- Pollution reduction
- Environmentally sound technology
- Environmental health
- Resource Management

- Gender roles and responsibilities
- Women empowerment
- Control of resources
- Removing barriers to equity
- Social integration
- Gender specific needs
- Access to resources
- Ethnicity
- Women’s safety

- Water supply and demand management
- Low-cost sanitation
- Eco-sanitation
- Public/private/community partnerships

The Programme was commenced in July 2004 and was continued up to December 2007. 72 unserved ethnic community in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh were covered. Reducing the incidence of water-borne diseases was the broad objective. The specific objective was to support the development of rights-based community-managed water and sanitation programmes strengthening the capacity of local NGOs and the community groups. The ethnic community in the CHT had been experiencing different problems immensely. Like many other challenges lack of safe water sources and sanitation facilities had appeared as a serious setback of achieving greater development in the areas. Considering the needs and priority of addressing water, sanitation and hygiene issues in the areas the Programme was designed with supports from Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), UK and European Commission (EC). NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply & Sanitation implemented the initiative in partnership with 12 local NGOs. The Programme has contributed to building capacity of the local partner NGOs while implementing the activities, and through training, orientation, exchange visit, etc. The local partner NGOs are now capable to implement large-scale water and sanitation programmes as well as other projects. The target community people lacked proper knowledge on the importance of safe water, sanitation and hygiene. The initiative got the ethnic people oriented and finally mobilized towards using safe water, sanitary latrines and maintaining hygiene principles through different promotional activities and using IEC & BCC materials. Thereafter aiming at establishing the access to safe water and sanitation facilities, a series of alternative technologies had been introduced in the unserved communities where the rights-based demand and priority of the target communities were reflected. The Programme has made effective changes KAP of the ethnic people in improving water, sanitation and hygiene situation in the intervention localities.

- 9 December 2001 – Workshop on Searching for Appropriate Technologies
- 15 July 2004 – Partner Selection through Sharing with Regional Council
- August 2008 – Study on Hygiene and Sanitation Culture
- 5 November 2004 – Project Launching Workshop in the CHT
- 19 December 2007 – Project Experience Sharing Workshop in Dhaka

SITUATION BEFORE THE INITIATIVE BEGAN
The ethnic people in the intervention communities lacked basic water and sanitation facilities, and the information and ideas about safe WatSan principles. The water and excreta-borne diseases were the common phenomena, especially among the children. Women suffered the most in collection of water from natural sources crossing ardours hilly paths.

ESTABLISHMENT OF PRIORITIES
The following priorities were set:

1. Facilitation of training courses for partners and communities
2. Establishment of Village Development Groups
3. Development of advocacy & communication materials
4. Facilitation of community mobilisation activities
5. Running of VSCs for production of hygienic latrines
6. nstallation of WatSan technologies
   

The issues, needs, opportunities, concerns and the needed activities and strategies of the initiative were sorted out through a comprehensive situation analysis. The situation was assessed through interaction with male, females, traditional leaders, local stakeholders, local leaders, WatSan experts, government stakeholders, and so on. Based on the findings of the entire assessment process, the priorities were sorted out and addressed accordingly.

FORMULATION OF OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES
The main objective of the Programme was to reduce the incidence of water-borne diseases in the target communities. The specific objective was to support the development of rights-based community-managed WatSan programmes strengthening the capacity of local NGOs and community groups.
The strategies were to rapport building with the community people and influential persons respecting culture, beliefs and customs of the ethnic communities, establishing their rights to WatSan services, empowering women in decision-making, igniting community people to feel the need for WatSan facilities, etc.
The objectives and strategies were formulated by NGO Forum and CAFOD based on the ideas & demand of the community people, local NGOs, local stakeholders and sectoral experts.

