Pro-Poor Strategy for Water and Sanitation Sector in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for drinking water by increasing access to improved water services. At present almost 98% of the population already gained access to basic need of drinking water facilities. Bangladesh has also made remarkable progress by reducing open defecation practices to almost zero by setting a unique example in the world. This achievement is a result of the concerted efforts of the government, development partners, NGOs and people in general. Despite this success, our achievement in water supply and sanitation sector is still threatened by so many challenges especially the gap between access and quality of services. The other challenges include inadequacy of context-specific & cost effective technology, fecal sludge management and safely managed sanitation for densely populated areas such as urban slums, extending services to people living in coastal, arsenic prone and other hard to reach (HtR) areas, weak capacity of local government institutions and mobilization of funding in a timely manner. It is important to ensure safely managed water supply and sanitation for all addressing leaving no one behind' theme under Sustainable Development Goals. For this, Local Government Division has taken a timely and proper initiative to revise and update the 'Pro-Poor Strategy for Water Supply and Sanitation 2014.