ABSTRACT
Despite 98.5% access to improved water sources, significant challenges remain to achieve the target of SDG 6.1. This includes the availability of safely managed drinking water that is on premises, available when needed, arsenic safe and free from microbial contamination. Currently, 11.8% of the population – 17.5 million people – remain exposed to arsenic contamination at drinking water source above Bangladesh's standard of 50 μg/L. There were many initiatives taken by Government and donors on arsenic mitigation, but the situation did not improved significantly. Various stakeholder consultations have indicated that the slow rate of progress is primarily associated with challenges in enforcement of policies, legislative and regulatory framework, harmonizing approaches, institutional arrangements, capacities and social behavior. UNICEF Bangladesh with partners implemented a new harmonized approach of arsenic mitigation by addressing entire population of a village with arsenic safe water, improved sanitation and hygiene behavior through vulnerability risk assessment, appropriate technologies, evidence based decision making and strong community involvement so that poor and extreme poor people are addressed. This project also aims at triggering the institutionalization of strategic interventions that address the systemic weaknesses of the sector such as (a) poor intra and inter sectoral coordination; (b) insufficient private sector capacity and regulation; (c) low institutionalization of water quality monitoring, surveillance and water safety planning; (d) insufficient use of alternate water sources and evidence for technical decision making; and the (e) insufficient access to reliable data. The project is jointly implemented with the Government partner DPHE, NGOs and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden.
