Institution: Durham University, UK

Period: October 1999 to April 2003

Degree: Awarded with the PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health, University of Durham, England with the Commonwealth Scholarship Programme. Produced a PhD thesis on “Arsenic Toxicity in Bangladesh: Health and Social Hazards”.

Institution: Durham University, UK

Period: October 1996 to September 1996

Degree: Received MSc (Advance Taught Course) on Geographical Information for Development (GID) from the Department of Geography, Durham University, UK with the British ODA Scholarship. Produced a dissertation on “The Pattern of Suburban Development in Dhaka City (Bangladesh): A GIS Approach”.

Institution: Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Period: July 1987 to June 1988

Degree: Received MSc (thesis group) from the Department of Geography, Jahangirnagar University. Produced a thesis on “Population Change and Suburban Expansion: A Case Study of Savar”.

Institution: Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Period: July 1984 to June 1987

Degree: Received BSc (Hons) from the Department of Geography, Jahangirnagar University. Minor subjects were Economics and Statistics.

Institution: Durham University, UK

Period: October 2009 to September 2010

Awards: Enjoyed Fellowship from the Institute of Hazard and Risk Resilience - IHRR, Durham University with the Commonwealth Fellowship Programme. Also, nominated as Fellow of European Commission on environmental health risk policy under the scheme of Durham International Fellowships for Research and Enterprise (DIFeREns), Durham University, UK.

Professor M. Manzurul Hassan has been in his teaching and research profession for more than three decades (since January 1992).

He has been engaged in the Department of Geography and Environment at Jahangirnagar University.

He is interested in teaching on environmental health, research methodology, spatial epidemiology, and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Professor Hassan is supervising a number of PhD candidates on environmental health and environmental legal issues.

Currently, he is engaged in his research with the finalization of a book manuscript on "Medical Waste Management". 

Consulting Assignments:

[A]  Climate Change

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Project Period: October 2021 - June 2022

Project Category: Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Position: National Consultant (Climate Vulnerability Index)

Organization: United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Bangladesh

Project: Climatic Vulnerability Index: Mapping for the Local Government Institutions (LGI), Pouroshava, and City Corporations in Bangladesh

Activities: Acted as National Consultant to conduct a project assignment on “Climatic Vulnerability Index: Mapping for the Local Government Institutions (LGI), Pouroshava, and City Corporations in Bangladesh” funding by the UNDP. The main goal of the study was to prepare Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) and mapping up to the Local Government Institutions (LGI) (e.g., Union), Pouroshava, and City Corporation levels. In order to achieve the goal, a number of objectives are considered. They were: (a) to develop a CVI methodology following the climate data and secondary data (social, environmental, economic); (b) to downscale the climatic data with spatial resolution of 5 arc-minutes (10km x 10km) for LGI level CVI mapping; (c) to analyse the CVI following the climatic events, exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity; and (d) to prepare maps for CVI to figure out areas from very low to very high climate vulnerability zones. 

In order to achieve the objectives, a number of activities were conducted, and they were: (a) review the relevant papers, documents, and publications for identifying vulnerability situation in different countries and research gaps in Bangladesh; (b) relevant climate data, sensitivity information in terms of physical infrastructure data, socioeconomic data, connectivity data, facility-based data, livelihood data, as well as adaptive capacity information were collected from different sources; (c) modelling for downscaling of climate data, mainly the temperature and rainfall at the spatial resolution of 5 arc-minutes; (d) calculation of 30 year running averages for present day simulations (1991-2020); (e) calculation of climate vulnerability index (CVI) following exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity; (f) mapping different vulnerability zones following the CVI, and (g) develop a complete report on the pattern of CVI up to the LGI, Municipality, Upazila, City Corporations, and District levels.

