Editorial

B angladesh has been one of the centerpieces at the discussions held in the United Nations Climate Change

Water Quality Challenges: Do We Really Care? Right to Water & Sanitation: Inseparable Part of Enjoying Human Rights Womens Empowerment, Food Security and Climate Change: Poor Women's Plight Conservation of Nature: the Wetlands to Balance Ecosystem Sanitation for Urban Poor: Implementation of Pro-poor Strategy and Coordination Required From MDG Achievement to Building a Healthy Bangladesh Horizontal Learning Programme Emphasized in Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts on WatSan

Conference (COP 16) in Cancun, Mexico just days ago. The grim scenario of environmental degradation due to world climatic disorder is observed throughout Bangladesh, especially in its dierent geohydrological zones. The water bodies consisting of thousands of native species and help sustain the bio-diversity have been the worst victims of this degradation. As a consequence, the countrys overall ecosystem is losing its balance. Under the situation the government has been persistently taking new measures, adopting policies and regulations. But lack of inter-ministerial coordination as well as coordination between various government departments and agencies and with the non-government sector has been slowing down and hampering the endeavors made to a great extent. The overall environmental degradation has a huge negative impact on the Public Health. Regarding the countrys Public Health situation, Bangladesh stands at a stage of development where sustainable measures are more important for the welfare of the people in a longer term. To enhance sustainability, the integration of three sectors i.e. WatSan, health and environment has become crucial at this stage. Presently the government is under process of developing a revised health policy for the country. This will require huge coordination between the relevant ministries in drawing the revised policy in order to address Public Health and climate change in a comprehensive manner. In the midst of various improvements and apprehensions, a good news for the sector this year has been the UN General Assemblys adoption of a resolution recognizing drinking water and sanitation as a human right; later armed by the Human Rights Council in September 2010. We solemnly appreciate the Declaration and anticipate that it shall strengthen the government and all other service providers commitment towards ensuring water and sanitation for all as a human right within a legal obligation.

Special Issue

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Water Quality Challenges: Do We Really Care?

Dr. Md. Mujibur Rahman

T his year the theme of World Water Day was water quality. We all know that we have a lot of water
quality challenges, but do we really care? If we could nd the answer and start to work for the improvement, a lot of problems would be solved.

What Do We Mean By Water Quality?

Lets see what we really mean by water quality. Literarily water quality is broadly dened as the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of water necessary to sustain desired water use. There is dierent use of water, and for dierent uses we need dierent water qualities. For example, drinking, agriculture, recreation, shing, and habitat for aquatic organisms require dierent water quality characteristics. Though we talk a lot about water quality, no one is concerned about the wastewater which is produced after use. After its use water usually returns back to the hydrological system and if left untreated can severely aect the environment. Wastewater is creating the main problem by polluting our aquatic environment and deteriorating water quality. In Bangladesh we have worked a lot to ensure water supply and its availability. But we have never thought seriously about the management of wastewater which is produced after usage of quality water.

can lower health risks including less sickness and death and lower health cost. So people can lead a healthy life and be able to lead a more productive life which contributes to reduce poverty. As treatment cost becomes lower, parents will become interested to send their children to the school. Use of clean water for sheries and agricultural production can contribute for more economic gains. In whole people can live in refreshing environment and with dignity.

State of Global Water Quality

Worldwide water quality is being degraded mainly due to human activities. Population growth, rapid urbanization, discharge of human and industrial wastes, and new chemicals from industries are key factors that contribute to this deterioration. In addition, it is found that climate change will further aect the water quality.

Climate Change and Water Quality

It is assumed that because of climate change increasing temperatures and changes in hydrological patterns such as droughts and oods will aect water quality. Water pollution from sediments, nutrients, dissolved organics, pathogens, pesticides and salt, as well as thermal pollution will be exacerbated. Areas of salinization will be extending because of sea level rise.

Water Quality and Healthy World

Water quality is directly related to human health, economic activities, ecosystem, health and biodiversity. Therefore, it is also inuential in determining human poverty, and the quality of human life. Water quality issues are also very much linked with the Millennium Development Goals. Quoting from Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are crucial for poverty reduction, crucial for sustainable development, and crucial for achieving any and every one of the Millennium Development Goals.

Concerns Related to Water Quality

Water quality related major concerns are such as, lack of long-term water quality data and monitoring as well as lack of knowledge about impact of natural and anthropogenic pollutants on the environment and on water quality. Also information about water-related climate change impacts is inadequate, particularly regarding water quality, aquatic ecosystems and groundwater. There is a need to improve the understanding of climate changes that is relevant to decision-making. We are more concern about availability of water rather than water quality. This is true not only for Bangladesh but also for developing and under developed countries all over the world. The lack of prioritization of water quality in many countries has resulted in decreased allocation of resources

Benets of Clean Water

Clean water can reduce drinking water treatment cost of a family. Use of clean water in household activities

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weak institutions and lack of coordination in addressing water quality challenges. heavy metal dumping. No water authority or regulatory body is regularly monitoring water quality deteriorates. But these are serious concerns regarding surface water pollution.

How Water Quality Deteriorates?

Water quality can be aected by organic loading (e.g. domestic and industrial sewage) pathogens including viruses in waste streams from humans and animals agricultural runo and human wastes loaded with nutrients (e.g. nitrates and phosphates) that give rise to eutrophication salinization heavy metals (e.g. Hg, Pb, Cr, Cd, Ni) persistent organic pollutants (e.g. plastics and pesticides), and even thermal pollution from industrial (e.g. power plants) cooling.

