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Table of Contents

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................................ II LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................................... II 1. DESCRIPTION OF THE WSS INTERVENTION ............................................................................... 1 2. SELECTION OF SLUM .......................................................................................................................... 2 3. SITUATION ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................... 3 4. ORGANIZATIONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS ................................................................. 7 5. FINANCIAL ASPECTS ......................................................................................................................... 11 6. SUSTAINABILITY OF THE INTERVENTION ................................................................................ 13 7. LESSONS LEARNED AND SUGGESTIONS ..................................................................................... 16

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LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: ROLE OF THE STAKEHOLDERS ............................................................................................................... 9 TABLE 2: POVERTY CATEGORIES ........................................................................................................................ 11 TABLE 3: PATTERN OF MONTHLY INSTALLMENT PAYMENT FOR WATER SUPPLY ................................................. 12 TABLE 4: TYPE AND PRICE OF HARDWARE OPTIONS (LATRINES) ........................................................................ 13 TABLE 5: SOME SUGGESTIONS ............................................................................................................................ 18 TABLE 6: PROBLEMS FACED DURING THE INTERVENTION ................................................................................... 19 TABLE 7: SWOT MATRIX .................................................................................................................................. 20

LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: OVERVIEW OF BAGANBARI SLUM ........................................................................................................ 2 FIGURE 2: OCCUPATION OF THE HEAD OF HH ...................................................................................................... 3 FIGURE 3: MONTHLY INCOME OF HHS (TAKA) .................................................................................................... 3 FIGURE 4: GENERAL VIEW OF A WATER POINT ...................................................................................................... 5 FIGURE 5: GENERAL VIEW OF SANITATION OPTION ............................................................................................... 5 FIGURE 6: BENEFIT OF PRACTICE PERSONAL HYGIENE .......................................................................................... 6 FIGURE 7: HAND WASHING PRACTICE OF HH AFTER DEFECATION ........................................................................ 6 FIGURE 8: STAKEHOLDERS’ MAP AND THEIR INTERACTIONS .............................................................................. 10

1. DESCRIPTION OF THE WSS INTERVENTION Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK) is a development Non-governmental Organization (NGO), which started out by initiating a health program in 1988. DSK is committed to address various social and economic problems of the economically depressed and vulnerable groups in general. Empowerment of communities is a central focus issue of all development initiatives. Over the years, the organization has extended its geographical, beneficiary and programmatic coverage quite significantly. The long-term development program includes education, health, microfinance, agriculture, water supply and sanitation. All this work is aimed at supporting disadvantaged poor people.

Women Empowerment Increase social interactions Cost sharing strategy based on

ability to pay and poverty categories

Improve standard of living

Main features: Community mobilization and

participation at decision making process

Type of community contribution: part of capital cost and O&M and management

Main supporting agency: DSK

Hardware: 4 Tube-wells, 6 Single pit latrines and 8 Twine pit latrines

Number of households: 277 Number of beneficiaries: 1,250

DSK is providing water supply and sanitation services into the urban poor areas for more than two decades. They mainly facilitate low-income group people to receive basic services from the legal sources; mostly the low-income group people live in urban slums areas. Therefore, DSK provides their efforts to bring in watsan services within the reach of the poor communities. DSK has developed an innovative process on water supply and sanitation and facilitating the slum dwellers to operate and maintain those systems. Baganbari is an old slum situated at the northern-west part of Dhaka city. It was previously known as Karim Mia’s slum. Mr. Karim mia, a homeless person, first made a shed and started to live in the area with his family. There was a garden means Bagan in Bangla, near the house of Karim Mia. People from outside came into that area and started to build their shelters and sheds around the garden and gradually the place have got the shape of a slum. The slum has got a name and became popular as Baganbari slum. The slum is situated in 1980 at ward no. 4 of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) under section 14 of Mirpur area. The area of the slum is around one acre and it is jointly owned by Ministry of Housing and Public Works and DWASA. It stands on the bank of Dhaka Water and Sanitation Authority (DWASA) waste water disposal canal, behind the boundary wall of police battalion quarter & Dhaka Dental College. Figure 1 depicts the overview of the Baganbari slum.

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Figure 1: Overview of Baganbari slum

The total population of Baganbari slum is 1250. There are about 277 families and on average 5.5 members live in each household in the slum. There are hardly gaps between houses and mainly narrow passages are used for getting in and out from the houses. There is a temporarily built long path around the slum which was constructed under the supervision of slum dwellers financed by DSK.