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Project Period: October 2019 - March 2020

Project Category: Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Position: Consultant

Organization: Bread for the World (BftW), Germany

Project: Promoting Pro-poor, Climate Resilient Low Carbon Sustainable Development in Bangladesh and Beyond (PCRDB)

Activities: Acted as Consultant for Promoting Pro-poor, Climate Resilient Low Carbon Sustainable Development in Bangladesh and Beyond (PCRDB) project. The main aim of the project was to evaluate the effectiveness of the project with the project objectives: (a) strengthening the knowledge base and capacity of target groups to contribute to build community based resilience and sustainable low carbon development; and (b) climate resilience and food security in vulnerable communities has been enhanced. The project were conducted in (a) Bhamia of Satkhira district; (b) Sannasi and Poshurbunia of Bagerhat district; and (c) Padma and Charlathimara of Borguna district.

In general, the study showed systematically: (a) how successful the PCRDB project was in promoting improvement or changing alternative livelihood practices with the given resources to reduce risks score and create community resilience; and (b) how was it possible to overcome the detected weaknesses? In order to address the two above points, it was important to define what was going to be investigated, and in line with the objectives, the evaluation focused on four key aspects. These were: (a) achievement of the project; (b) programme approach: relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency; (c) sustainability of the project; and (d) organizational structure and cooperation management.

The conducted tasks for the project were to: (a) review existing knowledge on climate change impacts, adaptation options with climate adaptive agriculture and cropping, and carbon reduction; (b) identify appropriate robust adaptation measures at regional levels and assess their effectiveness against the range of sufferings from climate change impacts; (c) carry out fieldworks in the study sites with empirical field observation and field level data collection through formal (questionnaire survey) and in-formal interview process as well as qualitative enquiry with KII and FGD sessions; (d) processing the data and analyze results; and (e) preparation of the report for the project success, strength, and limitations.

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Project Period: June 2011 - December 2012

Project Category: Climate Change and Human Health

Position: Climate Change Specialist (International)

Organization: AECOM (USA), ADB and UKAID

Project: R-PATA 7423: Regional Economics of Climate Change in South Asia (Part II: Adaptation and Impact Assessment, RECCSA)

Activities: Acted as Climate Change Specialist (International) for Human Health in the South-Asian Countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka). The main responsibility was to undertake physical impact and adaptation analyses for the health sector. Analyses of future climate change impacts on human health at the regional and country levels were conducted based on the outputs from the models under Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate scenarios. The analyses were made by applying an integrated assessment model.

The major tasks for the project were to: (a) review existing knowledge on climate change impacts, adaptation options, and health policies; (b) assess vulnerability and impacts of climate change to human health based on three different climate scenarios (A1, A1B, and B2) developed by the climate change modeling specialist; (c) identify appropriate robust adaptation measures at national and regional levels and assess their effectiveness against the range of projected impacts under different scenarios; (d) carry out sensitivity analysis on key modeling assumptions and indicate confidence intervals of results; (e) prepare analysis and results at the state-level for India, the country-level for the other participating countries, and the regional level; (f) to analyze results and provide mapping of vulnerability and impacts on a GIS database; and (g) formulate recommendations on appropriate adaptation strategies.

[B]  Medical Waste Management

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Project Period: February 2022-February 2023

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: Senior Biomedical Waste Management Expert

Organization: Asian Development Bank, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Project: Supporting Bangladesh’s National COVID-19 Vaccination Program

Activities: Acted as Senior Biomedical Waste Management Expert on “Supporting Bangladesh’s National COVID-19 Vaccination Program” to support the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Bangladesh. The main features of the project were: (a) assessment of existing immunization waste management (IWM) system; (b) development of revised SOP (standard operating procedure), manual and guideline; (c) development of training materials for IWM; (d) development of communication materials for IWM with contents and messages; and (e) provide training for institutional capacity building for IWM.

A number of activities were conducted in order fulfil the above objectives. They were: (a) review and assessment of current practices for IWM in the context of COVID-19 pandemic with gaps and challenges as well as possible best practices; (b) reviewing for identification of limitations of existing SOP, manual, and guidelines for IWM; (c) support in development of training materials for scientific waste management for managing immunization waste due to COVID-19 using the current practices such as incineration, pit burning, open burning, and burial at the hospital premises; (d) review of existing IEC (Information, Education and Communication) materials for IWM, chalk out the limitations in waste segregation, waste collection, storage, treatment, and final disposal; (e) conducted several training workshops with relevant health officials to improve capacities for IWM. In conducting the assignments, a series of fieldworks across the country were conducted. Moreover, a total of five reports were developed in completion of this project assignment.