Surface Water Pollution in Bangladesh

Surface water in Bangladesh is extensively polluted by sources such as municipal/domestic sewage; industrial wastewater and agrochemicals. The rivers Buriganga, Balu and Sitalakhya are classic examples of serious surface water pollution. These contaminations are causing by inland canals and water bodies transporting pollution loads to rivers. Similar pollution scenario is being developed in other parts of the country such as Rajshahi and Chittagong upholding the same causes.

Challenges of Dhaka Rivers

There are two major challenges regarding the rivers in Dhaka. First one is pollution of the peripheral river systems due to indiscrimination discharge of untreated industrial and domestic sewage within the Dhaka watershed area. And the other one is unabated pollution, encroachment and lling up of the khals, lakes, water bodies and wetlands within the city. The whole drainage system of Dhaka city is connected with household, domestic, and industrial wastewater sewage. After falling into Balu river, industrial wastewater ows to Buriganga and pollutes the river. The water purication plant of Saidabad is supplying water for Dhaka city from Buriganga. The water quality of this plant has become questionable because of huge contamination of domestic and industrial wastewater into the river Buriganga. On the other hand, DEPZ was established with an aim to be projected as clean industrialization. But it is now one of the number one producer and transporter of wastewater into Balu river through sewage system.

Water Pollution Eects

Organic wastes such as domestic and industrial waste are the most abandoned wastewater that mixed up with the surface water causing dissolved Oxygen depletion aecting and damaging aquatic lives. Algal bloom caused by nutrients specially Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus leads to eutrophication, dissolved Oxygen depletion and sh kills. Chemicals generally called POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutant) that are used in plastics and pesticides cannot be degraded; these could exist in the water even for decade. So POPs could have a long-term eect through entering into food chain. This could cause genetic disorders (Mutagon), birth defects (Teratogens), even Cancer (Carcinogens). This type of serious consequence could also happens from heavy metals (Hg, Pb, As, Cd, Cr) contamination, which could cause kidney, lever, brain damages and carcinogenic. Department of Environment doesnt have any data regarding

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Balu-Sitalakhya River System
Domestic and industrial pollution loads from Tejgaon industrial cluster and adjoining areas, DND areas and Narayanganj area discharging directly into Sitalakhya primarily through DND drainage khal, Tongi khal. While industrial euent from Tarabo industrial cluster and thermal wastes from power plants are also discharging directly into Sitalakhya. These are the major sources of pollution of the Balu-Sitalakhya system. We have estimated that 143,000 Kg BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) per day is being discharged in the Balu-Sitalakhya river system. The load is 20-30 times higher than normal ow of BOD discharge. On the other hand the largest contributor of organic pollution measured in terms of BOD loading from both industrial and domestic sources is the Tejgaon industrial cluster and the catchment area of Begunbari khal within the central Dhaka city which is 60,000 kg per day. It is 20-30 times higher than the absorbance capacity of a river system. pollution load is discharged into Bangshi river from DEPZ (31,000 kg BOD per day) and Savar industries that eventually ows into Dhaleshwari. So we can see in every case 20-30 times higher BOD loads are discharging into these two river systems.

Major Eects
Pollution of the river systems, khals, and lakes has serious implications on drinking water supply; human health; productivity; livelihood; economy; ecosystem and health. Some of the major eects are (i) The water system of Begunbari, Dholai, Norai khal and Balu river becomes septic i.e. complete devoid of DO in dry season; (ii) Frequent sh kills occur in lakes; aquatic lives are destroyed in khals, lakes and rivers; (iii) The Balu water system becomes biologically dead and the grossly polluted water discharges into Sitalakhya just upstream of Saidabad water intake; (iv) Bio-monitoring in Buriganga indicates no biological life in river water; (v) Buriganga DO drops down to less than 1.0 mg/L in dry season while 8/9 mg/L is found to be normal, and 4/5 mg/L is essential for survival of the sh; (vi) Bangshi DO measured at 0.96 and 0.52 mg/L at two location; and (vii) Toxic heavy metals and POPs may enter the food chain. But regarding this no monitoring is going on. And also we dont have any kind of data available.

Required Intervention Turag-Buriganga- Dhaleshwari River System

Industrial euent discharges from Hazaribag, DEPZ, Gazipur and Savar, and domestic sewage release from a large part of Dhaka city through storm drain outlets are responsible for the pollution of Turag, Buriganga, Bangshi, Dhaleshwari river system in the Dhaka watershed area. River Buriganga is severely aected receiving the largest pollution load which is 55,000 kg BOD per day from Hazaribag industrial cluster and most of the Dhaka city domestic sewage. Tremendous We cannot allow this situation to be continued. For improvement of the condition intervention is required. Three types of intervention are needed: policy intervention, management intervention and physical intervention.