MOBILIZATION OF RESOURCES
Based on the NGO Forum–CAFOD proposal EC provided 75% of the total budget. CAFOD shared 23%. The rest 2% was mobilized from the community. Being the facilitator of the Programme NGO Forum distributed the resources among 12 local partner NGOs to implement the planned activities. Finally NGO Forum was accountable to manage the financial resources to CAFOD and EC.
NGO Forum fully supported to designing the activities, imparting training, orientation, preparing the advocacy & communication materials for awareness raising on people’s right to WatSan facilities. The Forum also supported the initiative through innovating and installing appropriate safe water technologies and VSCs to produce low-cost sanitation technologies at the vicinity of the community people. The Forum trained some masons on production, installation and maintenance of low-cost WatSan technologies.
NGO Forum mobilized human resources to coordinate, manage and monitor the overall activities. The Forum and the partner NGOs recruited personnel especially for the Programme from the indigenous communities so that they could easily understand the local culture, dialect, environment, needs and priorities of the indigenous people. The partner NGOs supported with their office facilities, vehicle facilities, monitoring and supervising supports by the staffs other than the Programme to make the initiative a success.

PROCESS
There are 12 indigenous communities living in the CHT areas. Each has their own distinct culture, religion and language. There were many decisions taken by government which went against their interest, continuous deprivation of the basic services, lack of ideas about rights and dissimilar type of nature in the areas, the indigenous people easily do not welcome the external people. At beginning of the Programme, the target people could not give times and attention to the messages on safe water, sanitation and hygiene. Their knowledge, attitudes and practices were not supportive to address the issues easily in communities.
To make easy access to the communities and disseminate messages, the staffs were recruited from indigenous communities. They first built rapport with community people, community allies i.e. indigenous leaders (Headman, Karbari), influential persons (teachers, village doctors), people’s representatives (UP chairmen and members), local stakeholders and so on. They then organized meetings with male, female, children and other groups taking the helps of the community allies. They shaped community organizations (Village Development Groups) in membership with men and women at every village.
The IEC & BCC materials were produced taking views, ideas, cultural dimensions, social aspects of the indigenous people. Different advocacy & communication materials like poster, leaflet, sticker, flip-chart, manuals, etc were used in different meetings and other relevant events. Promotional films, rally, miking, folk-songs, drama were organized to make the messages understandable.
The hilly topography, which is characterized by arduous and zigzag pathways and rocky soil texture, is not feasible for the easy technologies. They were habituated to drink unsafe water collected from chhara, spring, khal and river. The women needed to cross hilly zigzag paths to collect water. They had to spend a lot of times and energy in that regard. To address the drawback, alternative feasible safe water technologies like ring-well, rain-water harvesting systems were installed. The beneficiaries were made well oriented to the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the technologies through training while two caretakers (one male and one female) selected for each water point.
To meet the demand of people for sanitary latrine sets, VSCs were constructed at the vicinity of the communities. A total of 12 VSCs were established and a number of masons were trained who are earning and supporting the process of making availability of sanitation technologies at the hard-to-reach areas in the CHT.

RESULTS ACHIEVED
Medical expenses for the treatment of water-borne diseases has decreased. Now the beneficiaries get sound and can attend their works regularly. The children’s suffering from diarrhoea, dysentery and other diseases have decreased also and hence, the attendance at school has increased.
The services have established the indigenous people’s rights over safe water and sanitation. Installation of alternative technologies has created a nexus of nomadic indigenous people to live in a particular place permanently. Moreover, the community-based alternative technologies have created a scope of community togetherness. The women can now get safe water at their nearby places.
The partner NGOs are now intimately oriented to the issues relating to implementing projects at communities. They are now capacitated. Skill development trainings of caretakers of water technologies and masons for producing latrine materials in VSCs have created income-generating opportunities in the ethnic communities.
The formation of VDGs has made a spacious room for them to participate in decision-making and implementation process utilizing their knowledge, experiences and increased potentials. A scope of raising their demand and priorities also has empowered them a lot at their community. The VDG members are now able to undertake major development initiative in their village apart from the water and sanitation services.
The community allies and other stakeholders have been now paying emphasis on mobilizing the communities through promotional activities. Government is also sensitized towards establishing water and sanitation rights of indigenous community people in the CHT.

