register but it is mandatory for line management to do physical inventory at least twice in a year i.e. at the end of June and December through forming a committee of three members in a prescribed format. All BRAC offices maintain inventory file for physical inventory and their adjustments and internal and external auditors checks this file. Internal auditors check inventory files and stock movements during the branch audit and count some items physically to confirm the system as well as the actual position. External

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auditors also checks the record and counts some items physically to confirm the control if they feel its require to do. Asset Management: BRAC maintains Project wise fixed assets register for its projects and controls physical existence by marking different identification number on different project asset. From asset identification number project name, group of asset, asset name and specific asset number is easily identifiable on the other hand from asset register respective assets year of purchase, cost, and accumulated depreciation and written down value is easily traceable. As there is a well designed and documented asset management system, which is transparent to all, there is no scope to show the old one as newly procured asset. BRAC deals assets at the end of a particular project period according to the contract. If there is a provision in the contract to use asset in same type of projects BRAC uses it in same type of projects through transfer entry, if there is a provision to return to Donors BRAC returns assets to the donor. Inventory and Internal Financial Control monitoring Section: There is a section in BRAC named Inventory and Internal Financial Control monitoring Section, in additions to internal control monitoring activities they also monitors the stock management system on test basis, mainly they checks the system where there is a bulk of materials in stock like BRAC Central Store and other areas periodically. They report to management with their suggestions if they find any weakness in the system.

10.6Human Resources Department

Human Resources Policies and Procedures (HRPP) of BRAC guarantee the fair and equitable process of staff recruitment and development for the programme. The HRPP allows the provision that at the beginning of every year Programme Coordinator will determine the number of staff he/she will need during the course of the year. The Director Human Resources Department (HRD) will circulate the job listing in the local daily newspapers or through some other medium. An interview board will be formed by the executive director. This board will include the programme manager and staff from the HRD department. The final selection of an employee will be approved by the HRD. Though the majority of the BRACs employees are female, women are still in a minority in the middle and higher management positions in BRAC. BRAC has been actively trying to change this. For instance, the latest HRD manual states that in case of equal qualifications preference will be given to a woman. However, BRAC is facing a lot of competition from other organisations that are paying higher salaries. Despite this competition, the programme will pro-actively try to increase the percentage of women in middle and higher management positions within the programme. As BRAC believes that everybody has the right to work with dignity and in a sexual harassment free environment, a Sexual Harassment Elimination policy has been formulated. The programme will fully and pro-actively adhere to this policy.

10.7BRAC Ombudsperson
BRACs first ombudsperson was appointed on September 1, 2004. BRAC has established the office of the ombudsperson with the comprehensive mandate to investigate any incident of maladministration and misuse of power within BRAC. This includes grievances such as corruption, abuse of power or discretion, negligence, oppression, nepotism, arbitrariness, unfairness and discrimination especially gender based discrimination.

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10.8External Audits
At the end of the inception period of six months, an external system audit will be carried out on the basis of a ToR jointly formulated by BRAC and the Netherlands Embassy. Yearly audits will be conducted by an external auditor assigned by the Royal Netherlands Embassy (RNE). In addition, RNE can request additional audits, including surprise/spot audits if deemed necessary during the programme/project period. Audits may include procurement audits, technical audits and also value-for-money audits.

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11 Review and Evaluation

The objective of monitoring and evaluation is to ascertain the extent and effectiveness of the programme. Within the framework of the programme, monitoring and evaluation involves three broad steps: a baseline survey, ongoing internal monitoring of programme activities, and external monitoring and evaluation.

11.1Baseline Surveys
During the inception phase of the programme, BRAC will conduct participatory and gender segregated baseline surveys in all of the selected programme villages. These baseline surveys will serve the purposes of: Provide a baseline against which to monitor progress during the programme period. Identify and locate groups within the village that need specific attention. Provide the background for the development of a village implementation plan in terms of number and types of latrines that need to be constructed and type of interventions that need to be made to ensure a safe drinking water supply.

These participatory surveys will be updated in the second and fourth year of the programme.

