LGRD and Cooperatives Tazul Islam on Thursday stressed the need for public awareness and engagement to ensure inclusive sanitation throughout the country.
"Inclusive sanitation is not possible without engaging the mass people. Once they become aware of the adversities of open disposal, they’ll start extending cooperation and this will bring good changes," he said.
The minister was addressing the launching ceremony of a new sanitation project at the Council Building of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) in the city.
The International Training Network (ITN - BUET), a Center of Buet, launched the project titled "Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Scaling and Sanitation Innovation."
Tazul Islam said the biggest challenge is to rightly design and execute sanitation projects in time. “We can meet these difficulties by working together. We don’t want only citywide sanitation, but also countrywide inclusive sanitation so that no one is left behind when we meet SDG targets."
He mentioned the government's strong commitment to ensuring safely managed sanitation for all and emphasised the importance of leaving no one behind to achieve the citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS).
Chaired by Buet Vice Chancellor Prof Satya Prasad Majumder, the launching event was attended, among others, by Senior Secretary of Local Government Division Helal Uddin Ahmed, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Buet Dr Abdul Jabbar Khan, Deputy Director of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Dr Roshan Raj Shrestha, Chief Engineer of Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) Saifur Rahman and Managing Director of Dhaka Wasa Engineer Taqsem A Khan.
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The speakers said it is high time to scale sustainable citywide sanitation services in urban areas to meet the new generation challenges of urban sanitation and reach the global sanitation target by 2030.
Dr Roshan Raj Shrestha said, "I believe Bangladesh will be a leading example for other countries by implementing SDG targets".
He said the ITN-Buet will be the leading capacity-building hub for this region as well as international.
Prof Satya Prasad said the ITN-Buet has strong relations with national-level WASH programs. Buet always contributes to the nation and will continue to do so through this project as well, he said.
ITN Director Dr Tanvir Ahmed presented the keynote paper reflecting the necessity of capacity-building for scaling citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS), which is a public service approach for sustainable urban sanitation and adopted by many developing countries.
The project is built on learning and experiences from the previous partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for national-level capacity-building on fecal sludge management and citywide inclusive sanitation.
Dr Ahmed highlighted that the current phase intends to build the capacity of stakeholders to mainstream the CWIS approach in cities of Bangladesh and in partner countries like Nepal and Indonesia for sustainable sanitation, said a press release.