Meeting on strategic engagement plan held
Water supply and sanitation
Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council-Bangladesh (WSSCC-B) held a meeting on Strategic Engagement Plan-SEP (2015-16) at the conference room of Water-Aid Bangladesh at Banani in the capital yesterday.
The SEP aims to contribute towards improving sanitation and hygiene in Bangladesh and to carry out the WSSCC global goals and objectives to meet their vision.
The meeting, chaired by Khairul Islam, country representative, Water-Aid, eyed on sanitation situation in Bangladesh, role of WSSCC in the country, its future strategy and policy and purpose of the SEP. We are very concerned about the sanitation situation of the country where natural arsenic contaminates water putting 30m people at risk, where over 23m people lack access to improved water source and 44per cent of the total population to improved sanitation, said Shah Md. Anowar Kamal, national coordinator of WSSCC-Bangladesh.
Difficulties in addressing sanitation for hard to reach areas, decline in national sanitation fund for the poor and the hardcore people, poor menstrual hygiene management facilities and less involvements of market actors are some gaps and constraints that hinder the path for characterising the vision of WSSCC, said the speakers at the meeting. Alok Kumar Majumder, country coordinator of Wash Alliance, said, Commitments announced by the government are not implemented properly. We have to sort it out why the pledges are not met.
This year we did not get the privilege of the national budget as we did not try hard to catch the eyes of the government with our visions. We must inform the policymakers of the country of our presence and goals. In such cases we can run media campaigning on disparity of budget allocation, equity and inclusion of the underprivileged people, can hold interactive meeting with donors, market actors and NGOs, said Water-Aid country representative Md. Khairul Islam.