2. SELECTION OF SLUM Water supply and sanitation facilities are considered as the basic needs that should be provided by the government among the citizens of the country. However, there are serious lacks in providing such services among the citizens of the country living in urban areas. On the other hand, according to the ordinance of the City Corporations, they are not legally allowed to provide any kind of utility services into the slum areas as those are considered as illegal settlements and do not have any holding number. So, the people live in the slum areas are deprived from receiving any utility services. Therefore, DSK took initiative to provide some basic services like water and sanitation facilities into the slum areas. In general, DSK provides watsan services among the low-income group people living in urban slum areas allover the country. In Dhaka, DSK is implementing the watsan innovative process in many places. Baganbari is one of such slums where the socio-economic statuses of the people are considered low and the watsan condition of the areas was very deficient. From that perception, DSK is providing watsan services among deprived poor people whose financial ability is below the poverty line. The Baganbari slum area is situated in the periphery of the urban settlement and near by the Dhaka Cantonment. All the houses are very close to one another and mostly made of bamboo with tin at the roof. The overall environment of the area was extremely unhygienic. People were used to go for open defecation, human feces and regularly generated wastes were allover the slum areas and people usually suffered from water borne diseases. The roots caused the environmental problems in slum areas were poverty, inequity and gender inequality. There were only two illegal taps inside the slum that were controlled by the musclemen. DSK selected the slum as a challenge to ensure improved environment and easy access to watsan services by the poor slum

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dwellers live in the area. DSK started their activities through constructing narrow concrete roads (narrow) inside the slum area. Gradually they took initiatives to install water supply and sanitation hardware and provide hygiene education into the slum area.

3. SITUATION ANALYSIS According to the field survey, it is found that the heads of the households are involved with variety of occupations. Most of them are involved with small business (17%) and working as rickshaw/van/cart puller (17%). People are also involved with private service (13%) and working as servant (13%). Unemployment/nonspecific job is a significant problem in the slum. Other major occupations were to work as daily labor and servant (Figure 2). The economical status of the people is considered as low-income group people. Almost 62% people earn less than Tk, 5,000 per month and the monthly earning of 27% people are less than Tk 3,000 (Figure 3). The living cost in Dhaka city is high compare to the other cities. Therefore, the low income group people couldn’t afford better living rather than forcefully adopt themselves to live in the slum areas. Baganbari slum is also no exception. The educational background indicates that at least 37% people have literacy knowledge and as expected most of the slum dwellers are illiterate. It is found that there is no formal or informal school in the slum. However 30% people have got education within class I-V and 7% within class VI-X from outside schools. Therefore, it is evident that people of the community do not have adequate knowledge on positive impacts of water supply and sanitation issues and installation of safe water supply and sanitation options at the household level.

17%13%

17%

10% 3% 10%

13%

0%

10%

20%

30%

Perc

enta

ge17%

Handicraft/Small CottageStudentUnemployedLaborerRickshaw/Van/Cart pullerServantSmall BusinessService

< 300

0

3001

to 40

00

4001

to 50

00

5001

to 60

0060

00+

Figure 3: Monthly Income of HHs (Taka) Figure 2: Occupation of the Head of HH

The watsan situation of the slum area was extremely deficient before the intervention. There were six illegal water connections in the slum; some outside musclemen established the illegal water connection into the slum area and charged high amount of money for collecting the water from those sources. The slum people were paying tk.100 per month besides paying non-refundable Tk. 200 at the beginning of using the illegal water source. There was no guarantee of getting quality water as those water supply line passed through dirty places resulting high risk of contamination. There were no

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hygienic latrines around the slum and people used to defecate at open spaces or used hanging latrines; those latrines were directly channeled with nearby water bodies. The health situation of the slum dwellers was miserable; people suffered a lot from waterborne diseases like diarrhoea, malnutrition, dysentery and others. However, the overall situation has changed and improved gradually as DSK started implementing watsan innovative process in the slum area. DSK implemented a project titled “Advancing Sustainable Environmental Health (ASEH)”, which was financed by WaterAid Bangladesh. DSK provided hardware support like installation of water points/stands, sanitary latrines and software services like hygiene promotion, formation of different types of groups etc. At the initial stage, DSK had taken different initiatives to understand the importance of having water and sanitation facilities inside the slum. They carried out different types of awareness campaign activities in the slum and provided efforts for rapport building. It took nearly three months to establish respectable relations with the community. After the completion of rapport building process DSK employed the system of participatory rapid appraisal (PRA) to collect detail information to analyze economical and social conditions and livelihood patterns of the area. During the process, DSK ensured active participation of the slum people through using different types of PRA tools including health walk/transact, social mapping, FDG, body mapping etc. With such initiatives, the people of the slum were ignited on water supply, sanitation and hygiene issues. On a mass gathering, people took initiative to analyze the overall environment situation of the slum area and took decisions on possible preventive actions to improve the living conditions of the slum dwellers. People of the community developed an action plan. The action plan included water, sanitation and hygiene activities and also considered other social and infrastructure issues. On the same occasion, the slum dwellers also formed a Slum Development Committee (SDC) in Baganbari slum for proper implementation of the action plan, which is popularly known as the Advisory Committee. DSK played the key role to encourage the people of the communities and ensured maximum possible participations of the slum dwellers on the mass gathering; such gathering is generally known as Projection Meeting. Women were especially encouraged to participate on the decision making process and to involve with different community based committees. DSK is providing watsan services in many slum areas situated in Mirpur zone. DSK has established a local office and formed a local team to provide possible hardware and software services in the project areas under the zone; Baganbari is one of such slums. DSK local team conducted a baseline survey using various PRA tools to gather general information regarding the slum. The objective of conducting the baseline survey was to collect detail and descriptive information of individual household including the number of family members, age group, educational level, occupation, health service facilities, monthly income and expenditure, number of earning members, male/female headed households, vulnerable and destitute families, child mortality, and disabled member in the household, status of drinking water and sanitation.