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Project Period: February-April 2021

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: National Consultant (Team Leader)

Organization: Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Bangladesh

Project: Feasibility Study for Government Hospital based Medical Waste Management

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant (Team Leader) for DGHS on “Government Hospital based Medical Waste Management”. The main responsibility was to prepare a document on “Feasibility Study for Government Hospital based Medical Waste Management”. This feasibility study seeks to select suitable technologies for medical waste management in different categories of government hospitals considering the performance of the technologies with relation to environmental sustainability, pattern of health risk, and benefit analysis. The study investigated the existing practice of medical waste management along with types and quantity of wastes generated in five selected hospitals. The main project features were to: (a) develop a feasibility study report with ECNEC (Executive Committee of the National Economic Council) format for the Government of Bangladesh for proper medical waste management strategy in Bangladesh, (b) select suitable technologies for proper management of medical waste in different categories of government hospitals considering the performance of the technologies with relation to environmental sustainability, pattern of health risk, and cost-benefit analysis, (c) identify and quantity the hazardous and non-hazardous medical wastes at some selected HCE, and (d) identify the strengths and weaknesses of present management practices of hazardous medical waste at the surveyed HCE.

The accomplished works were: (a) review the generation rate of medical waste and its management practices in Bangladesh and other advanced and developing countries; (b) collection of field level information for waste generation with type and quantity from five selected Health Care Establishment (HCE); (c) investigation of the pattern of final disposal system of generated infectious medical wastes from the surveyed Healthcare Establishment; (d) investigation of suitable technologies (e.g., incinerator, autoclave, and effluent treatment plant) for hazardous medical waste with environmental sustainability, health risk, and possible mitigation measures as well as cost-benefit analysis; (e) developed and analyzed institutional frameworks for medical waste management; and (f) formulate a number of recommendations for successful completion of the project.

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Project Period: August 2014 – January 2017

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: National Consultant

Organization: Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Bangladesh

Project: Training to Health Staff in Different Government Hospitals in Bangladesh

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant for DGHS on “Training to Health Staff in Different Government Hospitals in Bangladesh”. The main project features were to the development of training modules containing defining medical waste, types of medical waste with sources of generation, risk and impacts on environment and public health, in-house waste management (with needle destruction, segregation with colour codes, internal transportation, temporary storage, and so on), and final disposal in terms of external transportation and existing treatment and destruction facilities as well as modern technologies and integrated technologies for proper medical waste management focusing recycling and resource recovery.

A number of activities performed in the project were to: (a) development of training materials for different modules like biomedical waste collection, segregation, disposal, transport, and treatment, (b) provide training to different health staff in different government hospitals and Upazila Health Complexes (UHC) in Bangladesh, (c) some 7 district hospitals and 35 UHC were covered for my involvement in the training programme, and (d) the training programs were organized by the DGHS on the basis of the improvement of the quality of medical waste management.

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Project Period: May-August 2013

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: National Consultant

Organization: World Health Organisation (WHO), Bangladesh

Project: Situation Analysis of Existing Healthcare Waste Management in Government Hospitals in Bangladesh

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant for DGHS (Directorate General of Health Services) on Healthcare Waste Management (HCWM). The main responsibility was to prepare a document on “Situation Analysis of Existing Healthcare Waste Management in Government Hospitals in Bangladesh”. This report was prepared to illustrate the changing pattern of HCWM in compare with the situation of 2000 in Bangladesh. The main targets of the assignment were to: (a) identify and quantity the hazardous and non-hazardous HCW at Secondary and Tertiary level public Healthcare Facilities (HCF); (b) identify the strengths and weaknesses of present HCWM situation at the surveyed hospitals; (c) assess KAP on HCWM among health professionals, waste handlers and other stakeholders; and (d) measure the implementation status of HCWM rule 2008 and assess knowledge of HCW handlers and stakeholders on this particular rule. The responsibilities were to: (a) review the generation rate of HCW and its management practices in Bangladesh and some developing countries; (b) collection of field level information from a total of seven selected HCE for waste generation with type and quantity; (c) investigate the pattern of final disposal system of generated infectious medical wastes from the surveyed hospitals; (d) inquire into the perceptions of health staff about the impact of improper medical waste management practice on environment and public health; and (e) formulate recommendations on environment-friendly suitable technological options to destroy infectious medical wastes in Bangladesh.