11.2Internal Quality Control

Internal Qualitative Monitoring The Research and Evaluation Division (RED) was established in 1975 to provide support to programmes and project by BRAC to learn from its mistakes. In collaboration with the programme staff and the monitoring department, action research topics will be identified and carried out by RED. When deemed necessary acclaimed external experts will be attracted to carry out these actioin researches. The conclusions of the action researches will be shared through dialogues with the programme staff and modifications to the programme will be jointly formulated. Monitoring Department The BRAC Monitoring Department was established in the early 80s and functions as a totally independent department in BRAC. The role of the monitoring department is to provide feedback through a group of professional experts to managers at different levels, which assists them in taking appropriate corrective actions. Monitoring indicators will be identified jointly on the basis of the programme document by the Monitoring Department and the programme staff. Within the proposed programme specific attention will be paid to the monitoring of sustainability and the services delivered to the hardcore poor and other vulnerable groups. Internal Review After the first and third year of the programme, an internal review will be carried out jointly by the monitoring department, the RED, and selected external consultants to capture lessons learned and review implementation processes. The director of the Health Department will lead these reviews.

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11.3External Review and Evaluation

Joint review missions comprised of external and internal experts will twice review the the programme and an external mission will carry out a final evaluation at the end of the programme. During the inception phase of the programme, BRAC will further detail the indicators indentified in Chapter 5 for the first review mission. First joint review mission. The first joint review will be carried out after 18 months of the programme. The goal of the first review is to review lessons learned during the first year of the programme and on the basis thereof modify and detail the programme design on a budget neutral basis. The objectives of the first review mission are as follows: Identify and document lessons learned during the period of the programme with a particular focus on the revisiting of previous WASH activities and the micro-trials of different WASH approaches. Review the progress of the programme on the basis of indicators identified in the programme document. The focus of the review will be on the cross-cutting concerns of gender equity, sustainability, and the reaching of the poor and hardcore poor. Specific attention will be paid to piped water supply systems implemented by BRAC. Rephase the programme and if necessary redesign and detail programme strategies and approaches on a budget neutral basis. Fine-tune existing and select new indicators for the second review mission at the end of the third year of the programme.

Second joint review mission. The second joint review will be carried out at the end of the third year of the programme. The goal of this mission is to consolidate lessons learned and finalise the programme design for the final phase of the programme. The objectives of the review mission are as follows: Identify and document lessons learned during the second phase of the programme with a particular focus on the up-scaling of approaches and strategies developed during the part of the programme. Review the progress of the programme on the basis of indicators identified by the first review mission. The focus of the review will be on the cross-cutting concerns of gender equity, sustainability, and the reaching of the poor and hardcore poor. On the basis of the progress review, the programme approaches and strategies will be fine-tuned or the review mission could advise for an extension of the programme period. Both will be done on a budget neutral basis. Fine-tune existing and select new indicators for the final evaluation at the end of the programme.

Final evaluation mission. The goals of the final evaluation mission are to assess how effective, efficient and sustainable the programme has achieved its objectives and to formulate recommendations to safe guard the sustainability of WASH services and behavioural changes.

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The objectives of the evaluation mission are as follows: Identify and document lessons learned during the entire project with a particular focus on sustainability of WASH services and behavioural changes and programmes effectiveness of reaching the poorest of the poor. Review the programme and evaluate its effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objectives. Formulate recommendations to safe guard the sustainability of WASH services and behavioural changes.

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12 Assumptions and Risks

12.1Assumptions
Objectives & Outputs Goal: Development Objective: Immediate Objective 1: Provide sustainable and integrated WASH services in the rural areas of Bangladesh Outputs: Output 1.1 Individual or shared sanitary latrines for 80% of the population in the programme area. Output 1.2 Additional and complementary efforts from the government and other stakeholders to achieve 100% sanitation in the entire programme area. Output 1.3 Access to safe water supply for drinking and cooking purposes in the most needy villages and Upazilas in the programme area. Output 1.4 Safe water and sanitary latrines for boys and girls for all schools in the programme area. Immediate Objective 2: Induce safe hygienic behaviour to break the contamination cycle of unsanitary latrines, contaminated water, and unsafe hygienic behaviour. Outputs: Output 2.1 Sector wide and sustained support through advocacy campaign at union, Upazila, and national level for the programme. Output 2.2 Safe behaviour is practiced by all men and women at the individual, household, and community level Output 2.3 Safe behaviour is practiced in all schools by all teachers, boys and girls. Immediate Objective 3: Scaling-up WASH services and ensure sustainability. Output: Output 3.1 Effective coordination with stakeholders at all village levels. Assumption Socio-political environment remains favourable for BRAC Support of and coordination with the national and local governments Village WASH Committees are functional and taking lead in planning and implementation Government continue to provide priority and allocate the ADP block grant for sanitation to the Unions Appropriate and low cost technologies for piped water supply are developed

