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. Read: No boarding passes if South Africa returnees not fully vaccinated: FM 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.

Speakers at a virtual dialogue on Sunday said it would not be possible to tackle the existing coronavirus situation with only the government’s initiatives as the public engagement is crucially needed here, which remains missing in the policy of the State.  “If all want to face this adverse situation bureaucratically, it’ll not work. Social engagement and initiatives will be required here alongside the government’s initiatives. Otherwise, I think Bangladesh would be affected so immensely,” said Bangladesh Workers Party MP Fazle Hossain Badsha (Rajshahi-2). Citizen’s Platform for SDGs and the Hunger Project jointly arranged the dialogue titled “’Initiative for local people engagement in tackling Corona” through an online platform. Badsha said the administration was entrusted with the responsibility (to deal Covid-19 pandemic). “The concept of public engagement is not there in the decisions of the State (Government),” he added. “I think that it is not possible to reduce the Covid-19 infection (rate) without public engagement and their organised power…. A trained volunteer group is needed today to serve the people in this crisis,” said the lawmaker. Convenor of the Citizen’s Platform Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya said now there is no alternative to a public engagement initiative in combating the pandemic. “But the biggest obstacle here is the absence of necessary framework and guidelines on the part of the government for such a public engagement initiative.  This absence is also undermining the effectiveness of various government stimulus delivery and awareness-raising about vaccination and health protocols,” he said. Read: Bangladesh faces harder days as Covid kills 231 more He questioned whether there is any ‘mental barrier’ among political leaders to engage the country’s non-government development initiatives or whether the political leaders consider them (non-government organisations) as their competitors not thinking them as partners. Noting that it is the administration not political leaders who play the greater role in tackling the pandemic now at the local level, he also questioned if the administration also feels any sort of discomfort or mental barrier to engage private initiatives. To fight the pandemic in a coordinated way, it is urgently needed to have a national guideline over public engagement shunning the narrow attitude towards private ventures, said Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya. Noted economist Prof Rehman Sobhan stressed the need for collective action in coordination of the government and private initiatives to fight the pandemic. “Civil Societies are not competitors rather they are partners (of the government),” he said. Country Director of the Hunger Project Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar in his keynote presentation said the Corona Resilient Village (CRV) initiative is essential to check coronavirus transmission in the grassroots. He said now the coronavirus has already spread throughout the country due to community transmission. It’ll take a long time to bring all the people under the vaccination coverage. Besides, there is still uncertainty even about the effectiveness of vaccines.      Read: Bangladesh to resume administering AstraZeneca jabs Monday “So, this coronavirus problem will not go away so easily. We’ll have to lead life coping up with it…This is why we took the CRV initiative last year,” said Dr Majumdar explaining that the CRV initiative is based on volunteer work and run by the community leadership. Noted personality Prof Rounaq Jahan said people are much aware but don’t practice the health protocols. “So, it is essential now to reduce the gap between awareness and practice,” she said.   Mentioning that the government frequently changes its Covid decisions, Prof Jahan said, “The government will have to stick to its policy (not changing it frequently), if it wants to enforce more successfully and reduce the awareness-practice gap.” Swapan Kumar Das, Chairman of Fakirhat Upazila in Bagerhat, said the coordination between the public representatives and the administration in the fight against coronavirus was not seen in many places. “But the lack of coordination is not seen here in my place (upazila), though the public representatives don’t have so much responsibility here as they are just assisting the administration,” he said.     Awami League MP (Meherpur-2) Mohammad Shahiduzzaman and public health expert Dr Lelin Choudhury, among others, address the dialogue presided over by Dr Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury.

Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday carried out her first public engagement outside of a royal residence since early March when the coronavirus pandemic started to impact upon on all aspects of day-to-day life in the U.K.