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Project Period: February-April 2013

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: National Consultant

Organization: World Health Organisation (WHO), Bangladesh

Project: Bio-medical Waste Management Rules

Activities: Performed as National Consultant for DGHS (Directorate General of Health Services) on Medical Waste Management (MWM). The main responsibility was to revise and amendment of the “Bio-medical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2008” for proper MWM in Bangladesh. Under my supervision and control, a series of workshops were arranged by the DGHS with the financial support from the WHO for reviewing and amend the Rules. The 2008 version of the Rules was unable to execute since there were significant issues that were inconsistent with the DoE Environmental Conservation Act 1995, City Corporation/Municipality Law 2010, and Private Clinic and Practitioner Ordinance 1982. Moreover, there were inaccuracies in the Rules, and some were outdated and characterised by low penalties and sometimes no penalties at all for offenders. Therefore, the new “Bio-medical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2013” will be helpful in preventing improper MWM in Bangladesh. The Rules were based on waste segregation, packaging, storage, transportation, and final destruction with environmental considerations. Besides, supervision, monitoring, and penalties were considered in this newly developed Rules.

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Project Period: April - September 2009

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: National Consultant

Organization: World Health Organisation (WHO), Bangladesh

Project: Medical Waste Management in the selected Health Care Establishments

Activities: Performed as a National Consultant for PRISM Bangladesh on MWM. The main responsibility was to explore existing practice of improper MWM in some selected Health Care Establishments (HCE). The tasks of the study were to: (a) review the existing medical waste management practices in some countries; (b) collection of field level information from a total of 93 selected HCE for waste generation with type and quantity; (c) investigate the pattern of final disposal system of generated infectious medical wastes from the surveyed HCE; (d) inquire into the perceptions of health staff about the impact of improper medical waste management practice on environment and public health; (e) analyze results and provide mapping with Geographical Information Systems; and (f) formulate recommendations on environment-friendly suitable technological options to destroy dangerous infectious wastes.

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Project Period: September - December 2008

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: Principal Investigator

Organization: World Health Organisation (WHO), Bangladesh

Project: Health Care Waste Management in Upazila Health Complexes

Activities: Acted as Principal Investigator with the World Health Organization (WHO), Dhaka, Bangladesh on “Health Care Waste Management in Upazila Health Complexes”. The main objective of the project was to assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of health professional (doctors, nurses, and cleaners) regarding MWM at the primary level hospitals (UHC) using the quantitative and qualitative methods. The relevant tasks for this project were: (a) conducted a baseline survey; (b) selected the target respondents from the UHC and developed a KAP survey instrument specific to each of the three identified categories of health staff; (c) carried out field testing of the questionnaires and checklists in five selected UHC in different Upazila, and revised them after getting feedback from field testing; (d) examined the perception and knowledge about HCWM of health staff in the UHC; (e) investigated the existing practice of HCWM; (f) identified the attitude of three categories of respondents regarding the safe HCWM system; and (g) identified the needs of training and awareness building programme for the health staff of UHC. This study was based on 128 selected UHC (i.e., 2 randomly selected UHC from each district).

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Project Period: June and July 2008

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: National Consultant

Organization: The World Bank, Dhaka

Project: Preparation for an environmental Management Guideline

Activities: Worked as a National Consultant with the Department of Environment, Ministry of Forest and Environment, Government of Bangladesh for preparing the “Environmental Management Guideline for Hospitals and Clinics”. The tasks for the project were to: (a) review of secondary data collected from relevant sources e.g. relevant policy, rules and regulation etc.; (b) assessment of prevailing key environmental issues; (c) assessment of management practice that are being followed to address the prevailing environmental issues; (d) review the current practice to address the occupational health and safety (OH&S) issues of the workers; (e) assessment of the trend of general environmental pollution from hospitals and clinics; (f) evaluation of existing facilities available to cope with the adverse environmental consequences; (g) assessment on the views of the management, workers and the communities around those industries; (h) evaluation of prevailing surrounding and in-house environmental situation.