Policy Intervention
This includes developing a culture of environmental compliance which is totally absent in Bangladesh. For this we need policy change, such as, (i) Public

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disclosure of available information on pollution inventories. For example, industries should be bound to inform public about how much wastewater they are producing and they are handling their produced polluted water; (ii) Industry performance: emphasis on environmental monitoring; (iii) Promote cleaner production and pollution prevention in industries. In Bangladesh most of the industries are manufacturing industries. These industries are responsible for producing huge amount of wastewater. Instead of manufacturing industries we should go for knowledge-based industries; and (iv) Introduce pollution charges system. Other interventions include: (i) Ensuring separate sanitary sewerage and storm water drainage systems (sanitary sewage requires treatment, storm water does not); (ii) Land use transformation, e.g., relocating polluting industries from Tejgaon; Hazaribagh; (iii) Ensuring eective review of environmental assessment of industries/projects; (iv) Setting realistic ambient standards (in-stream standards); (v) Ensuring ownership of rivers and water bodies. In Bangladesh dierent ministries are working with dierent parts of the rivers. For this reason no one feels responsibility to ensure the standard river system. One specic ministry should be given the responsibility to take care of the standard river system and to monitor its pollution.

We Must Act Now

Clean Water for a Healthy World- the slogan needs to be spread over every where for raising awareness among general people. We are not at all aware about water quality. For awareness building medias role is vital. Communicating ill-eects of pollution and benets of improved water quality with politicians, policy/law-makers, decision makers, bureaucrats, industrialists, civil society, and the common people is essential. Bring in policy-changes and enact laws as appropriate. For example we can adopt Clean Water Act. USA had dramatically improved their river water quality through adopting Clean Water Act. We can also successfully apply Clean Water Act in Bangladesh. But it also should be remembered that proper enforcement of the act is concurrently important. It must be ensured. Establishing a Water Quality Monitoring Network covering all major rivers of the country. Most of the countries with vast rivers have their own water quality monitoring network. In our country there are some pollutants like heavy metals and POPs that are invisible to the naked eyes; we dont have any monitoring system to monitor these heavy metals. This is why water quality monitoring could be implemented as a very strong tool for preventing pollution. Observing a specic month of every year as the Water Month with an objective of caring and saving our freshwater resources for sustainable living. The month would be considered as stock checking month; it means in this specic month we will check what we have done all over the year for ensuring water quality. March could be observed as Water Month as it is very critical time in terms of both water quantity and water quality. Like the Sanitation Month, we can be able to sensitize a huge number of people through dierent advocacy and promotional activities throughout the Water Month.

Management Intervention
These include (i) Strengthening capacity of govt. agencies, e.g., DWASA, DCC, DoE, DoI, Rajuk, in environmental management and monitoring; (ii) Internalizing environmental management within industries; (iii) Adopting ISO 14000 in industries; (iv) Ensuring regular monitoring for informed decision-making; and (v) Waste minimization in industrial process including avoidance of generation of wastes and productive utilization of generated wastes.

Physical Interventions
The interventions could be as following (i) No alternative to domestic sewage treatment: low energy intensive, low maintenance options preferred with greater emphasis on resource recovery and recycling; (ii) Treatment in individual industries employing: (a) physico-chemical process, or (b) biological process, or (c) physico-chemical process followed by biological treatment depending on wastewater characteristics; (iii) Individual pre-treatment followed by common euent treatment for a group of industries; and (iv) Segregation of process wastewater containing recoverable chemicals from storm-water and domestic sewage and treating them separately.

Dr. Md. Mujibur Rahman is Professor at the Dept. of Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering Division, BUET. The article is developed based on his presentation given in the Consultation Communicating Water Quality Challenges and Opportunities organized by NGO Forum in observance of the World Water Day 2010.

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Right to Water & Sanitation: Inseparable Part of Enjoying Human Rights
Upoma Mahbub

water supply adequate sanitation facilities are integral to the realization of all human rights. Absence of any of these two is impediment to ensure other human rights such as the rights to health, healthcare, education, adequate standard of living, security, work, environment; and above all right to survival. Considering the importance of safe water and sanitation, on 28 July 2010, the General Assembly of United Nations has declared safe water and sanitation as human rights with unanimous approval of 122 countries. By this declaration safe water & sanitation have got its due emphasis and recognition towards ensuring all other human rights. In Bangladesh, lack of safe water supply and sanitation is violating the human rights of health, education, better standard of life, security, work, etc. The right to health and the right to environment are directly related with availability of safe water and sanitation facilities. Bangladesh is facing diculties in ensuring these rights, while climate change as a new phenomena is making the situation tougher. Despite having a satisfactory scenario of safe water supply, in special circumstances and in special areas water crisis is violating the human rights of health, education, better standard of life, security, work, etc in Bangladesh. Groundwater is the main source of drinking water in Bangladesh. But this source has become highly arsenic contaminated. A total of 98% people use water from fresh sources among them 86% is using arsenic-free safe water. As a result, approximately 2 crore people are at the risk of arsenic threat due to use of arsenic contaminated Tubewell water. This situation is seriously threatening peoples right to health. Some 0.6 billion US dollar is spent annually for arsenic treatment as deadly diseases like melanosis, keratosis, ulcer, gangrene, chronic lung disease, kidney failure, liver failure, cardiac diseases, skin cancer are caused by chronic arsenic poisoning. These diseases hamper peoples right to better

S afe and

standard of life as poor people have to spend huge amount of money for treatment purpose. On the other hand, adult arsenicosis patients lose their capacity to work; while children become unable to attain school which violates the rights to work and education. Though the country has dierent geophysical realities, still area-specic water supply technologies have not been developed. So, water supply situation in pocket areas like the char, the hill tracts, the coastal belt, haor or tea garden is not satisfactory. According to the government policy, the distance of safe water sources must be within 50 metres from a persons courtyard. But still the people of hard-to-reach areas are facing walks of long way for collecting water from distant places. In Bangladesh women mostly perform the duty of water collecting. Walking long distance while carrying water is harmful for their health, it is also a security problem for them.

