WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION WITH LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

The HYSAWA project is comprised of two distinct parts and consists of the Local Government Support Unit (LGSU) and the HYSAWA Fund.
The LGSU is established within the Local Government Division (LGD)/ DPHE and provides capacity building inputs to the LGIs to prepare these for accessing the funding opportunities from the HYSAWA Fund. The HYSAWA Fund, which is established as an independent financial institution under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, provides funding to eligible Union Parishads (UPs) in Bangladesh for the implementation of hygiene, sanitation and water services.

The immediate objectives are

• to improve hygiene behaviour/practices
• to promote community-led total sanitation facilities
• to increase the coverage of safe water supply services
• to strengthen the capacity of Government, Local Governments Institutions (LGIs) and non-government stakeholders at all levels to play the roles required to achieve the above three immediate objectives
• to promote greater devolution of administrative and financial authority to local government institutions in regard to hygiene, sanitation and water supply.

The HYSAWA project is supporting the development and demonstration of a demand driven and decentralised service delivery mechanisms in three different geographical areas - three districts with about 200 Unions in north-western region, 146 Unions in Coastal Belt districts which are not covered by the Coastal Belt Project, and 350 Unions which receive capacity support through NGO Forum from the ‘NGO and Civil Society Networking Project’ under the WSSPS II. Once the delivery model is fully developed and duly tested, it will also be used for other public services like rural infrastructure, primary health care and mass education. The model is based on permanent government structures and the prevailing capacities of NGOs and private sector; it can easily be scaled up for undertaking large-scale decentralised investment programmes.

In a bottom-up planning process, the communities plan their own projects for hygiene, sanitation and water supply interventions according to their need and affordability. They submit the community schemes to the respective UPs for implementation. The HYSAWA project facilitates the establishment of necessary institutional arrangements within the government institutions, and engages private sector management/engineering firms and NGOs, to provide capacity support to the UPs. Cross cutting issues like human rights, gender, culture and development and transparency is in-built in the scheme preparation processes and mainstreamed throughout all stages of implementation.

Demand-driven activities supported with funding by the
HYSAWA Fund are producing the following specific outputs;

• improved and sustainable hygiene behaviour/practise achieved in the participating communities in the northwest and Coastal Belt districts
• improved access to sanitation facilities and its proper use achieved in the participating communities in the northwest and Coastal Belt districts
• access to safe water source and safe water use increased in the participating communities in the northwest, Coastal Belt districts and the unions of NGO-Forum
• technical and management capacities of LGIs increased through support from Department of Health Engineering (DPHE), National Institute for Local Government (NILG) and HYSAWA FMO.

The outputs produced by the more supply driven activities supported through the LGSU are;

• capacities of 200 UPs in the northwest districts and 146 UPs in Coastal Belt districts developed to support community to formulate schemes, appraise them and manage their implementation
• technical, management and facilitating capacities of DPHE, other government agencies and private sector increased
• capacity of Government agencies at central and district levels developed to respond to demand driven decentralised service delivery.

The total budget for HYSAWA is DKK 265 million for a period of five years from January 2006 to December 2010. The Government of Bangladesh is contributing with DKK 31 million, communities with DKK 94 million while Danida’s contribution accounts for DKK 141 million.