School committees willing to participate in the programme

Water and sanitation interventions are well integrated with hygiene interventions

Cooperation by the national government, local government and key stakeholders

Village WASH Committees are functional and taking lead in hygiene promotion and monitoring School committees are interested

A lesson learning mechanism established within the programme and adaptive actions taken Effective support provided by the Union Parishad

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Output 3.2 All stakeholders have the capacity to fully and effectively participate in all stages of the programme and continue sustaining the services. Output 3.3 BRAC has the capacity to efficiently and effectively implement the programme and disseminate lessons learned to and exchange with other stakeholders. Output 3.4 Innovative water and sanitation technologies and approaches have been tested and adapted and implemented in the programme area. Output 3.5 Support network at the national and intermediate level to ensure the sustainability of the programme outputs beyond the programme period.

Cooperation by the national government, local government and key stakeholders

BRAC appoints programme staff with adequate skills and capacity in the key positions

Timely and quality Technical Assistance is provided to the programme

Cooperation by the national and international stakeholders

12.2Risks Analysis
A number of possible risks have been identified and graded as High, Medium and Low depending on their possible impact on the Sub-Component implementation.

Intensity Risks High Internal Risks That a internal learning mechanism is established and a gradual scaling-up of implementation is undertaken X Medium Low

Actions to be taken to Manage the Risk

The programme follows the learning mechanism structured in the programme design and do not only drive for pre-set targets The required Technical Assistance earmarked in the programme is timely obtained Orientation of BRAC staff on total village approach and adequate time and resources are provided for developing the Village WASH Committees

That appropriate attention is provided to further develop appropriate technologies and management process of piped water supply That adequate time and inputs are provided to the formulation and functioning of the Village WASH Committees X

External Risk Major changes in the country's sociopolitical environment which may unfavourable for BRAC to carry out its ongoing works X BRAC continues with its present practice of information dissemination and cooperation with the government and other

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Intensity Risks High Medium Low

Actions to be taken to Manage the Risk development partners

That the ADP block grant for sanitation to the local government institutions is well targeted to the ultra poor and coordinated with the programme activities That all the stakeholders at national and local levels and cooperate with the programme activities

Advocacy is done at the community, Union and higher levels and the Unions are supported by the programme to identify the hardcore poor X Disseminate programme activities and findings through workshop, seminars and a mutual lesson learning mechanism established with the stakeholders

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Annex A

Organogram
BRAC Chairperson

Executive Director

Deputy Executive Director

Director BHP

Programme Support RED, Monitoring, Finance & Accounts, Audit, Training and HRD

Programme Management Unit (PMU) Programme Coordinator Programme Manager, Water Programme Manager, Sanitation Programme Manager, Hygiene

Technical Assistance (TA)

PRA, Hygiene, Sanitation, Water, Quality Control, Community Management & Institutional development

Programme Specialist Team Training, MIS, Gender, Water Technology

Regional Coordinator Regional Sector Specialist

(Water, sanitation, hygiene, Training, SSHE)

Regional Accountant

Field Operation Team Upazila Coordinator Programme Organiser (9) Water (2), Sanitation (1), Hygiene (5), SSHE (1) Accounts Assistant

Upazila Level

Programme Assistant 1 per Union Shastho Kormi (SK)

Community Level

Community Volunteer Shastho Shebika

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Annex B

Table of Authority for Financial Transactions

Overseas Procurement Originator Approval Authority Programme Head Deputy Executive Director Director Executive Director Executive Director Chairperson/Executive Committee Procurement of Recurring Items Originator Approval Authority Staff level VI and above Staff level VIII or supervisor above level Staff level VIII and above Staff level XII or supervisor above level Staff level IX and above Staff level XIII or supervisor above level Staff level XI and above Director Director Deputy Executive Director Director/ Programme Head Executive Director Executive Director Chairperson/Executive Director Procurement of Capital Investment Originator Approval Authority Staff level VIII and above Staff level XII or supervisor above level Staff level IX and above Staff level XIII or supervisor above level Staff level XI and above Director Staff level XIII and above Deputy Executive Director Director/Programme Head Executive Director Executive Director Chairperson/Executive Committee