Right to sanitation is inseparable part of enjoying human rights. Especially ensuring right to health depends on ensuring Total Sanitation. Despite being a crucial human right, right to health is being violated every time due to lack of water & sanitation facilities. An environmental latrine helps to ensure a persons human rights relating to better standard of life and sound health. According to the Bangladesh GoB report, 90.56% people have access to latrine while Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics & UNICEFs survey found that 54% people have gained access to improved sanitation. It means that even though the

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rate of latrine users has increased still awareness level is not up to the mark on Total Sanitation such as ill eects of open defecation, installation of environmental latrine & its use, safe disposal of latrine waste, covering the latrine hole, proper maintenance, practices of improved health habits, etc. As a consequence of not using environmental latrine, dierent water-borne diseases break out every year in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of 10 topmost countries regarding child mortality due to diarrhoeal diseases. These epidemics often violate peoples right to survive. Safe water, environmental latrine and total cleanliness are also integral part of ensuring an expected sound environment. Water pollution is one of the major barriers for achieving the right to environment. In Bangladesh, all kinds of domestic and industrial wastes are dumped into city-side rivers of dierent cities. Therefore, these rivers have become victims of acute water pollution. It is found that, no aquatic plant or animal can survive if the liqueed oxygen is less than 4 ml in per litre water. In Dhaka, dissolved oxygen in lots of canals including Begunbari Canal has come down to zero ml. With the continuous pollution of rivers, right to health is being violated both in urban and rural areas. The climate change impacts have deepened the crisis further. Today ensuring safe water and sanitation are the internationally recognized human rights. Indeed, with this recognition, the United Nations has undertaken initiatives to ensure all other declared human rights for all people worldwide. It has also called on United Nations Member States and international organizations to provide nancial and technical assistance to the poor countries with an aim to ensuring safe, accessible and aordable water and sanitation for all. Bangladesh Government has its own policies and strategies on water and sanitation issues while these issues are also linked to the enjoyment of civic services as well. Therefore, what is most needed now is to take steps to include safe water and sanitation as human rights into the Constitution, water & sanitation policies, education policy, environment protection laws, labour law, along with all other relevant policies, conventions and legislations with a view to setting all declared human rights for every community irrespective of caste, creed and ethnicity. Upoma Mahbub is currently working Documentation Ocer in NGO Forum as

Sanitation situation in the hard-to-reach areas because of its geophysical realities is fragile in compare to plain land. The reality of Haor, CHT or coastal areas are totally dierent from the main land also from each other. In most of the hard-to-reach areas, either there are no sanitation facilities at all or there are a few facilities unsuitable for the geophysical characteristic of the locality. Area-specic sanitation technologies are yet to develop and supply. So a huge population of the country is still far away from sanitation facilities.

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Womens Empowerment, Food Security and Climate Change: Poor Women's Plight
Parvez Babul

H istorically, women have been the key to food security. But they are not secure; especially poor

women die many times before their death. They receive less; have no rights to demand more. They say less, but are bound to listen more. They eat less, but must produce more to feed others. If we analyze the lives of poor women, we become amazed at how they survive. Nazma (not her real name), a 32-year-old woman from Patuakhali, lost her house and belongings in cyclone Sidr, which hit in November 2007. Nazma was married at the age of 14 to a 30-year-old day labourer. Nazma had 2 children, but was abandoned by her husband ve years ago due to her ultimate failure to pay extra dowry. He married another woman and now lives in the town of Patuakhali, pulling a rickshaw. Nazma's parents, brother and sister died in the 1991 severe cyclone. So, Nazma has no one from whom to seek any support. Cyclone Sidr took away 3000 lives, destroyed more than one million households, and snatched livelihoods of millions of people. Before standing up and bracing the loss, the people of the coastal belt faced another cyclone, Aila, in May 2009. Aila pushed them further back with considerable loss of lives and property. Nazma's two malnourished children survived Sidr and Aila, but then she had nothing to feed them. Nazma received some relief material, enough to last her a few days, but after that, she found no way to save the lives of her children and herself. So Nazma and her children, like many other victims, begged a launch supervisor to give her free tickets to Dhaka. She had to digest much slang from the launch authority. After arriving in Dhaka, Nazma and her children took shelter at Sadarghat launch terminal and passed two days without having any food, and only receiving water from a local restaurant. She looked for a housemaid's job, but people refused to

appoint her, as they did not know her. On the third night, two people came to Nazma and proposed to give her a 'good job.' Nazma agreed and went with one man while the other looked after her children until she returned. Taking her to a room, the man forced her to have sex with him, paid her just Tk.20, and abandoned her. Nazma cried silently and went to reclaim her children, but she lost her way and could not nd them. She cried loudly and searched for them everywhere, but she still could not nd them anywhere. Nazma became very tired searching for the children, passing her time in the city without a job, and begging to survive. After ten days, she somehow returned home to her village with the hope that maybe her children had returned there, but they were not. In her village, she could not nd work or food, but took shelter at a landlord's verandah to stay the night. Sidr and Aila aected many people in her area, so thousands of poor women and children, like Nazma and her lost children, were looking for help. There was profound regret, and wailing among many people, but too little help. Bangladesh experiences oods, drought, cyclones and disaster more frequently now, due to climate change. Scientists forecast a further increase in natural calamities in the future. This is why we need to explore the vulnerability of poor women and linkages between gender and climate change issues, particularly in relation to enhancing women's capacities to address climate change to save millions of women like Nazma and her children. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), public health depends on safe drinking water, sucient food, secure shelter, and good social conditions. Climate change is likely to aect all of these. Public health services and high living standards protect some populations from specic impacts; however, the health eects of a rapidly changing climate are likely to be overwhelmingly negative, particularly in the poorest communities. Among these eects: Rising temperatures and variable precipitation are likely to decrease the production of staple

