The BRAC WASH programme : describing the core operational approaches, monitoring, evaluation and some results

This paper describes the major operational approaches of the BRAC WASH programme including monitoring, evaluation and some results.  To carry out this study on water safety practices, use of sanitation facilities and self-reported water-related disease prevalence, a comparison was made between baseline (November 2006 to June 2007) and end-line (December 2010-February 2011) surveys done by the BRAC Research and Evaluation Division. The relative changes in indicator values from baseline to end-line were computed to investigate the effects of the programme. The overall proportion of arsenic-free tubewell increased at the endline from the baseline, respectively by 3.1% for the ultra poor, 3.7% for the poor and 2.2% for the non-poor.  The proportion of concrete-built tubewell platforms significantly increased from the baseline to the end line for all economic groups, where the ultra poor registered the highest increase by 29.8%. Use of sanitary latrines increased significantly by 81.1% from the baseline (31.7%) to the end line (57.4%). Though ownership of latrines significantly increased at end line for all economic groups, the greatest increase was for the ultra poor (37.3%). The proportion of households replacing latrines or desludging latrine pits filled-in latrines increased from baseline to end line by 33.8%. The overall self-reported prevalence of water-related diseases significantly reduced by 75.5% from baseline to end-line. The findings suggest that a reasonably well-implemented programme is likely to improve safe water and latrine use and may reduce water-related diseases prevalence. [authors abstract]