Amount Up to Tk 5 million Up to Tk 10 million Above Tk. 10 million

Amount Up to Tk 20,000 Up to Tk 50,000 Up to Tk 100,000 Up to Tk 1 million Up to Tk 10 million Up to Tk 50 million Above Tk 50 million

Amount Up to Tk 20,000 Up to Tk 50,000 Up to Tk 200,000 Up to Tk 1 million Up to Tk 10 million Above Tk 10 million

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Annex C

Logical Framework Analysis

Objectively Verifiable Indicators Means of Verification Programme impact evaluation report

Narrative Summary

Goal: To facilitate, in partnership with the Reduced morbidity and mortality due to Government of Bangladesh and other waterborne diseases and improved health stakeholders, the attainment of the MDGs situation related to water, sanitation, and hygiene for all, especially for underprivileged groups, in rural Bangladesh and thereby improve the health situation of the poor and enhance equitable development. Immediate Objective: Objective 1: Provide sustainable and Hygiene education to 37.5 million people in 150 integrated WASH services in the rural Upazilas provided areas of Bangladesh Sanitation coverage among programme areas increased to 80% Seek to achieve 100% access of community people to safe water Output: 1.1 All programme villages have active Village WASH Committees are formed in 100% WASH committees and all unions have an programme villages active WATSAN Committee 100% Union WATSAN Committees are reactivated Activities: 1.1.1 Carry out a participatory baseline Baseline survey conducted in all (100%) survey in all villages to assess WASH programme villages related needs and collect basic information regarding the community. 1.1.2 Form a WASH committee in each 30,000 Village WASH committee formed of the villages in the programme area. 1.1.3 Train the WASH committee All VWC members received 1-day orientation on members on WASH Training (1 day): WASH Participatory Planning and Implementation All VWC members received 2-days orientation (2 days); Leadership Development; (3 days on Participatory Planning and Implementation foe selected VWC members). 4,500 VWC members received 3-days training on Leadership Development 1.1.4 Actively support poor women and About 20% (Membership) of poor and disadvantaged groups to effectively disadvantaged groups in the Village WASH participate in these committees. Committees 1.1.5 Development of village WASH Yearly WASH action plans are developed in action plan together with the WASH 100% programme villages (30,000) committee. WASH action plans are owned by the community Output: 1.2 Individual or shared sanitary latrines (100%) Every households in the programme for 80% of the population in the programme area have their own or a shared sanitary latrine area. (20% government complement) 1,500 Village Sanitation Centres (VSC) established by local entrepreneurs 100 % Entrepreneurs (1,500) received training support from the programme Every VSC will receive an amount of BDT 10,000 as loan support from the programme 1.2.2 Provide technical support to 100% newly constructed sanitary latrines are individual households who are constructing technically sound and safe to the users health a sanitary latrine. and to environment 1.2.3 Identify and select half of the Hardcore poor (on average 10,000 in 1 Upazila hardcore poor families in each Upazila (on and 1,500,000 in total programme area) are Activities: 1.2.1 Set-up 1,500 rural sanitation centres through local entrepreneurs and support them with training and a loan from a revolving fund.

Final programme evaluation report Review reports

Review report; GoB documentation; and Progress Reports

Baseline Survey Progress Report

Progress Report Progress Report

VWC Records Programme Guidelines VWC Records Programme action plan Interview villagers Baseline survey report Progress Report Other secondary reports Progress Report Financial audit report

&

Physical verification Progress report Progress Report Financial records

78

Narrative Summary average 5,000) and provide them with the material (rings, slabs, and superstructure) to construct a sanitary latrine.