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DSK organized six projection meetings in the slum after completing the baseline survey to validate the collected data, socio-economic situation of each household and their ability to pay for availing water, sanitation and hygiene related services. DSK introduced a range of technological options for the installation of water point/stand and sanitary latrine. Community enjoyed the freedom to choose the suitable hardware according to their affordability. Figure 4 and Figure 5 depict general view of water point and sanitation option respectively.

Figure 5: General view of sanitation option

Figure 4: General view of a water point

DSK introduced hygiene promotion activities from the beginning of the project initiation in the slum area. This is one of the unique interventions of the watsan innovative process. It provided positive impacts on overall improvement of the environmental situation. DSK organized hygiene promotion training sessions to cover all sections of the people in the slum. DSK encouraged children to form children group. Same way encouraged adolescent and female to form adolescent and female groups accordingly. DSK selected one active female person from the community and appointed the person as the Community Health Promoter (CHP). CHP is mainly taken the responsibility to organize different training sessions among different groups on a regular basis. CHP organizes courtyard meetings to disseminate hygiene promotion messages among different groups. The children, adolescent and female groups take lessons separately as separate sessions were organized to disseminate the information among different groups. At the initial stage, people did not show any interest to attend and learn on hygiene issues. Therefore, DSK found it difficult to organize different types of people to attend hygiene sessions. Adult females were unaware about the issue they were more interested to engage themselves with family related activities like cooking, washing etc. and same way, children were not at all interested to learn rather than moving around and it was same situation in the case of adolescent girls. However, CHP worked hard to encourage them to attend different health sessions. Gradually female group, adolescent girls and children actively participated on the hygiene sessions. All the groups are presently playing active role to disseminate and monitor hygiene promotion activities in the slum area.

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From the field survey, it is found that the training sessions and monitoring process provides positive impacts on overall environmental improvement of the community (Figure 6). Most of the people stated that physically the slum dwellers are feeling well (62%) after adopting hygiene practices into their daily lives. More than 42% people stated that they have got more energy to concentrate on their works. One example of changing behavior on hygiene practice is that, presently cent percent people wash their hands after defecation with available items (Figure 7); 38% people use soap after defecation, 25% use ash and 14% people use soil. 21% people ensured that they wash hands with available items.

0 10 2 0 3 0 4 0 5

F req uency o f d iseases wo uld b e red uced

F eel healt hy

Physically f eel well

N o d iseases occured

M ent al C o mf o rt

Keep Saf e f ro m Jaund ice, D ysent ry, D iarrho ea

Get mo re energ y t o wo rk

Percentage of HHs

0 6 0 70

Figure 6: Benefit of practice personal hygiene

At the initial stage, DSK found it difficult to mobilize the slum dwellers on adopting participatory approach and take responsibilities to change the existing situation by their own. The people of the community weren’t willing to provide cooperation to the implementing NGO as they were fully unaware about participatory approach and positive impacts of health and hygiene issues. Gradually DSK has got entrance into the slum area through using PRA techniques and with the cooperation from other stakeholders. DSK communicated with local government bodies and social leaders to influence the slum dwellers on adopting the new watsan innovative process. DSK also communicated with DWASA to provide legal water connection into the slum area, which was also a motivating factor for the slum dwellers. DSK had to provide their efforts to influence the DWASA for providing legal water connection into the slum area.