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Project Period: August 2007 - February 2008

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: International Consultant (MWM Specialist and Team Leader of MWM)

Organization: Asian Development Bank (ADB) and BRR (Indonesia)

Project: Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project

Activities: Worked as MWM Specialist (International) and Team Leader of MWM (Sub-component 4.0: MWM Specialist, ADB Grant 0002-INO: Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project, Health Component, Package 31) to work in the Province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD), Indonesia. The ADB Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project (ETESP) includes allocation to support rehabilitation and reconstruction of the health infrastructures in the health sector. Disposal of Pharmaceutical Wastes is an important subproject of MWM Program in NAD under Health Sector Program of ADB ETESP on Medical Waste Management Component, with adding a focus on the disposal of unusable pharmaceuticals.

After the two concurrent catastrophic disasters, first the devastating tsunami on 26th December 2004 followed by a major earthquake on 28th March 2005 in NAD and Pulau Nias of North Sumatra, an unprecedented amount of support flowed into Aceh through funding, emergency, supplies and food. Included in this support was a significant amount of pharmaceutical goods that were donated by governments, companies, NGOs and other national and international organizations. Many of the pharmaceuticals save lives and alleviate suffering, but a large percentage of the pharmaceuticals donated were inappropriate for the Acehnese setting. It was surveyed by the Provincial Health Office (PHO) that there was about 620 m3 (1000 tons) of waste remain in the districts, at health post, district health offices, and district pharmaceutical warehouses.

In order to fulfil the objectives, a number of tasks were conducted, and they were: (a) development of a waste management programme that will improve the safety for staff as well as the community; (b) reduce the impact on environment from Medical Waste Management activities following the Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) and SPPR (Sub-Project Preparation Report) documents; (c) develop waste management training materials; (d) provide series of trainings for health staff in 10 districts in Aceh, and two districts in Nias; (e) preparation of two IEE documents and two SPPR documents for both the pharmaceutical waste destruction; (f) production of IEE and SPPR documents for hospital incinerators, it was investigated the quality and performance of available incinerators in different bands and companies in Indonesia with their effectiveness and environmental aspects. The activities were also integrated with AusAID, WHO, UNICEF, French Red Cross that have some involvement in these fields.

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Project Period: November 2004 - May 2005

Project Category: Biomedical Waste Management

Position: Team Leader

Organization: WSP-World Bank and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)

Project: Situation Analysis for Hospital Waste Management in Dhaka City

Activities: Worked as Team Leader in a project on “Hospital Waste Management in Dhaka City” with PRISM Bangladesh funded by the World Bank and SIDA. The main responsibility was to investigate the pattern of medical waste generation and its existing management system. Hospital, clinics, and diagnostic centres of the selected wards (Wards 49 and 56) in Dhaka City Corporation (at present, it is Dhaka South City Corporation) were identified and mapped with Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The tasks of the project were to: (a) conduct an inventory of HCE in terms of government hospitals, private hospitals, private clinics, and pathological diagnostic centres in the study sites; (b) quantifying the amount of wastes generated by each HCE in the study sites; (c) exploration of waste handling practices (e.g. storage, collection, transportation and disposal) within the hospital premises; (d) assessment of the needs of training for hospital waste management; and (e) drawing recommendations for remedial measures for better management of hospital wastes. In addition, guideline and training manuals were developed for for types of medical waste and their sources of generation, the impacts of hazardous medical waste on human health, and suitable options for proper medical waste management.

[C]  Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

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Project Period: October 2020 - December 2020

Project Category: Climate Change and Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: Team Leader

Organization: United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Bangladesh

Project: A study water and sanitation coverage and explore requirement the opportunities of private sector investment in the safe water and sanitation sector in two SDG Financing and Localization Platform (SFLP) pilot Upazilas

Activities: Acted as Team Leader to conduct a project assignment on “A study water and sanitation coverage and explore requirement the opportunities of private sector investment in the safe water and sanitation sector in two SDG Financing and Localization Platform (SFLP) pilot Upazilas” funding by the UNDP Bangladesh. This project was a component of climate change induced WASH situation. This project was one of the components of Strengthening Institutional Capacity for SDGs Achievement in Bangladesh (SC4SDG) Project which is a multi-year initiative to support the Government of Bangladesh. This project aimed to go beyond the conventional partnership with the government to private sector, NGOs, CSOs, think-tank, academia and media to ensure the “whole of the society” approach to attain SDG goals and targets.

With views to do SDG localization and to encourage and test the private sector engagement and investment in the SDGs attainment process of the country, SFLP initiative of UNDP Bangladesh with support from Local Government Division (LGD) of Bangladesh Government in being implemented as pilot basis. The project was mainly focused on: (a) to understand the water and sanitation coverage and practices in the two SFLP pilot Upazilas; and (b) to explore the opportunities of private sector investment in the safe water and sanitation sector.

In order to achieve the objectives, a number of activities were conducted and they were: (a) review the relevant papers, documents, and publications; (b) interacting with beneficiaries, community people, private sector sponsors involved with PPP, local LGED, local government, local elites, NGOs and social activists working with water and sanitation to analyse their views to the project parameters, activities and services; and (c) identifying open and hidden weaknesses, barriers, challenges and threats (if any) to implementing the project, achieving its objectives i.e. to create necessary environment for private sector engagement and investment for clean water in partnership with different stakeholders including District Administration, Local Government Institutions (LGI), Private Sector Actors, and NGOs.

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Project Period: February 2017 - June 2017

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: Team Leader

Organization: MR Consultant Ltd, Dhaka

Project: In-depth Monitoring of Bangladesh Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project

Activities: Acted as Team Leader to conduct a project assignment on “In-depth Monitoring of Bangladesh Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (BRWSSP)” funded by the Government of Bangladesh. This project was conducted in 32 districts in Bangladesh. The project was mainly focused on: (a) the construction of piped water supply scheme in the areas affected by arsenic and salinity in collaboration with the local community and government, people and private sponsors through PPP imitative; (b) construction of non-piped water supply system by selecting union and villages where arsenic and salinity problems are identifiable; (c) construct of latrines for hard core poor in the selected unions; (d) strengthening the awareness about development of quality sanitation system by the local private sector in the selected villages; and (e) skill enhancement or capacity building of the beneficiaries and key stakeholders. In order to achieve the objectives, a number of activities have been conducted and they were: (a) review the original and the revised DPP and relevant papers, documents, and publications; (b) interacting with beneficiaries, community people, private sector sponsors involved with PPP, local LGED, local government, local elites, NGOs and social activists working with water and sanitation to analyse their views to the project parameters, activities and services; and (c) identifying open and hidden weaknesses, barriers, challenges and threats (if any) to implementing the project, achieving its objectives or to providing service delivery.

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Project Period: October 2012 - May 2015

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: Team Leader

Organization: ICCO Cooperation, The Netherlands

Project: Scanning and Mapping the WASH Situation in Coastal Bangladesh: Problems and potential

Activities: Acted as Team Leader to conduct a project assignment on “Scanning and Mapping the WASH Situation in Coastal Bangladesh: Problems and potential” funded by the ICCO Cooperation, the Netherlands. This project was developed in line with the national goal for safe water supply, improved sanitation, and hygiene behaviour in the water-logged areas of coastal belt of Southwest Bangladesh (Satkhira, Bagerhat, and Khulna districts) in connection with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The objectives of the project were: (a) to mapping the spatial WASH situation and problems; (b) to identify the factors that facilitate or hinder WASH interventions in the coastal areas of Bangladesh; (c) to review the existing WASH projects in Bangladesh and other countries, and recommend potential good practices in the WASH sector of Bangladesh; (d) to design a policy guideline to minimise the problems in WASH sector in Bangladesh; and (e) to investigate the appropriate indicators for sustainable WASH interventions with sufficiently rigorous quality control measure. Considering the outcome from identified problems and potentialities, this project intended to draw a detail policy recommendation so that the WASH sector could overcome existing problems and could be recognized as “rule of thumb” in this vital sector in Bangladesh. The project was important for its outcome in developing a “WASH Policy” to provide people safe drinking water, improved latrine, and hygienic behaviour.