Objectively Verifiable Indicators identified; List of selected hardcore poor families prepared; 50% (5,000 in each Upazila) selected hardcore poor families received and installed materials of sanitary latrine An average of 1,000 poor BRAC group members from each Upazila received technical support and a loan amount Tk. 500 each for construction of sanitary latrine. 20% of ADP grants are mobilized for proper utilization by Union Parishad for sanitation coverage under programme areas 1500 coordination meeting conducted by the UP/WATSAN Committees among NGO, government and private sectors at local level BRACs membership/representation in the Upazila WATSAN Committees WATSAN committees in all 150 Upazilas are active or have been reactivated

Means of Verification

Provide poor members of BRAC saving groups in each Upazila (on average 1,000) and provide them with a loan and technical support to construct a sanitary latrine. Output: 1.3 Additional and complementary efforts from the government and other stakeholders to achieve 100% sanitation in the entire programme area Activities: 1.3.1 Re-activate if necessary and participate in Upazila WATSAN Committees.

Progress Report Savings group record

Secondary information from GoB

Upazila proceedings Progress Report

1.3.2 Re-activate if necessary and BRACs and VWCs representation in the Union WATSAN Committees participate in Union WATSAN Committees. WATSAN committees in 1,500 (100%) Unions are active or have been reactivated Output: 1.4 Access to safe water supply for 100% access to safe water supply for drinking drinking and cooking purposes in the most and cooking purposes for all needy villages and Upazillas in the programme areas Activities: 1.4.1 Decide on the needed intervention Village level water supply plans are prepared by to ensure safe water supply for drinking and the WASH Committees and approved by UP cooking purposes in the most needed WATSAN Committees areas. 100% safe water coverage in the most needed areas 100% households in the most needed areas use safe water for drinking and cooking purposes 1.4.2 Together with the WASH On an average 12 per village STW and DTW committees upgrade and repair existing upgraded/repaired water supply systems such as shallow Total number of 360000 STW and DTW tube-wells. This low-cost intervention will repaired/upgraded as part of village action plan be carried out in all those villages where developed by VWC repair of existing and arsenic free interventions will suffice 1.4.3 Together with the WASH The water quality of newly installed systems (e.g. DTW and others) are duly tested and safe committees provide clusters of poor and (free from arsenic and other bacterial hardcore poor households with arsenic free contamination) water through DTW and other technologies. Selection of the villages will be done on a 100% Poor and Hardcore poor households in need basis. the selected villages have access to safe water (arsenic free) The village selected for safe water supply support is having arsenic concentration (previously tested) and inadequate safe water coverage 1.4.4 Together with the WASH committee 100 neediest village identified where other than piped water options are not feasible implement community managed piped water supply systems in the neediest 100 Piped Water Supply Schemes (PWSS) implemented by the village WASH committees

UP proceedings Progress Report

Programme report Special documents

review Study

WASH Committee records; Progress report

Village Action Plan and VWC Reports

Quality monitoring report Laboratory testing Progress Reports

Technical feasibility study report Progress Reports

79

Narrative Summary

Objectively Verifiable Indicators

Means of Verification

villages where other safe water options are as only option not feasible. The implementation includes care takers received training hardware as well as software (for instance Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of the PWSS is being regularly done by the training of care takers, gradual handing VWCs/PWSS management committees over, etc.)

