When sanitation sector professionals hear the words “sanitation” and Bangladesh the first thought that may come to mind is that it is the birthplace of the Community-led Total Sanitation approach. However, there is more to the sanitation story from Bangladesh that needs to be shared. Lessons learned extracted from the Bangladesh experience could richly inform sanitation strategies in the other countries of the world, particularly those struggling to increase access to basic sanitation in rural areas.
It was really helpful for Bangladesh for sanitation coverage. From 2003 to 2006, the government of Bangladesh scaled up efforts to address unsanitary household practices through a national sanitation campaign that engaged multiple levels of government. The government’s goal was to achieve 100% sanitation coverage and stop open defecation in the rural areas of all over the country by 2010.
Later the campaign emphasized the confinement of feces from the environment instead of the construction of a the durable sanitary latrine. It can be argued that this focus can help to contribute to and accelerate latrine coverage and cessation of open defecation. Additionally, during this campaign, central , district, and sub-district governments took collective action and played a lead role in social mobilization. The central government also rewarded Union Parishads (the lower tier of local administrative government) that successfully promoted the installation of latrines in all resident households, declaring the Union Parishads
Problems:
The rapid scale-up of the rural sanitation here in Bangladesh using the total sanitation approach is starting to be adopted by many countries without much evidence of its sustainability. Countries in South Asia , Southeast Asia and Africa are looking for solutions to address the issue of basic access to rural sanitation and it is important to learn from early pioneers who have applied the total sanitation approach One area of particular interest for sector professionals and policy makers is to better understand both positive factors of sustainability and factors that might work against sustainability of rural sanitation. This knowledge could help inform future programming and policy decisions as well as further program designing.
Considerations for governments and sector personnel to sustain sanitation programming and behavior change at scale:
The government has to have the political will to prioritize sanitation at the central and lower tiers of government.
Sustained sanitation programs are needed to support behavior change. Local government authorities require some level of sustained financing for continued sanitation promotion for an undetermined period of time.
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