2%

25%

14%

21%

38%

water soap ash soil use no specific item

Figure 7: Hand washing practice of HH after defecation

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4. ORGANIZATIONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS There are different institutions played an important role in the development of watsan intervention process. WaterAid Bangladesh, an INGO is the main organization that provides required financial support to the project. The funding agency is providing financial support under the “Advancing Sustainable Environmental Health (ASEH) programme”. WaterAid Bangladesh is also providing technical assistance to the implementing NGO. They also have taken the responsibility to conduct different types of research and disseminate reports. Plan Bangladesh is providing a portion of the financial budget and technical assistance to organize children group and facilitate them to disseminate hygiene issues among their friends. DSK is mainly responsible in implementing the watsan innovative process into the slum areas. DSK is providing technical and management assistance in Baganbari slum. DSK is providing their efforts to organize the communities and advocating different local government organizations to ensure easy access on watsan services by the slum dwellers. There has a role of the local government body at the ward level. The ward commissioner provides indirect support in the slum area. DWASA provides legal water connection through DSK. DSK is involved as the guarantor of the legal water connection. Community is playing the key roles to receive watsan facilities in the slum area. Community maintains close communication with the implementing NGO and follows their instructions to be benefited from the innovative process. As the slums are illegal establishment, the local government does not allow providing legal support in those areas. Actually according to the law of the City Corporation, they are not legally allowed to provide utility services into any illegal places that do not have any holding numbers. Therefore, DSK took initiative to influence the local government body, mainly the ward commissioner to provide possible support for implementing watsan facilities in the slum areas. Community also maintained regular liaison with the ward commissioner and provided their efforts to convince the ward commissioner to allow them receiving watsan services from outside agency. Eventually, the ward commissioner provided indirect support to different activities that were implementing in the slum area. The ward commissioner also participated on different awareness campaigns and also inaugurated hardware facilities established in the slum. Therefore, the local government provides indirect support to the slum dwellers in mutual understanding with DSK. DSK organized community people to form different community based committees for receiving the watsan services in their locality. There are seven clusters in the slum. Total 35-40 families belong to each cluster. There are three types of committees that are actively functioning in Baganbari slum to ensure effective management of water, sanitation and hygiene practices. The advisory committee comprises of five men of leadership quality, permanently living in the slum. The members of the advisory committee selected through a general

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meeting for one year tenure. The advisory committee is responsible to provide possible supports to the slum dwellers for receiving basic services. The committee assists and facilitates the community in selection of site for construction/installation of the water points/stands and sanitary latrines and facilitate to buy raw materials. The committee also provides guidelines to the water and sanitation committees on overall management of the hardware, protecting the water points/stands and sanitary latrines from illegal power users, maintaining liaison with local power structure to facilitate on smooth functioning of the hardware. The advisory committee is the main committee of the slum. Therefore, the overall progress of different watsan activities in the slum area depends on active functioning of the committee. There is one water committee for each water point/stand. The water committee comprises of 10 women among the beneficiaries of each water point/stand. There is a president, general secretary and cashier in each committee and others involved as members. The water committee selected through a general meeting for one year tenure. Their responsibilities are laid with management and maintenance of the water point; ensure regular collection and payments of agreed percentage of the capital cost and water tariffs; repair and maintenance of water points; and ensures security of the water point. The water committee takes part at the decision making process with the advisory committee at various stages including selection of site, construction work, maintain liaison with local power structure on the issues of management for the smooth functioning of the water services. DSK assigns one supervisor in the slum to assist the water committee for collecting water tariff and monthly installments from the beneficiaries and handed over to DSK. There is a committee for each sanitation block. The sanitation committee also comprises of 10 women among the beneficiaries where there is a president, general secretary and cashier that leads the beneficiaries of that particular block. The sanitation committee selected through a general meeting for one year tenure. All the members of the sanitation committee are women. Their responsibilities are confined with overall management of the sanitation block; regular collection and payments of agreed percentage of the capital cost; ensure cleanliness of the sanitation block; repair and maintenance of sanitation block; and ensures security of the sanitation block. The purchase committee (PC) is a temporary committee and members of the committee are selected by the community. One purchase committee is formed for the construction of one hardware option. PC is responsible to buy watsan materials from the market. Usually the size of a purchase committee is 3-5 persons. There are two representatives from DSK who also assist them to purchase required materials. These are: Community Health Worker and Unit Manager. PC is also involved with some other activities like assign contractor, monitor the construction works etc. The committee resolves once the construction of hardware is fully completed and it is handed over to the user community. The members of the purchase committee firstly verify the price of each item and then buy the construction materials. The female and children groups are consist of 10 members. The female group members are selected from adjacent households. There is one leader among 10 members. After

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attending the hygiene sessions, it becomes the responsibility of the female group to disseminate hygiene messages among others; Community Health Promoter (CHP) assists them to disseminate hygiene related massages. The female group also monitors the overall progress of the hygiene practices. The female leader maintains a monitoring chart to keep records of the status and progress of each household. The monitoring tool is developed by the female group with direct guidance from the implementing NGO. The female members visit each house and convey hygiene messages among others and convince them to follow hygiene related instructions into their daily lives. The children group members are known as children leaders. Each leader conveys the hygiene messages among his/her friends. According to the law of the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) there is a WATSAN Committee at the ward level in each ward. DSK ensured participation from the slum into the ward level committee. It provides some indication of recognizing the slum committee by the local government organizations. The respective roles of the different stakeholders are presented in Table 1. Figure 8 depicts institutional arrangement and linkages among various stakeholders.