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foods in many of the poorest regions, increasing risks of malnutrition. Rising sea levels increase the risk of coastal ooding, and may necessitate population displacement. More than half of the world's population now lives within 60 km of the sea. One of the most vulnerable regions is the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta of Bangladesh. One of the participants of the Third World Climate Conference (WCC-3), organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and held from August 31 to September 4, 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, was our Prime Minister. The theme of the conference was Climate Prediction and Information for Decision-making. Topics covered by this climate conference included the application of climate prediction and information on societal problems to enable better adaptation to climate variability. We need better climate information for a better future. The sorrows, tragedies and suerings of millions of women like Nazma need to be brought in front of world leaders to help save Bangladesh and its people from the long-term problems of climate change. The United Nations secretary general said, "Climate change poses at least as big a threat to the world as war. For that reason, we have a duty to the vulnerable people who contribute least to the problem, but experience its impacts most severely. And we have a responsibility to succeeding generations. We also have a historical obligation to successfully transit to a low-carbon global economy." In developing countries, because of women's marginalized status and dependence on local natural resources, their domestic burdens are doubly increased; they feel an even greater burden of climate change. They are also underrepresented in decision-making about climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and most critically, discussions and decisions about adaptation and mitigation. So, let us empower our destitute and poor women like Nazma. Their contributions through growing crops, planting trees, producing homestead food will help the country ensure food and nutritional security, and approach climate change eorts with more than just hope and a begging bowl. The landless, poor women like Nazma are in a desperate plight, having lost all their belongings. So, the duty of national and international leaders should be to save their lives, because they, as human beings, have equal rights to stay alive, like others. Parvez Babul is Associate Editor of online newspaper: bdreport24.com and weekly Manikganjer Khobor. He is the convener of Bangladesh Climate Change Journalists Forum. He is the author of the book: Womens empowerment, food security and climate change. Email to contact: parvezbabul@gmail.com

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Conservation of Nature: the Wetlands to Balance Ecosystem

Shamima Nasreen

Introduction
Animals, plants and water bodies are the most aected due to conscious or unconscious acts of human beings. The solution to such problem is not easy, because humans are many, and all to a greater or lesser degree, think that nature is at their service. The economic interest of the products derived from these species and water resources is one of the main dangers. The attitude towards wildlife feasible to be killed for food, oil, skins, feathers, or sport, have been undergoing signicant negative changes in many parts of the world. Moreover, the demands of the modern world exponentiate this idea and people become allured to hunting and to the illegal business-often with the collusion of the authoritative department that is supposed to protect the wildlife including water-bodies and its resources.

mountains, forests and beautiful lakes. They are pockets of minimum area, which today are not large enough to ensure the survival of many species, like our rare Royal Bengal Tiger or Elephant, or our various birds, creatures and sh.

History of Bio-diversity Loss and the Concerns

During the past 2,000 years the world has lost more than 100 species or subspecies of mammals. Approximately two thirds of these losses have occurred since the mid 19th century, most from early 20th century. Besides these extinct mammals, many more are disappearing or threatened. The main factor is the decrease of the world fauna in the modern human society. This is happening either directly through an excessive commercial hunting or, even more disastrous, indirectly by invasion or destruction of natural habitats. Comparatively few species seem to have disappeared in recent years due to disease or climate change but many others due to human-made reasons. Those interested in wildlife conservation recognize that conservation of animals should begin with the conservation of the habitat, the area where the animals feed, roost and breed. Of course this should be gripped by preserving the animal, including conservation of soil, water bodies and vegetation cover.

Initiation of Fresh Water Crisis Importance of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is an important issue of economic, aesthetic, health and cultural sectors, which form the basis for sustainable development. Although estimates vary, the general scientic consensus is that the world is losing biodiversity in terms of genes, species and ecosystems. The accelerating loss of biodiversity due to climate change and human-made reasons poses a global threat to the welfare of people. To deal with this, people therefore created protected areas: the national parks and reserves, which now play a much more important role in preserving waterfalls, The immense growth of populations and expanding economic needs are promoting the extension and intensication of industry and agriculture has also invaded natural habitats. This has been associated with introducing new types of farming, wetland drainage, general decline of groundwater, pollution of rivers and lakes, destruction of forests and the indiscriminate use of insecticides and herbicides. In many parts of the world, there has been extensive destruction of forests and large areas of natural vegetation that largely aect the fresh water facility.