In order to fulfil the research goals and objectives of this project, it was designed a methodological framework to conduct fieldworks for collecting relevant information. A multi-method approach was employed for this project. This multi-method approach provides a mix of both the quantitative, qualitative, and spatial information. The spatial information was vital for this project and the relevant information were collected directly from field visits with GPS and satellite imageries; relevant information from different literatures and Sanitation Secretariat (Bangladesh); while in-depth interviews with different respondents and focus-group discussions (FGD) with different community people and UP administrations allowed a greater depth of understanding of the existing WASH situation in the project sites. Moreover, it was screened water samples from all the hand-pump tubewells with Field Testing Kits (FTK) to analyse the existing pattern of arsenic concentrations in drinking water in the project sites. Accordingly, field visits were made, and it was arranged several meetings with UP administration, partner NGOs, local stakeholders and local people. The same activities were deployed to analyse the sanitation situation in the project sites. Field level questionnaire survey was made to figure out the pattern of hygiene behaviour. In addition, observation and demonstration methodology were implied to verify the indicators of hygiene behaviour. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) methodology was used to map the overall WASH situation in the project sites.

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Project Period: November – December 2013

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: Consultant

Organization: SDC, Switzerland

Project: "Morbidity Reduction through Improved Hygiene Behaviours" of a project on "Promotion of Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Rural Bangladesh".

Activities: Involved as a Consultant in conducting a study on “Morbidity Reduction through Improved Hygiene Behaviours”. This was a subproject of “Promotion of Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Rural Bangladesh (P-WASH)” that was implemented by NGO Forum for Public Health (an apex networking and service delivery organization in the WASH sector) with the financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The P-WASH Project was targeted to accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as well as national target with respect to the access to drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene practices. The aim of the P-WASH Project was to promote decentralized and sustainable context-specific water supply and sanitation facilities through increasing the capacity of the hard-to-reach community (47 hard-to-reach unions in 15 upazilas of 13 districts from 5 different Geo-hydrological areas i.e., coastal, drought-prone, char, haor, and flood-prone areas in Bangladesh).

The objectives of this sub-project were: (a) to find out and justify the extent of improved hygiene practice and behaviour among the target beneficiaries; (b) to measure effectiveness of improved hygiene practices in reducing water and excreta-borne diseases; (c) to find out the underlying causes of deviation among knowledge and hygiene practice level; and (d) to suggest strategic change requirement for boosting up the existing hygiene promotion strategy. In order to address these issues, a number of tasks were accomplished: (a) collection of primary data from project beneficiaries and other stakeholders; (b) collection of secondary data from different LGIs and DPHE (Department of Public Health Engineering); (c) analysis of baseline, participatory vulnerability and monitoring findings undertaken in the project areas; (d) review the hygiene implementation strategy used by the P-WASH project; (e) consultation with different allies, UP (Union Porishads, LGI), PNGOs (Partner NGO), BCAS (Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies) and other stakeholders; and (f) produced a report on the study as the impact of the P-WASH Project.

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Project Period: September - December 2013

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: National Consultant

Organization: DFID (UK), Government of Bangladesh (GOB), and UNICEF

Project: Sanitation, Hygiene Education and water Supply, Bangladesh (SHEWA-B).