Table 1: Role of the stakeholders

Stakeholders Main Activity

Advisory Committee/Community Based Committee (CBO)

Preparation of Community Action Plan Regular communication with implementing agency, local government body Guide the CMC

Water/Sanitation Management Committee (CMC)

Maintenance of Hardware; Collection of monthly fees

Purchase Committee Purchase hardware materials for the construction of WSS Hardware

Contractor Construction of Hardware DSK Implementing Agency WaterAid Bangladesh Financial and technical assistance Plan Bangladesh Mobilizes children’s group

Local Government Body (Ward level)

Informal support to the slum dwellers; Representatives at ward level WATSAN committee

DWASA Legal water supply connection

Figure 8: Stakeholders’ map and their interactions

Institutional area Financial area Technical area Social area

Local Government Body (Ward

level)

WaterAid Bangladesh DSK

CBO

Water/Sanitation Management Committee

Contractor Purchase Committee

Plan Bangladesh

Institutional

Social

Economic

Technical

Negotiation

Support

Alliance

Indirect support

Sort of Stakeholder Sort of Interaction

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5. FINANCIAL ASPECTS Mainly WaterAid Bangladesh is providing financial support to the project. Plan Bangladesh is also providing a portion of fund to assist the activities of the children group.Apart from the donar agencies, people of the community also contribute on the project to receive hardware services. Community follows a capital cost sharing strategy, which is developed by WaterAid Bangladesh and DSK is responsible to implement the strategy among the beneficiaries. As communities are not able to share the cent percent capital cost for installation of watsan hardware, they paid a faction of the capital cost according to their ability to pay. WaterAid Bangladesh provides guidelines for the project where it describes five poverty categories (A, B, C, D and E) depending on the income situation. People of the community also considered some social indicators to categorize their economical status including number of meals in a day, type of furniture and home appliances, ability to celebrate different festivals, etc. Table 2 provides the number of households in each category.

Table 2: Poverty categories

Category Number of households

A-not poor 51 B-poor but relatively better off household

124

C-Moderate poor household

23

D-Hard core poor 11 E-Vulnerable/extreme poor

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According to the ability to pay strategy, “A” category beneficiaries pay 100% of the portion of his/her share on the capital cost; while “B”, “C” and “D” category beneficiaries pay 50%, 25% and 10% respectively. “E” category beneficiaries are allowed to use the watsan facilities without having any financial contribution on it. Under the watsan process, community will be responsible to manage 100% operation and maintenance (O&M) cost for the hardware. The beneficiaries of the hardware will share the cost among themselves. The maximum ceiling of construction budget of a water point was Tk.50,000. For instance, in a cluster it is found that the capital cost of installing a water point was Tk. 44,062 (USD 658)1. The beneficiaries were agreed to contribute on the capital cost based on “ability to pay” strategy. The people of the community shared the capital cost based on poverty categories within 24 installments. People of the community of a particular block were committed to pay 47% of the capital cost within two years of time. Out of Tk.44,062, DSK paid around Tk.6,900 to DWASA for connection charge, security money and other expenses. Rest of the money was spent for materials 1 Conversion rate is UDS 1 = BDT 67

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purchasing, transportation, mason and labor cost purposes. There were four categories people found that used the water point. The beneficiaries were agreed to repay Tk. 15,744 altogether through monthly installments and the beneficiaries would pay Tk. 656 per month. The “A” category people is paying Tk 94, “B” is paying Tk. 47, “C” is paying Tk. 23 and “D” is paying Tk. 10 per month as shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Pattern of monthly installment payment for water supply

Category Total Cost per

HH (Tk) DSK

Contribution

Community Contribution

(Total Tk)

Monthly Installment

(Tk) A-not poor 15,744 8,976 6,768 94 B-poor but relatively better off household

15,744 13,488 2,256 47

C-Moderate poor household

15,744 10,224 5,520 23

D-Hard core poor 15,744 14,544 1,200 10 There is no hard and fast rule to decide the number of installments to repay their share of capital cost. Community takes decision among themselves to decide the number of installments. Usually community does not contribute at the initial stage to build the hardware constructions. Generally, community also enjoys three months grace time before start paying the monthly installment. Usually community takes 24 installments to repay their portion of capital cost for the hardware components. The users of the water point/stand pay the amount on a fix rate previously decided by DSK and community. The cashier collects the monthly fix amount for water used once in every month and handover to DSK. The users of the water point/stand also pay the monthly installment of capital cost as per poverty categories. The cashier of the water committee also collects the money from the users on a monthly basis and handover to DSK. DWASA prepares the monthly water bill in favor of DSK on a monthly basis. DSK pays the water bill to DWASA through bank as they also collect monthly water tariff from the beneficiaries on a regular basis. DSK maintains a revolving fund at a commercial bank. The amount that is collected from the beneficiaries as monthly installments is transferred to the bank account once in each month. According to the requirement of the slum dwellers, they had selected cluster larine, sanitation block to ensure cent percent sanitation coverage in the slum area and water point/stand for collecting safe water. DSK promoted easy technologies for the users and the beneficiaries were also more or less satisfied with the technology they use. Table 4 shows the cost of each type of water and sanitary latrine options.