What To Do?
Maintaining the natural integrity of the land and ecosystems through conservation and

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controlled-development can provide natural protection for water and sanitation systems. It can also reduce vulnerability to contamination of diseases. The controlled development policies can also prevent natural hazards and their eects. Deforestation, which is actually the result of so-called development, increases the frequency of landslides that pollute water ecosystems. The restoration of ecosystems, especially the protection of wetlands may also reduce the emergence and distribution of pathogens (such as bacteria and viruses) explosions; because wetlands, especially of coastal, absorb microorganisms and some chemicals. Water owing through urban areas often contains heavy metals including cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and nickel. Most of these substances are usually bound to sediments entering the wetland system. Wetland plants can trap heavy metals and pathogens from runo waters and x them temporarily in plant tissues. Thick, organic, wetland soils can trap pollutants and keep them out of adjacent water bodies. Moreover, coastal wetlands also protect shorelines from erosion by dissipating the energy from waves and currents (Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida: 2004). To save the wetlands, policy makers must recognize the potential dangers of uncontrolled development and should build sucient environment-friendly infrastructures of water and sanitation, and it is must to initiate and implement family planning programmes in a developing country like Bangladesh to control population growth. Without thinking twice, we must revere the conservation of the species by allowing them to move on to the space and water bodies they inhabit. To improve the situation, we must take the responsibility for immediate action by reducing the consumerist behavior and to understand long-term benet of the conservation of existing ora and fauna. Besides, we have to undertake several other initiatives through research to evaluate, which can best implement conservation plans and can protect species and water-bodies. The oldest forms of prohibitions and controls are to regulate hunting & shing and taking several campaigns against water pollution. Since still there is ignorance about the situation, it is the duty of the government of Bangladesh, dierent development organizations, media, the communities and each of us to deal with these major problems that aecting our environment and our neighbours, animals and plants and none-the-less our life, water. Shamima Nasreen is a former employee of NGO Forum and presently working in The Daily Star, Bangladesh as Sub-editor.

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Sanitation for Urban Poor: Implementation of Pro-poor Strategy and Coordination Required
Ranjan Ghose

U rban poor are one of the underprivileged sections of the populace who are unwillingly plunged into a

sea of vulnerabilities. Poor sanitation is among one of their miseries. The water supply and sanitation for the urban poor is an issue that arouses some crucial questions. One of the vital issues for the vulnerable water and sanitation (WatSan) situation in urban areas in Bangladesh is the lack of a clear mandate arming who will coordinate and what to coordinate especially between the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) and City Corporation. Besides, the coordination among pourasabhas, other utilities and institutions is also insucient. Alongside, the WatSan service at urban area is tax payer focused that results into partial coverage of the total urban people. As a result, the achievement in terms of water and sanitation coverage in Bangladesh is not up to the mark.

Safe drinking water is a basic necessity for good health. The population of urban area is mainly using WASA piped water, public tap, Tubewell, protected well etc for their daily use. While the country has made a good progress in increasing access to water supply and sanitation, about 28% of the urban population and 41% of the rural population still do not have access to safe water. By 2006, with sanitation, only 74% of urban areas and 57% of rural areas are covered2. In around a third of small towns or pourashabhas, limited piped water supply is available for 2-12 hours a day. The situation in slum areas is far away worse than the average scenario. In urban areas, the water supply and sanitation services are carried out by WASA and City Corporation and Pourasabha Water Sections. The WASA usually takes no initiative to provide the water supply facility to them who are not enlisted in holding numbers. The slums and squatters are always neglected by the public sector in our country. On the other hand, as the slums and squatters are the dwelling place of mostly the poor and hardcore poor, they can arrange no facility for themselves to fulll the demand for water and sanitation and thus, live a distressed life. We need to cover an additional 27,147 households per month, if we want to achieve the target of 100% basic water supply coverage by 2011 It is necessary to cover an additional 51,674 households per month if we want to cover 100% sanitation coverage by 2013 as the government declaration. Again, this requires considerable increase of performance of urban sanitation as the annual urban sanitation progress rate is only 8.63%; while in rural areas the rate is 16.43% since the national sanitation target had been declared in Sep/Oct. 20033. This also complies with the Joint Monitoring Programme report (updated 2010) of WHO and UNICEF. So, in a word, we can say that the progress is quite dissatisfactory. Similar situation is still in existence in the case of sector coordination and available funding. There are discrimination in funding agreement within and between the big cities and small cities continuously. A study4 shows that the largest six cities are receiving larger share of total sanitation and safe water supply allocation while it shows that secondary and small towns only get 11.8% of total urban allocation. Though the Government of Bangladesh has declared, in 2004, that 20% of the allocation from the Annual

Out of the total population in Bangladesh, approximately 23% live in urban area, which is increasing by 3%-6% per year. And thats why the urban population is expected to be a third and a half of the total population of the country by 2010 and 2025 respectively1. But surprisingly, though National Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation 1998 set a target of water supply and sanitation coverage for all, no legal act has yet been developed for water supply and sanitation provision to the houses without holding numbers which apparently excludes all slums and squatters from WSS services. Consequently, the number of population, out of WatSan coverage, is increasing remarkably day after day at urban areas.

