Social activists demand greater emphasis on WASH in 7th Five Year Plan

Activists demand a “proper reflection” on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues in the upcoming Seventh Five-Year plan to ensure better health and education.

Representatives of both national and international NGOs and journalists made the appeal on Thursday at a roundtable, as the planning ministry worked on a new strategic plan.

Prof Shamsul Alam, a member of the Planning Commission’s General Economic Division directly linked with the drafting of the plan, and Additional Chief Engineer (Planning) of the Department of Public Health Engineering Md Wali Ullah, were also present.

Robaiya Nusrat, Policy and Advocacy Specialist of WaterAid Bangladesh, which organised the roundtable with the Daily Star newspaper, outlined what they wanted in the next five-year plan.

She suggested faecal sludge management, menstrual hygiene management, WASH in schools and health facilities, rainwater harvesting, water quality, urban WASH, nationwide hygiene promotion campaign, investment in research and development, and wash financing be included in the plan.

The new roadmap, to come into effect from January next year, will coincide with the launch of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for the next 15 years.

One of the 17 SDG goals requires countries to ensure water, sanitation and hygiene for all, pay special attention to the needs of women and girls, and end open defecation by 2030.

Head of Policy of Advocacy of WaterAid Shamim Ahmed told bdnews24.com they were stressing the qualitative aspect of WASH for the next plan.

“In the current plan, WASH prioritises issues related to infrastructure development, but now we want the qualitative aspect to be included,” he said.

 “It’s a strategic plan of the government; if they include those issues (in the document), we can negotiate with the donors for funding.”

An icddr,b Director, Dr Tahmeed Ahmed, said WASH was directly linked with the stunting and malnutrition problems in Bangladesh.

He said, in the last two weeks, about 50 percent children under five 5 had suffered either fever or diarrhoea or pneumonia.

“And this is due to inappropriate water, sanitation and hygiene,” he said.

Citing their own study in Mirzapur and Mirpur, he said they found mothers prepared food for their children in the morning and fed them throughout the day.

“But we found them (food) contaminated within two hours of cooking,” he said, suggesting “effective” behavioural change programmes, which was also a demand that WASH activists wanted included in the new five-year plan.

According to the study presented at the roundtable, students, mostly girls, miss classes, as the schools do not have proper latrines.

Over 30 percent of girls feel menstruation interferes with their school performance, the study found.

Planning Commission Member Prof Alam, speaking as the chief guest, acknowledged the importance of WASH.

He, however, stressed the creation of demand by the citizens to draw government’s attention to the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector.