Water Management:
After major floods in 1987 and 1988 caused considerable damage in large parts of Bangladesh, the Netherlands became involved in the Flood Action Plan (FAP) with the objective of developing a flood management plan for the Bangladesh delta.The FAP consisted of 26 studies that were conducted at the request of GoB and arose from the 1989 UNDP Flood Policy Study on controlled flooding and compartmentalization through secondary embankments. The FAP was a large plan for huge investments in infrastructure to combat serious flooding by building tall embankments near the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. The costs were USD 5-10 billion. The Dutch involvement in FAP marked a reversal from the focus on small-scale projects in the 1970s and 1980s. Key features of the FAP were the attention for urban Flood Control & Drainage (FCD) and non-structural flood measures (such as the Dutch-funded Compartmentalization Pilot Project), and the emphasis on social and environmental impact, the effect on fisheries, and people's participation in flood control and water management. Although donors deemed the FAP to be participatory, they themselves issued top-down instructions to the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) to adopt a participatory approach by involving rural people in water management, something that BWDB's engineers were often reluctant to do. The FAP also faced strong resistance from NGOs and civil society organizations protesting against implementing top-down policies and plans that were perceived as unrealistic and expensive, without an appraisal of experiences within the country. Those policies and plans also failed to genuinely include people’s participation in practice.
The FAP laid down a set of guidelines for community participation in water management. At the end of the period (in 1999) a new National Water Policy (NWP) was formulated by GoB. For the first time, this policy recognized the role of water in poverty alleviation and called for inclusive water management. It provided a comprehensive policy framework for pressing water issues in Bangladesh and provided a way forward in coordinating a response to various water issues. The NWP is a product of its time in addressing people’s participation and wider involvement of stakeholders. The NWP formalized, through policies and interventions, greater involvement of the private sector and emphasized that communities should also be responsible for water management. The policy promoted the idea of stakeholder participation in water management, stating that all stakeholders are to “actively and fruitfully participate in water management decision-making at every stage”. It also stipulated that the interests of low-income water users and women would be adequately protected in water resource management. The NWP ultimately envisaged the transfer of ownership of small schemes - less than 1,000 ha. - to local government and their management to Water Management Organizations (WMOs); the transfer of management of schemes between 1,000 ha. and 5,000 ha. to WMOs, with ownership remaining with BWDB; and the transfer of management of schemes over 5,000 ha. to a joint team consisting of WMOs and local government with ownership remaining with BWDB. The NWP has led to a number of related initiatives such as the preparation of a National Water Code, the completion of the National Water Management Plan, and the adoption of the Guidelines for Participatory Water Management (GPWM) of 2000.
In 1995, the ‘Environmental and Geographic Information System Support Project for Water Sector Planning (EGIS)’ was launched by combining FAP-16 and FAP-19. Phase I of EGIS (EGIS I) started in 1996 and ended in 1997 and was funded by the GoB and the Government of the Netherlands (GoN). On the recommendation of a Joint Mission of the two governments, Phase II (EGIS II) of the project started in 1997 and ended in 2002 (see list of further reading for more information). The EGIS project formed the basis for the establishment of the Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, CEGIS (2002). CEGIS operates as a self-financed not-for-profit government-owned organisation in carrying out its mission under Bangladesh's Ministry of Water Resources.
WASH
In the 1990s, community participation and good hygiene were regarded as important for achieving actual health results from drinking water and sanitation projects. WSS (Water Supply and Sanitation) gradually became WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene).
In 1998, the Bangladesh Government drafted the National Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation to promote sustainable and equitable WSS service provision at an affordable cost. Key elements of the policy were:
- communities would be the focus for all water supply and sanitation activities
- all stakeholders, including the private sector and NGOs, would provide coordinated inputs into the development of the sector, with the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) as the lead agency
- cost sharing would be promoted
- alongside distribution of hardware, emphasis would be given to publicity campaigns and social mobilization through the training of volunteers at village level in the use of safe water for all purposes, water conservation and proper hygiene;
- women would be encouraged and supported to actively participate in decision-making during planning, implementation, operation and maintenance
- monitoring of the activities and actual project results would be important.
Arsenic contamination: It was in 1993 that the DPHE first identified arsenic contamination of groundwater. This was alarming because water extracted from shallow aquifers had become the primary source of safe drinking and cooking water for most of Bangladesh's population. Several investigations were conducted into the spread of the contamination and its impact on health. As a result, by 2000 arsenic contamination had come to be recognized as the major problem for drinking water. It was found to be prevalent in almost every district in Bangladesh, though the degree of contamination varied. About 30 to 35 million people were estimated to be exposed to arsenic contamination. The consumption of water contaminated with arsenic can cause melanosis, keratosis and ultimately cancer. To mitigate those risks, measures were taken such as awareness building, water testing, marking of wells, and/or closure of tube wells that supplied contaminated water, as well as providing alternative water supply options (DPHE website).
The Dutch-funded 18 District Towns Project (18DTP) was launched in 1989 and completed in 1999. It was different from the 12 Sub-divisional Towns project because it integrated water supply, urban drainage and sanitation with hygiene education and community participation involving local government, and health education by NGOs. Although the project suffered from delays in construction, it was generally successful in terms of community mobilization and promoting public hygiene. The financial sustainability of the water supply and sanitation works was seen as a problem (see IOB 1998, and MTR review, 1998). In 2000, the collaboration of GoN with DPHE was discontinued. A possible reason for that was the fact that the Dutch development policies (in conformity with UN Millennium Development Goals) required a shift to rural areas and support to the “poor”.
