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Dhaka,
the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the fastest growing megacities
of the world, with present estimated population of 6.5 million in
the Dhaka City Corporation area while the population of the megacity
stands at 11.6 million.
This rapid growth in population has created tremendous pressure
on urban utilities, services, and shelter, making the poor worst
affected. It is estimated that around 55 per cent of the urban population
in Dhaka lives below poverty line and half of these poor live in
slums and squatter settlements.
Access to water supply, sanitation, solid waste management and other
civic and social services by this huge poor population is extremely
limited.
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However,
in mid 1990's two projects were launched by private sector (NGOs)
which were later supported by international development agencies
in Dhaka city to provide access to safe water to the urban poor
and to improve solid waste management system at neighborhood level,
using decentralized approach of waste management.
Both the projects on water supply and solid waste management have
created enormous impact on the poor, cleanliness of neighborhood
and quality of life as well as living environment. The projects
have involved public and private sectors as well as community groups.
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The
present study is an enquiry into the significant success of both
the projects. It brings into focus strategies and steps taken in
the aforementioned projects, their impact on the poor as well as
on the community. Sustainability, replicability and other related
issues are described in detail in Chapters 3 and 4.
It begins with relevant information about Dhaka city and its extent
of poverty in Chapter 1, followed by a brief review of urban sector
institutional framework and pertinent government plan and policies
for private sector participation in urban services, specially water
supply, sanitation and solid waste management in Chapter 2.
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| Strategies
Multi-pronged strategies
have been adopted in the aforementioned projects, which include:
- Awareness raising
of community groups their mobilization and capacity building;
- Involvement of community
groups in operation and maintenance of the services in poor settlements;
- Cost recovery consideration
from initiation of the projects;
- Introduction of community
based decentralized resource recovery schemes integrated with
house-to-house waste collection;
- Promotion of 4Rs (reduce,
reuse, recycle and recover) concept for waste management;
- Involvement of intermediary
to forge partnership between public-private-community.
- Providing loan facility
to community groups for access to services. The loans are recovered
in installments over a certain period of time with revenue generated
from the projects; and
- Selection of appropriate
and low cost technologies, considering the socio-economic condition
for solid waste management and water supply.
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| Impact
· The project
described in Chapter 3 has created tangible impact on the poor in
getting legal and safe water at low cost and at the same time generating
revenue for the formal water supply agency from which they were
deprived of previously due to illegal water connections in the slums
and squatter settlements.
· The program
on solid waste management discussed in Chapter 4 has resulted in
significant improvement of the local environment and cleanliness.
It has created employment opportunity for the urban poor, saved
the waste management cost of municipal authority and created business
opportunity for entrepreneurs to earn profit.
· Both the projects
on water supply and solid waste management have become replicable
models within the country, which several city governments and NGOs
are trying to replicate. Moreover, cities outside the country have
also shown interest to replicate the model.
· A partnership
approach between public, private (including NGOs) and community
is gradually emerging due to demonstration effect of the projects.
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