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discrimination. To ensure the right of the hardcore poor to the access to safe water supply and sanitation must be addressed. Nevertheless, the achievement no way will be sustainable and contribute in improving the health, lives or livelihood of the urban poor. Further, considering the issue of sector coordination, it is most imperative that the government and non-government sector will maintain continuous coordination and liaison between themselves through direct contact, meeting, sharing, and workshops. The proactive roles from the LGI representatives in their respective areas on WatSan issues greatly will encourage the initiative of other sector organizations. As LGI can play the vital role in community planning, negotiation with land owners, conict resolution during implementation, awareness related events through preserving and displaying of WatSan related information in the LGI oces and accordingly updating the progress. The capacity building of Local Government Institutes as well as other service delivery agencies is mandatory in this regard. However, there is lack of pro-poor strategy at WASA, City Corporation and other government strategies that creates the discrimination between rich and poor in terms of Water and Sanitation facilities. Thus, there is no alternative of developing an eective pro-poor cost sharing strategy to address the poor and hardcore poor dwellers in the slums of the urban areas. In conclusion, it can be said that the following initiatives must be undertaken in ensuring the WatSan facilities for the urban poor that nally will result into safer environment for the urban area of our country. Firstly, legal acts for water supply and sanitation services in urban areas must be developed that will support in addressing the poor properly. Secondly, there is no alternative of allocation of more funds both from government and development partners to mark the national goal of WatSan coverage by 2010. Thirdly, development of eective pro-poor cost sharing strategy will contribute in providing the facility according to the required demand. Lastly, capacity building of the Local Government Institute and other service delivery agencies will ensure the proper implementation and its sustainability. Above all, eective sector coordination from all the service providers will help in running all the programmes smoothly to ensure the human rights of the urban poor to enjoy the WatSan facilities.
1 Population Census, 2001 2 News Release, ADB, October 25, 2006

Development Programme (ADP) should be spent for sanitation promotion particularly for the hardcore poor through local government bodies in both rural and urban areas; but this fund has not been disbursed timely to the urban poor. But, it is encouraging that, beside the initiatives from the government institutes such as WASA, City Corporation, pourasabha, some remarkable programmes have been taken from non-government organizations, considering the urban WatSan situation. The programmes implemented by the non-government organizations are much more pro-poor than those of the governments. They have been implementing dierent activities to improve the access to water supply and sanitation for the poor people in slum areas. But, is it quite adequate? Absolutely not. The initiative only from the non-government sector no way can be the solution to the WatSan problem of the urban poor. Thus, the government must take necessary initiatives along with providing support for the non-government sector in order to achieve the national target of WatSan coverage within the set timeframe. On the other hand, the achievement so far also raises question if we think about the sustainability. Considering the existing situation of urban area, the issue of community empowerment, women empowerment, poverty reduction etc must be addressed in implementing WatSan programmes. Approximately 80% people in our country live below the poverty line, the initiatives must be designed considering the issue of the slums in the urban areas. The water supply facility in the slums of the urban is quite inadequate. Thus the community here is not only victim of poverty but also of

3 Government of Bangladesh and UN Country Team, The rst 4 Situation Analysis of Selected Six Pourasabhas, Participatory

Bangladesh MDG Progress Report, 2004

Management Initiative for Development (PMID), Dhaka, Bangladesh

Ranjan Kumar Ghose is working as Advocacy & Documentation Ocer in NGO Forum.

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From MDG Achievement to Building a Healthy Bangladesh

Jubaida Akhter

F or Bangladesh achieving an MDG award in reducing child mortality has been a boost for the

government as well as development activists. But does it say it all? The success has come through the initiatives taken by the government to address some of the major causes responsible for infant mortality in Bangladesh. Among these were acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, malaria, etc often compounded by malnutrition. Large budgetary allocations and aid from the government and development partners contributed to change the situation through increasing equitable access to life-saving health services, such as immunisations, treatment of diarrhoea for the poorest segment of the population. My point of argument is based on whether our government has its focus more on the curative measures rather than the preventive measures? Creating and increasing medical conveniences & amenities surely improves the quality of service but how much does it contribute to building a healthy nation? In the broader sense of the term Public Health, it does not merely mean providing some services through the institutions under the control of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW). It is more about protecting our surrounding environment for a prolonged healthy life. Whereas, Bangladesh inherits a healthcare service structure that is predominantly urban-centered and curative care oriented. Health itself is a multifaceted issue. The MOHFW denes health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or inrmity in its Health Policy1. What Bangladesh has achieved regarding child

mortality is simply a partial achievement in this consideration. One of the fundamental elements for a healthy living has been long ignored in our country Sanitation. In almost all the least developed and developing countries sanitation plays a central role in maintaining & portraying Public Health. Bangladesh is no exception. And this makes the issue of serious attention. Today when the world is talking about ecological sanitation sadly, in our country sanitation is merely conned within basic sanitation. Health is more or less aected by the environment around us. With unhealthy, unhygienic living conditions it will be a fools dream to achieve a healthy life as dened in the national policy. The present conditions are helping the proliferation of bacteria and the degradation of our overall ecology has only speeded up the whole process. Walking through the slums of Dhaka city, it simply felt to me that these were the hubs of all types of germ and germ-carrier. Unhygienic sanitation has left these peoples health at a corroding momentum. No matter what the infrastructural improvement may be done in the medical sector, these children will never come out of their poor health only as a result of living in poor sanitary conditions.