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Table 4: Type and price of hardware options (Latrines)

Technology Price in Taka (in round figure)

Cluster Latrine (3 chambers) 30,000 Sanitation Block 280,000 Water Point 55,000 Water Stand 65,000

6. SUSTAINABILITY OF THE INTERVENTION At the initial stage, DSK found it difficult to encourage the community to adopt watsan innovative process into the slum. At the community level, the slum dwellers were not interested to share their time to attend community level meetings or social gatherings. As most of the slum dwellers are low-income group people and they usually worked for more hours to sustain their families, they couldn’t manage adequate time on community based activities, which they considered as voluntary services. While attending some sessions initiated by DSK, people were involving with the process. The people of the community formed different community based committees to facilitate watsan activities into the slum area. At present, the people of the community are playing the active role to take various activities for the improvement of the overall watsan situation in the slum area and also installation of water supply and sanitation hardware. It is found from the field experience that there are no regulations of the community based committees that can provide guidelines to ensure effective functioning quality of the users committees. All the committees are functional based on verbal understanding among the slum dwellers and in mutual understanding with DSK. Though it is verbally agreed that each committee would be formed for one year, in reality those committees are not replacing every year. Presently, the members of different community based committees take decisions for inclusion and exclusion of members in the committees. Usual practice is that, when a member of one committee takes resign than someone else is selected by other members to fill the vacant place. Such type of practice discourages others to provide voluntary services into the slum area and involve with any of such committees. It can be considered as a serious obstacle to ensure sustainability of the process in the long run. Therefore, people should take initiative for writing a comprehensive regulation for each committee that would provide positive impact to sustain the management procedure in the long run. The development of a comprehensive regulation for formation and functioning of different types of community based committees is found as an essential feature to ensure long term sustainability of the watsan innovative process. In Dhaka city, Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) is responsible to provide legal water connection among the citizens. However, DWASA is not allowed to provide water connection in the slum areas as those are basically considered as illegal settlements. DSK is working to bring in the slum dwellers under watsan services and establish an acceptable mechanism to link them with government agencies. DSK

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influenced the DWASA and signed on a MoU with them to provide legal water connection to the slum areas. It was a great success of DSK to convince DWASA providing legal water connection into the slum areas. Such practice recognized the rights of the slum dwellers to get basic services from the government organizations. However, it can be considered as a temporary solution of the acute problem. Therefore, DWASA would have to take initiative to make necessary modification on the government law to ensure easy access of the slum dwellers to receive legal water connection into the areas. Unless developing such law, the existing initiative can be dissolved when DSK would close their activities in Baganbari slum. The long term sustainability of the innovative process is depending on developing relevant laws in favor of the slum dwellers. Otherwise, the sustainability of the present process would be in threat. Ward is the lower tier of the local government body that is functioning under Dhaka City Corporation (DCC). There is an elected ward commissioner in each ward who is responsible to serve the citizens from DCC. DSK also established communication with the ward commissioner to provide possible support into the slum areas. The ward commissioner is providing indirect support to the slum dwellers in mutual understanding with DSK. The community also maintains regular communication with the local government body. However, there is a need to develop an acceptable mechanism that would provide legal authorization to the local government body to provide cooperation into the slum areas. DCC would have to take initiative to modify the existing ordinance in favor of illegal settlements. DSK has to initiate a process to advocate DCC and other government organizations to make necessary changes on the present ordinance. As it mentioned earlier that community is receiving indirect support from the ward commissioner, there are conflicts among the ward commissioner and the people of the community. The ward commissioner couldn’t established well reputation among the citizens living in the ward and uses the political identity to exploit the poor communities through miss using of government power. A group of musclemen work under the ward commissioner. Therefore, the slum dwellers are fully disappointed and maintain strategic relation with the ward commissioner for receiving watsan facilities from external agencies. The implementing NGO has acceptance among the slum dwellers and general people, which is an indirect cause to provide indirect support in the slum area by the commissioner. It is a temporary solution and a big threat for ensuring sustainability of the watsan process. It requires legal obligation to cooperate the slum dwellers to receive watsan services into the area. A legal provision to the government ordinance can eradicate the conflicting situation and ensure access of poor communities on watsan services in a sustainable way. DCC may also take initiative to provide legal support into the slum areas through forming a ward level committee or forum or an apex body where there will be representations from different slum. It could be one of the alternative options to provide legal support into the slum areas. The sustainability of the approach would depend on ensuring legal provision to provide watsan related support into the slum areas. Introduction of an effective management procedure is one of the vital issues to ensure long-term sustainability of an innovative process. In Baganbari slum, the main strength

