Water, sanitation and the national budget

WaterAid staff at the press conference

Credit: WaterAid / Kazi Shamsul Amin

WaterAid Bangladesh (WAB) has called on the national government to at least double spending in the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector.

The demand was made at a WAB press conference on 14 June, called to highlight the views of the WSS sector in response to the government's proposed 2007-08 national budget. 

The press conference gathered an audience of 66 members of the National Press Club, of whom 33 were personnel from print and electronic media. Coverage in the English and Bangla dailies was considerable (see links below).

Demands

This is a list of the major demands that WAB, along with partners in the sector, made:

• As a matter of priority, the WSS sector should be brought under a separate budget line in the national budget.
  
  
• Allocations for capacity development of government agencies and local government institutions should be specified in the budget.
  
  
• Both government and donors need to come forward with more funds in line with the national WSS targets and investment plans.
  
  
• WSS sector allocation at least needs to be doubled from its current allocation, with special focus on small towns.
  
  
• The government needs to make serious efforts to convince donors to waive all debt interest payment which, in turn, can be invested in the seriously under-funded WSS sector.
  
  
• The WSS sector has to be included in the government’s medium term budget framework so that it gets adequate budget, monitoring and concentration from it.*
  
  
• Government agencies need to look into the issue of Non Revenue Water in most of the urban areas (the source of major Annual Development Plan allocations). There has to be serious efforts from all stakeholders to reduce wastage before investing in costly infrastructures.*
  
  
• The government needs to take into consideration the fact that as population density grows higher every year, there must be thoughts on how to graduate from individual pit latrines to a communal system which is affordable and accessible to the poorest segment of society. The need for pilots is not recognised in the budget, which is a serious shortfall.*

In addition, after the conference, we submitted our budget response to the Ministry of Finance.

Background

According to the usual practice in this country, the national budget is announced in a proposed form towards the beginning of June. After feedback from around the country, it is finalised towards the end of the month, ready for implementation from July. This allows all who are interested to provide comment and feedback.

However, this year the budget was announced in its proposed form on 7 June, requiring all interested organisations/agencies to come up with feedback by 14 June - allowing only seven days (of which, two were week-ends or government recognised holidays).

Thus, like all others, WAB was put in a very tight situation – collect all necessary information and materials on the Budget, analyse the data, ensure feedback from all sectoral partners and present this combined view, all in just five days!

However, learning from past experience, the advocacy team of WAB was well prepared. Even though time was short, they were still able to do the necessary work.

In conclusion, this year’s press conference, even with the time limitation, was a great success, culminating in the posting of the demands to the Ministry of Finance.

Read a selection of press coverage here:

The Financial Express

The Daily Star

New Age (second story)

(* These points were included in the press release, but not in the presentation slides to keep them brief, focused and compact).