On Track with the MDG Targets Considering WatSan as Human Rights - Another Missing Note
Two of the MDGs are directly connected with sanitation - goal no. 4 which states reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-ve mortality rate; and goal no. 7.C which says halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The rst goal is driven towards improving child health and the second contributes to ensuring environmental sustainability. The Sanitation Secretariat records apparently looks as to be a commendable one representing that the countrys sanitation coverage moved up to 90.56% (2009) from 33% (2003)2. But it needs to be noted that this record only represents the latrine coverage of the country; irrespective of whether or not the latrine is in usable condition. Sustainable access is still a far-o question. Again, the UN has adopted peoples access to water and sanitation as human rights. To be in track with the MDGs, this right needs to be included in the countrys constitution; and relevant policies, legal acts should be revised accordingly.

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A Distant Dream
The Bangladesh MDG Country Report 2009 reveals that the countrys improved sanitation coverage is now 54%. Total Sanitation is still a distant reach for Bangladesh. The management of all forms of household wastes is left untreated even in the divisional cities, let alone districts, upazilas and unions. The term basic sanitation refers to the management of human feces at the household level. And as mentioned earlier, even the basic sanitation coverage is in question as latrines that have become unusable have not been considered but these do not serve the purpose of human feces management. Public toilets alone are enough to portray the mass peoples hygiene awareness. Sanitation is a neglected issue at schools, public places, even hospitals. Disposal of waste is expensive and most of the concern authorities lack the commitment to do it. In such circumstances even if we reach the specic MDG targets, developing a healthy generation will still remain a distant dream. fundamental human rights harmonized with extreme poverty. In areas where there are no government or non-government interventions, the mass people even are unaware of the necessity of these human rights. This is largely contributing to their poor health and on a whole they are producing a generation of ill health children. It needs to be noted here that the average number of children in lower-income families are higher than the families with better income.

The New Health Policy and the Age Old Bureaucracy

At present, the government is in process of formulating a new country health policy. But it is a growing concern for us as so far the policy formulators have remained conned between medical professionals; whereas integrating it with the environmental issues will only make the policy much more adaptive with the present geophysical context. Otherwise, the health policy is again more likely to serve the curative care services lacking comprehensiveness. Integration between relevant ministries is crucial in improving Public Health in the long run. The policy Inclusion of safe water supply and environmental sanitation as human rights into the Constitution and these policies are also obligatory. Until these are happening in Bangladesh reaching the millennium development goals will remain a distant ambition that is missing its roots.
1 2

The Total Left Outs and Health in their Lives

According to the Sanitation Secretariat, 9.44% of the population is totally left out of governments sanitation coverage. This is the populace still practicing open defecation. A major portion of this population is living in the hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh e.g. hill tracts, coastal o-shore islands, chars, haor region and the tea gardens. Health is a much neglected issue for the hard-to-reach population. Health is amalgamated with lack of sanitation, lack of safe water, lack of any of the

http://nasmis.dghs.gov.bd/mohfw/ Sanitation Secretariat Progress Report (June 2009)

Jubaida Akhter is working as Senior Information Ocer in NGO Forum.

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Horizontal Learning Programme Emphasized in Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts on WatSan

A day-long Consultation on Climate Change Impacts on WatSan & Its Adaptation was jointly organized by
NGO Forum and BCAS on 26 September at the Conference Lounge of the National Press Club, Dhaka. The Consultation, organized with the support of TDH Netherlands looked towards nding some adaptation to WatSan promotion, especially in the visage of climate change in Bangladesh.

Dr. Hasan Mahmud, MP, State Minister, Ministry of Environment & Forest, graced the Consultation as the Chief Guest. Chaired and moderated by Dr. A. Atiq Rahman, Executive Director, BCAS the Consultation was also addressed by Jan Moller Hansen, Deputy Head of Mission, the Royal Danish Embassy and Md. Nuruzzaman, Chief Engineer, Department of Public Health Engineering as Special Guests. A Presentation on Climate Change Impacts on Water Supply and Sanitation and Potential for Adaptation Measures in Bangladesh was delivered by Dr. Dwijen Mallick, Fellow, BCAS. A lm entitled The People in Plight by NGO Forum illustrated the demolition of WatSan facilities caused by climatic elements. Among the Panelists of the Consultation were Mahmudul Kabir, Country Director, TDH Netherlands; Dr. Md. Khairul Islam, Country Representative, WaterAid-Bangladesh and Mark Ellery, Regional Water & Sanitation Specialist, WSP-South Asia, The World Bank. Participants in the Consultation stressed that adaptation is now a priority for Bangladesh. And the Horizontal Learning Programme of the Local

Government Division is an eective approach to proceed. The Programme works in a peer-to-peer approach to upheld the best practices and scale up operations at the union level through the Union Parishads. Horizontal Learning could contribute as mechanism to transfer knowledge already produced and in practice by the aected communities to increase the resilience capacity of the people. It was also recommended to mainstream climate change, climate issues into all national, sub-national, and local planning processes to ensure climate-resilient water supply, sanitation and health services. At the end of Consultation the Chief Guest Dr. Hasan Mahmud launched a case study book published by NGO Forum entitled Reaching the Hard-to-Reach.

Editor S.M.A. Rashid Executive Editor Joseph Halder Assistant Editor Jubaida Akhter Salina Shahnaz Shilpi

Editorial Advisory Board Dr. K.S. Huda Anish K. Barua Printing and Publication Development Communication Cell

Views expressed in the WatSan are not necessarily those of NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply & Sanitation while they are certainly those of authors.

Quarterly Newsletter of the NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply & Sanitation
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