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of the watsan process is the proper management of different community based committees both at the horizontal and vertical ways. However, these community based committees do not have any legal recognition. A committee cannot be legally obligated to others without having any legal status of the committee. The members of a committee wouldn’t be accountable to the community unless restrict their power through the government laws. The long-term functioning of a community based committee can only be ensured through providing legal entitlement of the committee. There is a need to identify an effective and acceptable way to provide such type of legal entitlement of the community based committees for sustaining the innovative process in the long run. At present, the community based committees are not allowed to open a bank account to any commercial bank. DSK is maintaining a revolving fund on a bank and reserved monthly installments collected from the beneficiaries. The implementing NGO will have to develop a mechanism to open bank account by the community based organizations. Otherwise, these committees will not be able to keep fund in a secured way. Community based committees require legal recognition to open a bank account to ensure transparency of the financial transactions. Presently, those committees are not requiring any bank account as they are not directly handling money collected from the slum dwellers. However, it would be required in future for ensuring sustainability of the intervention. At Present, community is receiving excessive support from the implementing NGO. The community based committees are highly depending on them. The activeness and effectiveness of different committees are entirely depended on DSK. Different committees are getting continuous support from DSK to keep the various activities of watsan intervention functional. The members of different committees are aware that the implementing NGO will not be able to provide long term assistance; they will leave the project area after a certain period and community will have to manage the system watsan process by its own. As DSK will have to remove their support from the Baganbari slum, they will have to emphasis the issue of establishing an effective management process in the slum that would efficiently continue the functionalities of the committee in the long run. DSK would have to develop and apply a phase-out strategy to make those committees independently functional in future. Unless those committees can work effectively without receiving any support from outside sources, the innovative watsan process cannot be sustained in the long run. At this moment, all the committees are not found strong enough to run by themselves. In Baganbari slum, still people are demanding more hardware installation of water point and sanitary latrine. DSK is gradually providing such support as they also have resources limitation. Therefore, some part of the community is still deprived from receiving the benefit of watsan services. The overall progress of the watsan innovative process would be analyzed after ensuring cent percent water supply and sanitation coverage in the slum. Presently, a portion of the people came under watsan coverage. The sustainability of the watsan intervention will be judged after providing required hardware support in the whole area. DSK promote the issue of gender balancing in the slum area. Even though, there is no women participation at the advisory committee however it is found that all the

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members of the hardware committees are women. Those committees are functioning effectively and men are also found supportive to them. Women have proven their credibility through various community level activities, which practice encourages more women to work with community level committees and provide impacts on women empowerment. The beneficiaries of the hardware are not collecting money to raise a fund for O&M on a regular basis, which might create pressure among them in the future. While a huge amount of money would be required to repair the hardware or to buy materials, people might not be able to arrange the necessary amount instantly. Therefore, a precautionary approach would be to raise a fund on a continuous basis for O&M of the hardware for ensuring sustainable use of watsan facilities in the long run. Though the community received trainings on hygiene issues, however it is not enough to change the behavior of the people of the community in a steady manner. The issue of behavior change is considered as a hard task and couple of months training is not enough to change the lifetime behavior. Therefore, long term training on hygiene promotion activities is required, which will encourage people to learn more on the issue and provide positive impacts into their daily lives. Therefore, most pragmatic approach would be to provide continuous training in different forms on hygiene promotion issues and at the same time monitor the overall process on behavior change of the slum dwellers. Presently, community is paying a part of the capital cost although this revenue has not been really invested in the intervention. DSK is receiving the money and preserved it on a separate bank account, which is known as revolving fund however the future use of the money has not been defined yet by the relevant stakeholders. The implementing agencies will have to take decision about how to reuse the money in future. One of the possibilities can be to transfer the money to the community not in form of cash, but into the bank account of the community based committee. In this way, the money would be secured and available for the maintenance of the hardware system and the improvement of the slum conditions, e.g. construction of footpaths, drainage etc. Table 6 provides in a matrix the various problems faced during the intervention, while Table 7 presents a SWOT Matrix.

7. LESSONS LEARNED AND SUGGESTIONS The long-term sustainability of the community based committees will depend on providing legal recognition/entitlement from the government organizations. The legal recognition of CBOs is not meant to register the CBOs under the relevant ministries (like NGOs in Bangladesh); CBOs may receive recognition at the ward level by the local government body and accountable to the slum dwellers and other government and non-government organizations for its watsan related activities. It may require modification of the existing ordinance of DCC. The Dhaka City Corporation may take initiative to review the current ordinance and modify the existing law in favor of the slum based committees. DSK will have to play proactive role for advocating the government organization in this regard.