SUSTAINABILITY
As a result of the initiative, changed habituation of the beneficiaries will lead them towards keeping good health and energy. The users of the water technologies will maintain the technologies by their own. The VDGs and trained caretakers will be upholding the responsibilities.
Through VSCs, the partner NGOs will be continuing technological services to the communities through production of latrine sets. Masons of VSCs and alternative technologies will be earning through their new profession.
The process of selecting and installing alternative technologies empowered poor and women in communities. Males now help women in collecting water and taking care of water sources. The VDGs comprised of 50% women will be ensuring gender role promotion in communities. They were trained on organizing meeting, writing minutes, taking decisions, communication with local NGOs, allies and Union Parishad etc. Apart from maintaining O&M of the technologies, they have learned to plan and implement different activities.
Scope of permanent living in a particular place has been created followed by the availability of safe water. Community-based technologies have created scope of social integrity since a great number of families collect water from common sources.
Keeping the indigenous communities within their own culture, customs and beliefs, they were only insisted to change their practices from using unsafe water and open defecation. The changes have been adopted in culture. Defecation in latrine, dumping of wastes in particular places, keeping houses and surroundings clean, maintaining hygiene principles, etc have reduced environmental pollution. Introduction of using rain-water has decreased dependence on unsafe surface water. Decrease of dumping wastes in water has decreased water pollution.
Partner NGOs are capacitated to implement any initiative. They uphold water and sanitation issues through mobilizing resources. They will be making sure of the functionality of water and sanitation services in intervention areas through direct monitoring and by VDGs.

LESSONS LEARNED
Implementation of water and sanitation programme in the CHT areas through local NGOs is effective as they know local situation, needs, priorities, realities, constraints, opportunities of the communities. It ensures establishing rights by local actors. It creates development experts at local level through decentralization and sharing of resources, knowledge and experiences. The lesson was adopted considering geo-physical and cultural variations in the CHT.
Result of providing only hardware support can never be sustained. It was learned from other initiatives of NGO Forum and other organizations. Software services create perceptions and positive attitude. Promotional activities, IEC/BCC materials and messages should be different in the CHT areas. It was learned by implementing the activities at initial stage and test of the materials. Hardware supports should be provided following community demand, because it ensures continuous use, functionality and sustainability. The community allies effectively help the mobilization process. The students play important role in disseminating messages in their families, relatives and peer groups.
Community-managed programme yields effective result. It ensures community participation, empowerment of poor and women, ownership feelings and sustainable uses of hardware facilities. Shaping community organization like VDGs helps making outputs sustainable. It creates a platform of the poor community people including women to sit together and think and take action on different issues of their own.
Adverse topography where easy technologies are not feasible should be adopted with alternative technological options. Since the people in the CHT are not easy-going with technologies, users should be oriented properly on O&M. In the areas Ring-well and Rain-water Harvesting System are more feasible. Sanitation technologies should be made available at the vicinity of the communities so that people can easily find out ways to create accessibility to sanitation facilities. Considering reality of the CHT areas, it was adopted in the Programme.

TRANSFERS
a) Transferability: NGO Forum applied community-managed approach in other rural areas in Bangladesh to improve water and sanitation situation in the underserved and unserved localities and yielded tremendous successes. Following the successes, this approach was transferred into the initiative in the CHT. However, some strategies were made changed considering differences in types of community, cultural aspects, geo-physical condition, administrative set-up and many other issues in the CHT. The differences were taken into consideration from the learning of NGO Forum and some other relevant organizations that without adopting indigenous knowledge, experience and realities, services never sustain.
The Programme has proved its effectiveness through creating some results on communities which is quite likely to transfer. The initiative only touched 72 communities. There are large number of communities in the CHT areas which are yet remaining unserved. They also have the rights to safe water and sanitation services. The initiative must be transferable to those communities. The efforts of the Programme especially the way of undertaking training, promotional activities, IEC/BCC materials, shaping community organization (VDGs), promoting alternative technologies and so on can effectively mobilize the community and take people towards sustainable use of safe water, sanitation and hygiene measures. The initiative can be replicated in all other unserved and disadvantaged communities in the CHT.