Output:
1.5 Safe water and sanitary latrines for Separate sanitary latrines for girls and boys installed and properly utilized in all (100%) boys and girls for all schools in the secondary schools within the programme area programme areas Girls and boys share equal responsibilities for cleaning latrines at their school premises Activities: 1.5.1 Conduct assessment to determine A total of 30,000 village baseline sanitation sanitary services in all educational survey conducted institutions in each of the 150 Upazilas. A full list of needs containing situation of all schools/educational institutions in each of 150 Upazilas is prepared 1.5.2 Organize series of training Orientation meeting held with all s of school programmes and meetings with school management committees management committees and teachers in An estimated number of 83,250 teachers will all schools in the programme area. receive training on WASH 60,000 school management committee members will received orientation on WASH 1.5.3 Repair, upgrade, or construct 4,500 latrines newly constructed with adequate water supply separate sanitary latrines (with adequate water supply) for boys and girls in all An Estimated 30,000 schools/educational institutions (100%) within the programme area schools. have separate sanitary latrines for girls and boys with adequate water facilities inside 1.5.4 Monitor the management of these Clean latrines latrines during the remaining programme period Immediate Objective: Objective 2: Induce safe hygienic behaviour At least 50% poor and hardcore poor in 150 to break the contamination cycle of Upazilas have and use sanitary latrines, unsanitary latrines, contaminated water, practice hygiene behaviour, drink and cook and unsafe hygienic behaviour. exclusively with safe water Remaining 50% is covered by individual and government initiative Output: 2.1 Safe behaviour is practiced by all 100% community people all men and women men and women at the individual, (37.5 million) practice safe behaviour at all level household, and community level Activities: 2.1.1 Continue (and if needed adapt) Contribution made by micro-finance programme ongoing hygiene promotion activities (10% staff time) through BRACs existing programmes such Contribution made by education programmes micro-finance, education, and mainstream (10% staff time) health programmes Contribution made by mainstream health programmes (25% staff time) 2.1.2 Continue ongoing and initiate new 100% men are reached through hygiene hygiene promotion programmes that are promotion programs in the programme areas specially designed to reach men and the 100% hardcore poor are reached hard-core poor. 2.1.3 Develop and distribute IEC Audience specific IEC materials developed and materials in all Upazilas (Separate printed and distributed materials and distribution channels will be developed to reach men and women). 2.1.4 Develop and initiate hygiene Effective hygiene education programs with Progress Reports; School management proceedings; School based latrine cleaning schedule; Progress Reports School management proceedings

Progress Reports School management proceedings

Progress Reports School management proceedings

Progress Reports School management proceedings School visits Programme evaluation report Study documents

Programme evaluation report Progress report

Programme evaluation report

Programme evaluation report

Progress Report

Progress Report

80

Narrative Summary education programmes to reach men and women.

Objectively Verifiable Indicators communication strategies developed and initiated separately for men and women

Means of Verification

2.1.5 Strengthen Public Private and MOU signed in between programme and Community Partnership (PPCP) with national private soap producers national soap producers to make low cost A number of orientation/training conducted for soap available to the rural poor. the producers and community organizations A social marketing strategy/policy developed and operationalized for soap promotion at rural areas Output: 2.2 Safe behaviour is practiced in all School teachers, boys and girls students within schools by all teachers, boys and girls the programme area use sanitary latrines, safe water for drinking and maintain personal and environmental hygiene Incidence of water-borne and other common diseases like worm, dysentery etc., among teachers, students reduced Activities: 2.2.1 Continue (and if needed adapt) An action plan for hygiene promotion ongoing hygiene promotion and education campaign/program developed for approximately activities through BRAC school 9000 BRAC school (NFPE) including coverage programmes and expand these strategies programmes so as to cover all schools in the programme area. 2.2.2 Continue (and if needed adapt) ongoing hygiene promotion and education activities for teachers, parents, and school committees through BRAC school programmes and expand these programmes so as to cover all schools in the programme area. 2.2.3 Strengthen Public Private and Community Partnership (PPCP) with national soap producers to make low cost soap available in all schools. Immediate Objective: Objective 3: Scaling-up WASH services and ensure sustainability 9000 BRAC school teachers trained / oriented 9000 parents (BRAC school) trained /oriented 9000 BRAC school committee members trained /oriented

MOU documents Programme Progress Report

Baseline survey Programme review and evaluation report

Progress report BCC plans reports

and

Progress Report School management proceedings

Low-cost soap available in and around (100%) 30,000 schools for promoting hygiene practice

Programme inventory Physical Observation Progress Reports

Local service providers (e.g. VWCs, Union WATSAN Committees, Government line agencies, etc.,) are actively taking part into village WASH activities A total of 31,650 forums of local service providers established in all programme Upazilas/Unions 63,300 training/orientation provided to the VWCs, Union and Upazila WATSAN Committee

Training records Programme MIS reports

Output: 3.1 Effective coordination with and support 165 advocacy workshop with programme of stakeholders at all Union, Upazila and stakeholders at Upazila and District level District levels and national level through conducted; social mobilization and advocacy 1500 advocacy workshop at union level campaigning 150 Womens convention on WASH at Upazila level 1500 Womens Forum at Union level 2 events (social mobilization) conducted among stakeholders 3,300 coordination meeting held and decisions are followed-up 30,000 social mobilization meetings at village among stakeholders One national level workshop held Activities:

Progress Reports Workshop Reports

81

Narrative Summary 3.1.1 Actively participate in the National Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation organized by the Local Government Division. 3.1.2 Actively participate in District and Upazila development coordination meetings organized by the district and Upazila administration.