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A ward level apex body can be formed by comprising representatives from different slum areas that are situated in the particular ward to provide legal and basic utility services into the slum areas by the local government organizations. Otherwise, it would be an endless effort to influence the ward level government organizations on a continuous basis to provide such services into the slum areas. The apex body will be able to monitor watsan situation of different slum areas, take decisions to resolve local level problems within their affordability, and establish legal communication with the government organizations. At the same time, the apex body will always be supportive to the government. The government may think of such alternative approach. NGOs will also have to work on the issue and take necessary actions to discuss the matter with other stakeholders, identify acceptable process and take initiative to advocate the government organizations regarding the issue. DSK has already taken initiative to discuss the issue with other stakeholders and advocating the government organizations. Development of a comprehensive regulation for the community based committees will encourage the people of the community to be involved with CBOs. The social activists in the slum areas will provide active participations on watsan related activities if an effective regulation can be formulated by ensuring active participation of the people of the community. An acceptable regulation to form CBOs is needed to ensure transparency of the watsan activities done by the CBOs. DSK as the supportive and implementing NGO may take the key role to develop a comprehensive regulation for community based committees.

Long-term training programme on hygiene promotion practices is required to change the behaviour of the people of the communities. A short-term training can not be effective to change the behaviour of the people in a sustainable manner. People will be able to understand the importance of adopting hygiene practices in their daily lives if they receive hygiene related messages again and again through a systematic process. Community will also have to introduce participatory monitoring mechanism to monitor the progress of the slum dwellers on hygiene practices. Such practices will improve the overall environmental situation of the slum area. An acceptable mechanism to reuse the revolving fund would encourage people to pay the monthly installments. Presently most of the beneficiaries are not aware about the reuse of the collected monthly installment and reserving the money in bank. Generally, the revolving fund means to reuse the money for O&M of the hardware facilities or utilize it to provide more watsan facilities into the slum areas.

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Table 5: Some suggestions

SUGGESTIONS

• The local government should take initiative to identify a suitable procedure to provide legal status and recognition of the community based committees

• As an alternative option, DCC may take initiative to form a ward level forum of the slum dwellers to provide legal WSS services into different slum areas

• DWASA should take necessary actions to change the existing rules and regulations to provide legal water connection into the slum areas

• Implementing NGO should take initiative to provide continuous education and monitoring of hygiene practices

• Implementing NGO should develop a mechanism to reduce dependency of the CBOs on them and to be functioning independently

• Revenue collected from community could be reused to provide more WSS facilities into the slum area

Table 6: Problems faced during the intervention

Problems faced Strategies to solve the

problem Extent to which the problem

was solved LESSONS LEARNED

FINANCIAL Initial contribution to capital cost Arrange 100% O&M cost

Introduction of “Ability to Pay” strategy to pay monthly installments; O&M costs will be arranged when required

The issue of willingness to pay not yet ensured

Legal status is required for opening bank account to ensure transparency of all transactions

INSTITUTIONAL

Lack of willingness of local government to provide support to CBO

Participation of the ward commissioners on community level activities; Formal meetings with the ward commissioner

Indirect support from the local Government; Mutual understanding among community and DSK

Lack of initiative to convince local government and needs constructive approach to be successful

No provision to provide legal water connection from DWASA

DSK advocated DWASA to provide legal water connection; DSK is the guarantor

DWASA provided legal water connection with DSK as guarantor

DWASA should take initiative for the modification of the existing regulations

SUSTAINABILITY Threat of eviction Legal recognition of CBO by GoB

DSK and community take initiative to influence GoB for legal recognition

Threat of eviction is still high; –community putting continuous efforts to influence GoB

The eviction threat results high instability in the slum

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Table 7: SWOT Matrix

Social Institutional Financial Technical Environmental

Strengths

Access to water and sanitation services by the disadvantage people; Active participation of the slum dwellers in the decision making process; Demand Driven Approach

DWASA provides legal water connection into the slum areas with DSK as guarantor; DSK provides institutional support to the slum dwellers; Indirect recognition by the local government bodies

Introduce ability to pay strategy Pay monthly installment ,water bill and O&M

Introduce user friendly technologies for water supply and sanitation

Increased health situation; Elimination of hanging latrines

Weakness

Water points and sanitary latrines constructed on illegal locations Support from DSK on a temporary basis in WSS services

Lack of involvement of the government organizations with the innovative WSS approach No legal recognition of community based organizations

Insecured investment Service of sanitary latrines during rainy season

Soil erosion Unhygienic environment in most of the places

Opportunities

Participation of women in the decision making process Absolute priority to women to form Water and Sanitation committees

Establishment of formal and legal relations with the local government organizations

Prepare water bills in favor of the slum dwellers Handover collected money to the community

Water connection at the household (HH) level

Ensure quality of life

Threats

Eviction Increasing Demand Presence of Musclemen / outside power influence

Lack of legal status of the community based committees Lack of legal coordination and cooperation of the government organizations

Primary investment of the installation costs

Appropriate options to serve all seasons

Eradication of open defecation; Lacks in behavioral changes; Improper drainage and sewerage system

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