At a joint press conference held by WaterAid, UNICEF, PPRC, FANSA-BD, FSM Network, Sanitation and Water for All, WASH Alliance, MHM Platform speakers note insufficient allocation and lack of focus for hygiene sub-sector which remains a key priority to fight Covid-19 and keep progress towards the SDG Goals that will otherwise be hindered.
Experts stressed the need for reducing the gap in WASH allocation of resources in rural and urban areas. They said, such an entrenched gap needs to be reduced and an equitable allocation is also solicited to achieve SDG 6.
The analysis presented at the press conference reflecting on the proposed National Budget FY21-22 allocation for WASH shows a slight decline in WASH budget allocation with 119.55 billion in FY21-22 from 122.27 billion-taka last year.
Following the legacy of previous years, the allocation for sub-sector hygiene has been overlooked in the 2021-22 fiscal year regardless of the predominance of pandemics.
The proposed allocation remains skewed toward urban areas, and that too mainly on the major cities with WASA, and substantially ignored the rural and hard to reach areas.
At present, the Covid-19 infection rate is showing a notable upward trend in districts indicates indicate an urgent need to scale up hygiene and WASH facilities to combat further spread of the virus transmission.
Spatial inequities between urban and rural areas, the four WASAs, and 11 city corporations remain constant as cities and towns continue to receive most of the funding at the expense of rural, char, and hard-to-reach areas, despite acute needs.
The analysis reflects the gap of deliveries between urban and rural areas widening over the years, revealing that in five years period there happens to be almost no change in shares of urban (80 – 83 percent) and rural (20 -17 percent) allocation.
Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman, chairman of the Power and Participatory Research Centre said, ‘’Geographical inequality of WASH allocations remains significant, where cities and towns have received the highest percentage of the allocated funding compared to rural, char, hilly, and coastal areas in previous years.”
Hasin Jahan, Country Director of WaterAid said, “The government has proposed to repealed VAT on a sanitary napkin, which is praiseworthy. There needs to be a monitoring mechanism to materialize this change in price so that women and girls can be benefited.”
The experts jointly put forward some recommendations which include addressing hygiene as a pandemic priority – both to combat Covid-19 and cover health-hygiene linkages – WASH allocations in Budget 2021-22 should open hygiene as a separate sub-sectoral line-item.
Moreover, a holistic rethinking of WASH allocation priorities should be undertaken to address entrenched gaps in resource allocation between rural and urban as well as within the urban spectrum.
In addition to this, the urge to the initiative taken on water-related environmental and risk reduction projects is commendable but needs to scale up in disaster-prone areas, particularly in the coastal strip of the country.
Good policies are not being followed by good implementation leading to a poor outcome syndrome. Capacity gaps of implementing agencies should be identified as a priority and allocations made to address such capacity gaps, they added.
Conference link: Presentation | Policy brief: ENGLISH
You may watch the press conference recording: fb.watch. ♦