Objectively Verifiable Indicators BRACs membership/representation/leadership in the National Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Recognition by the Local Government Division BRACs membership/representation in the District and Upazila Development Coordination Committees Recognition by the local administration

Means of Verification Forum proceedings Progress Reports

Forum proceedings Progress Reports

3.1.3 Conduct coordination meetings once 150 Coordination meetings held once in every in every six months at the Upazila level six months at the upazila level (with UNO and staff from government line agencies) 3.1.4 Conduct coordination meetings at 1500 Coordination meeting at Union level union level to discuss WASH issues conducted options. Issues related to safe water options (e.g. repair existing wells, DTW, lowering TW, PWSS) are discussed in the coordination meetings 3.1.5 Organize experience sharing One experience sharing workshop organized at workshops at National level national level Output: 3.2 All stakeholders have the capacity to A need assessment and 4000 training fully and effectively participate in all stages conducted for capacity building of the of the programme and continue sustaining programme stakeholders the services Key stakeholders received training on sustainability issues related to WASH program Activities: 3.2.1 Facilitate existing WASH related Training /orientation programs conducted partners/institutions to strengthen and enhance their interventions. 3.2.2 One-day orientation of Primary 22,500 primary school teachers received school Teachers Association, Secondary orientation school Teachers Association and School 3750 secondary school teachers received Management Committee in each Upazila. orientation 1500 school management committee members received orientation 3.2.3 One-day orientation of Village 39000 training programs conducted for Village Doctors/ Imams and Rural Bazaar Doctors/Imams and Rural Bazar Management management committee in each of the committee 1,500 unions. 3.2.4 Two day training programme for One training programs conducted for 150 engineers (DPHE/NGOs) on issues DPHE/NGOs staff related to piped water supply such as site 150 DPHE engineers/NGO staff are trained on selection, cost recovery, community piped water supply schemes involvement, etc. 3.2.5 One-day orientation of Union 1500 UP Chairman and 18000 Members trained Parishad Chairmen and members. 3.2.6 Strengthen Public Private and 1500 capacity building training conducted for Community Partnership (PPCP) for public-private sector entrepreneurs on ensuring sustainable WASH services. sustainability issues Number of exchange visit, meeting conducted for public-private-community entrepreneurs/sectors 3.2.7 Networking with LGIs and local A total of 1,500 formal/informal network (1 in CBOs and Civil Society Organizations each Union) between LGIs, CBOs and civil (CSO). society organizations established and operationalized Output: 3.3 BRAC has the capacity to Training manuals, programme guidelines efficiently and effectively implement the prepared by BRAC

Forum proceedings Progress Reports Progress Reports

Training records Progress Reports

Training reports Progress Reports

Training reports Progress reports

Programmes Training record/report Progress reports

Progress Reports

Programmes Training record/report Progress Reports

Progress Reports Progress Reports

Progress Reports

Progress Reports Training Documents

82

Narrative Summary

Objectively Verifiable Indicators

Means of Verification

programme and disseminate lessons Number of staff received national training learned to and exchange with other related to WASH stakeholders 25 staff received international education/training programs Activities: 3.3.1 Organize one WASH training 17 BRAC WASH staff received 4 to 6 weeks programmes of 4 to 6 weeks each for key long training on WASH activities programme staff and key staff of 8 government staff received 4 to 6 weeks government institutions during the inception training phase of the programme. 3.3.2 Formation of a WASH trainers 50 persons received TOT and a WASH team of 50 persons through a TOT Trainers Team is formed programme. 3.3.3 Carry out 10 joint action researches 10 joint action researches conducted in areas such as reaching the hardcore One International Dissemination Seminar poor; hygiene promotion and education; multiple-use of water; cost-recovery; and so on. One International Dissemination Seminar 3.3.4 Support 5 BRAC staff members to 5 key BRAC staff obtained master degree from obtain a masters degree and 1 BRAC staff a reputed international institute members to obtain a PhD in WASH related 1 key BRAC staff obtained PhD on WASH fields at a renowned international institute. related fields from a reputed international institute 3.3.5 Organize four exposure/study trips At least four study/ exposure visits for the key for key staff members to piped water supply staff members organized to piped water supply programmes, SSHE programmes, and programmes, SSHE programmes and hygiene hygiene promotion and education promotion and education program programme, and so on. 3.3.6 Carry out two joint internal reviews 2 joint internal reviews conducted (1 at the end at the end of the first and third year of the of first and another one is at the end of third programme year of the program) 3.3.7 Provide WASH training for regional 15 Regional Coordinators, 150 Upazila coordinators (one week), Upazila Coordinators, 1350 Program Organizers, 1500 Coordinators (2 weeks), programme Program Assistants, 2400 Community Health organisers (two weeks), programme Workers, 24,000Community Health Volunteers, assistants (one week), community health 9000 BRAC Field Staff received WASH Training workers (3 days), community health volunteers (two days), BRAC field staff (one day orientation). 3.3.8 Provide 2 days training on 150 (BRAC) Accounts Assistants received 2 accounts operation for 150 Accounts day-long training on Accounts Operation Assistants. Output: 3.4 Innovative water and sanitation A Number of micro-trials undertaken by BRAC technologies and approaches have been for testing different alternative options for water tested and adapted and implemented in the and sanitation technologies programme area A Number of innovative and affordable technological options for water and sanitation available in the local market Activities: 3.4.1 Test and adapt different water A series of micro-trials conducted on water supply technologies through micro-trials supply technologies during the first three years of the Number of technologies adapted for water programme. supply programmes 3.4.2 Test and adapt different low-cost A series of micro-trials conducted on low-cost sanitation technologies through a series of sanitation technologies during first two years of micro-trials during the first two years of the the programme programme. 3.4.3 Further develop and test low-cost A series of test/trial conducted on low-cost sanitation technologies for areas with a sanitation technologies specially for high water high water tables. table areas Output:

Training report Progress Reports

Progress Report; Trainers Teams proceedings Progress Report Research documents/outcomes

BRAC HRD report Progress Report

Progress Reports

Review documents

Training record, Training Reports, MIS Reports BRAC HRD reports

Training report

Research documents Progress Report Programme planning documents

Progress Reports

Progress Reports

Progress Reports

83

Narrative Summary

Objectively Verifiable Indicators

3.5 Support network at the national and A support network at the national and intermediate level to ensure the intermediate level among sector and other line sustainability of the programme outputs agencies (government & NGOs) established beyond the programme period and functioning Activities: 3.5.1 One day WASH orientation of 21,000 of LGI representatives received one-day LGIs (local government institutions) orientation on WASH representatives 3.5.2 Organise workshops at all levels to 166 dissemination workshops conducted at disseminate lessons learned and outcomes Upazila, District and National levels of the programme.

Means of Verification Progress Report

Progress Reports

Presentations Workshop proceedings

84

Annex D

Poverty Map of Bangladesh

85

Annex E

Village Micro-Cycle
Year 1 Inception 2nd Year 2 1st 2nd 1st Year 3 2nd 1st Year 4 2nd 1st Year 5 2nd

Inception Orientation of PO (Health), SK and SS Participatory baseline survey/other survey Rapport building with local key stakeholders Village WASH committee Consultation and selection members of WASH committee Formation of WASH committee Orientation & training WASH committee members Participatory village level planning Opening bank account (for piped water) Monitoring performance WASH Committee Selection of hard-core poor (grant support) Monitoring hygiene around water sources Monitoring hygiene at household level Hygiene Social mobilisation local key stakeholders WASH-promotion Hygiene promotion for men and women Hygiene education for men and women Celebration of Sanitation Month Water (for first cycle) Participatory resource mapping Planning Exposure visit community Resolution entire community (MOU) Collection of community contribution Technical design of water supply system Selection contractor & procurement material Construction of water supply Selection and training caretaker Water Quality monitoring Support to community O&M Sanitation 87

Selection and loan support to Village Sanitation Centre (VSC) Training VSC entrepreneur Providing communities with sanitation options Technical support better off households Loan to poor families Selection hardcore-poor families Support to hardcore poor families Establishing revolving fund sanitation up-grading Monitoring of emptying pits

88