b) Transferred best Practice: People outside the working communities wanted to see replication of technological supports to their communities. They used to make request to the staffs of the Programme. Field Engineer of the Programme suggested people to install alternative feasible technologies who had the capacity. If somebody got convinced, he provided technical support without making charge. He also helped poor people without capacity to learn the way of purifying water from chhara, well, khal, etc as well as the promotional messages.
Experience of the Programme was shared with different stakeholders in water and sanitation sector including government, donor agencies, NGOs, sectoral experts and so on through national workshop and publications. The people who got informed about the Programme found the lessons interesting and applicable in their initiatives. They were shared about entire process of the Programme, successes, impacts on community people and lessons. A series of publications were also shared with them afterwards so that they can find more encouraging ingredients in it to plan new initiative and apply thereby. A number of national and local journalists visited the intervened communities and depicted the changed scenario in their respective electronic and print media.

The references not only will give information on the initiative but also the existing crisis of safe water and pitiable sanitation situation in the CHT areas, in the communities where safe water and sanitation services are still absent. Here are the references as follows:

• Md. Shaheen Bin Siraj (Ed.), Project Evaluation Report – Community-managed Water Supply and Sanitation Programme for the Rural Poor in Chittagong Hill Tracts, November 2007
• Joseph Halder and ASM Juel, Serving the Unserved: Consolidation of WatSan Success in CHT (Vol.-I, II, III), June 2007
• Md. Shaheen Bin Siraj (Ed.), Changing WatSan Knowledge, Attitude & Practices – The Findings of a KAP Study in Some Villages in CHT, June 2007
• Rangamati Correspondent, NGO Forum Removes Water Crisis in CHT Installing Ring-wells, Treating Rainwater, The Bangladesh Observer, 30 April 2007
• Liton Mahajan, Inauguration of Meeting with Community Allies and Village Sanitation Centre by SAS, The Daily Bhorer Kagoj, 19 March 2006 
•  Abdul Kader, Sanitation in CHT: People Unaware as Local Governments Inactive, The Daily Star, 28 June 2005
• Bhabatosh Nath et.el., Hygiene and Sanitation Culture of Ethnic Community in Chittagong Hill Tracts, August 2004

Partner	Year 2004	Year 2005	Year 2006	Year 2007	TOTAL
Partner 1 NGO Forum	644	1459	1643	2186	5932 (1%)
Partner 2 CAFOD	14819	33588	37757	50258	136422 (23%)
Partner 3 EC	48323	109446	123120	163883	444772 (75%)
Partner 4 CHT-HRDO	91	198	228	302	819 (0.14%)
Partner 5 PBM	93	218	240	328	879 (0.15%)
Partner 6 SAS	95	211	245	312	863 (0.15%)
Partner 7 Progressive	89	205	225	293	812 (0.14%)
Partner 8 Ashroy Angon	94	208	235	317	854 (0.14%)
Partner 9 Tah Zing Dong	89	207	232	321	849 (0.14%)
Partner 10 BNKS	93	212	238	313	856 (0.14%)
Total Budget (US $)	64430	145952	164163	218513	593058 (100%)

This Programme was implemented in line with National Policy for Safe Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation 1998, National Sanitation Strategy 2005, Pro-poor Strategy for Water Supply & Sanitation 2005. The policies and strategies recognize safe water and sanitation as rights of every people irrespective of class, ethnicity, religion, location, etc. These emphasize on ensuring safe water and sanitation for poor people of hard-to-reach areas in Bangladesh. The initiative was taken in the CHT to complement the government of Bangladesh regarding safe water supply and sanitation in the rural poor and disadvantaged communities in the areas following the relevant national policies and strategies.

The Programme also complemented to the national goals relating to safe water supply and sanitation especially the target of ‘Sanitation for All by 2010’ as well as the international ones which include UN MDGs and WSSD goals on halving the proportion of people without access to safe water and sanitation facilities by 2015. These declarations supported the initiative to reach water and sanitation services in the unserved indigenous communities in the CHT based on the universal appeal that every person has the right to safe water and sanitation.