WaterAid urges govt to tell donors to write off debt, interest

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FE Report
The UK-based WaterAid Bangladesh, working in the country since 1986 to improve hygienic behaviour and access to water supply and sanitation (WSS), Tuesday urged the government to approach the donor agencies for writing off debt and interest for which an allocation of about Tk 107.5 billion has been proposed in next fiscal budget.
"Donors should write off the debt and interest and the money involved should in turn be channelled to poorly under-funded water supply and sanitation programme in fiscal budget," Muhammad Abdus Sabur, country representative of WaterAid Bangladesh, said at a press conference in city Tuesday.
Presenting a paper, he said the government's own commitment of achieving target for providing safe water and sanitation facilities to all is unlikely to be met by 2010 as the proposed budget allocation for the sector is inadequate.
He said proportion of total allocation in the annual development programme (ADP), including donors' fund, for water supply and sanitation is only 2.95 per cent of total ADP for 2007-08 fiscal.
Sabur said when it requires Tk 26.74 billion the current ADP envisages only Tk 8.275 billion for sanitation programme in the new fiscal year.
He further said implementation rate of the original ADP is usually 70-80 per cent, but in the outgoing fiscal it is only 44 per cent until now.
Syed Ishteaque Ali Jinnah, director for policy and advocacy, Ziaul Kabir, programme officer for advocacy, of WaterAid Bangladesh and Poul-Erik Frederiksen, WSS senior sector adviser for policy support unit of DANIDA, Jane Crowder of DFID, K Minnatullah of World Bank and Iftekhar Hossain of UNICEF were present at the briefing.
However, officials of WaterAid Bangladesh, which has 21 partner NGOs in rural and urban areas covering 21 districts, said 20 per cent of the ADP fund for sanitation promotion for hardcore poor people is diverted to other areas.
As a priority component of the government poverty reduction strategy and millennium development goal, they said water supply and sanitation sector should be specified in the national budget.
Officials stressed the need for specified allocation for capacity development of government agencies and local government institution in the budget for full implementation of the ADP.
They said the government and the donors need to come forward with more funds in line with the National WSS targets and investment plan.
WSS sector allocation at least needs to be doubled with special focus on small towns and municipalities, they said.
Officials urged the government to increase budget allocation for the WSS.