Regulating Urban Sanitation to Prevent Integrity Failures

This report focuses on the steps taken to regulate the urban sanitation sub-sector in Bangladesh and the integrity risks and failures that persist. The effective regulation of the urban sanitation sub-sector is vital in ensuring high-quality, reliable and equitable services and accelerating progress towards universal coverage. Many countries have taken vital steps to improve the regulation of the urban sanitation sub-sector (ESAWAS, 2022). Nevertheless, corruption and integrity failures have been estimated to result in the loss of 4-26% of sector finances (Water Integrity Network, 2022), and limited work has been done to understand the issue of integrity in urban sanitation and the associated regulatory frameworks for the sub-sector. Within this context, the Water Integrity Network commissioned Aguaconsult to assess the extent to which regulatory frameworks for urban sanitation in Bangladesh, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia prevent and mitigate key integrity failures. This is the country report for Bangladesh. It details the urban sanitation context in Bangladesh, outlines the extent to which regulatory mechanisms for the urban sanitation sub-sector are being applied, details identified integrity failures, and offers a series of practical recommendations.