Budget cut creates difficulties in achieving water, sanitation, hygiene sector targets: Experts

Achieving 100% safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) by 2030, a fundamental target for Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), faces significant hurdles due to budget cuts and inadequate allocations, experts and stakeholders said at a press conference on Thursday.

The press conference was organised by several organisations, including WaterAid, Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), Freshwater Action Network South Asia (FANSA), FSM Network, and Sanitation and Water for All (SWA), at the National Press Club, Dhaka.

PPRC Executive Director Hossain Zillur Rahman said, "We not only need to increase allocation to the WASH sector, but more seriously, we need adequate allocation. It should be proportionate to or higher than the size of ADP growth. In this case, government allocation alone is not enough; the private sector must also come forward."

"Such a budget cut creates difficulties in achieving the targets as well as fulfilling the commitment to providing 100% safe water and 100% safe sanitation. The allocation of ADP for the WASH sector shows fluctuation and a low proportional growth trend. The WASH sector targets in the SDG era are more complex and challenging than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," he added.

Representatives of the organisations also appealed to continue the exemption of VAT and supplementary duty on the import of raw materials for sanitary napkins to encourage domestic production of hygiene products for women and adolescent girls.

They also said safe water and sanitation should be identified as fundamental rights. Currently, this sector requires 5 to 6 times more budget as our efforts need to increase 5 to 6 times to meet the demand. WASH needs to be declared a separate sector in the budget to increase allocation.

According to WaterAid data, Bangladesh met only 59% of safe drinking water needs and only 39% of safely managed sanitation needs as of 2021, with only six years remaining to achieve these targets at 100%.

Around Tk182.28 billion was allocated in FY23, and Tk139.42 billion in FY24 for the sector. The proposed budget of FY24 saw a decline of 23%. Fluctuations in ADP allocation for the WASH sector were also observed in FY13 and FY14. However, the downward fluctuation in FY24 was almost one-fourth of the allocation in FY23.

The growth in WASH allocations is only 5.44% which is much less than the 7.4% growth in size of ADP. Such less-than-proportionate growth in WASH allocations is likely to impact negatively on the timely realisation of the government's commitment to SDG6.

WaterAid Bangladesh also indicates that there are three types of disparities can be observed in WASH sector in Bangladesh. Mainly rural-urban disparity, inter-urban disparity and less attention to some areas that are hard to reach especially in the haor areas.

Hossain Zillur Rahman said there is a need to address the disparity in distribution between urban and disadvantaged areas under climate risk, including char, haor, hilly and other hard to reach areas.