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant to conduct a project completion review (PCR) on “Sanitation, Hygiene Education and water Supply, Bangladesh (SHEWA-B)” funded by DFID/GoB/UNICEF. The programme started in 2007 and ended on 31 December 2013. The total budget for the programme was US$100 million: DFID ($75m), GoB ($15m) and UNICEF ($10m). The programme was built on the success of ESHWRA (Environmental Sanitation, Hygiene and Water Supply in Rural Areas) project. SHEWA-B was designed for 60 sub-districts (upazila) in 16 rural plain-land districts, 300 paras (villages) in the three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and 19 pourashavas (secondary towns) in Bangladesh.

The key objectives of the PCR were to: (a) determine what has been achieved by the project; (b) determine the impact, extent, effectiveness (including Value for Money) and sustainability of the interventions; and (c) highlight key challenges, innovations and areas of learning from the project which can be shared within DFID and UNICEF and across the sector for future WASH project development within Bangladesh and globally. Moreover, a secondary objective was to provide DFID and UNICEF with an evaluation feasibility assessment of the data that the project holds against a number of questions that have been identified: (a) assessing sustainability of SHEWA-B programme interventions; (b) assessing the capacity of LGIs in planning, monitoring and implementation of WASH programmes; and (c) assessing the effectiveness of systems put in place by SHEWA-B in enhancing implementation and strategic capacity of Department of Public Health and Engineering (DPHE) of Government of Bangladesh.

The responsibilities were to: (a) review the performance in terms of planned achievements against final results in the log frame; (b) determine what have been the impacts as a result of the interventions to improve WASH services in Bangladesh; (c) explore behaviour change (e.g. engagement and actions, ability to act on the information received through hygiene promotion); (d) review the health impact data collected to date; (e) review of capacity building of the local government bodies at central and local levels within the purview of the project; (f) assess how the Theory of Change and the assumptions worked out in practice; (g) review the climate change and environment aspect of the programme; and (h) identify the key challenges, strengths, limitations and lessons learned in implementing such a project to improve access and quality of WASH services at such a scale in terms of impact, beneficiary numbers, partners and geographical area. We developed the review report following the DFID format.

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Project Period: September - December 2011

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Monitoring & Evaluation)

Position: National Consultant

Organization: Terre Des Hommes (TDH), The Netherlands

Project: Integrated Water and Sanitation Programme for Disadvantaged Off-shore Island People in the Coastal Belt (IWSPOIP-C)

Activities: Involved as a National Consultant in evaluating a project on “Integrated Water and Sanitation Programme for Disadvantaged Off-shore Island People in the Coastal Belt (IWSPOIP-C)” that was implemented by NGO Forum (an apex networking and service delivery organization in the WASH sector) with the financial support of the Terre Des Hommes - Netherlands. This project was developed in line with sustaining the national goal for safe water supply, hygienic sanitation, and hygiene habits in the respective off-shore communities in Patuakhali district of coastal Bangladesh. Along with regular cyclone and tidal surge, intrusion of high salinity compels people to practice open defecation and drink unsafe water. The objectives of the evaluation of the IWSPOIP-C project were: (a) to assess whether the objectives and intended results of the project have been achieved according to the project document both in terms of quality and quantity; (b) to assess whether the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and impact have been achieved by the project; and (c) to provide the organization with information needed to make decision about the future of the project. In order to address these issues, a number of tasks were accomplished: (a) assessment of effectiveness of the sanitation approach implied by NGO Forum; (b) exploring safe water supply facilities; (c) investigating present status of hygiene practices; and (d) assessment of the sustainability of the project.

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Project Period: July and August 2011

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: National Consultant

Organization: Government of Bangladesh & DANIDA

Project: Hygiene, Sanitation and Water Supply (HYSAWA) Project

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant for preparing the final report on “Hygiene, Sanitation and Water Supply (HYSAWA) Project” for the coastal belts of Bangladesh funded by the GoB and DANIDA. Noakhali, Feni, and Laxmipur were the assigned coastal areas implementing the project objectives. The HYSAWA Project under Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Programme Support (WSSPS - II) was undertaken to facilitate and promote Union Parishad (UP) focusing on the poor, un-served and under-served areas of the project sites. The overall objective of the Project was to contribute to the Bangladesh Government’s policy to reduce poverty through improved and sustainable public health, create a sustainable environment, and to reach the MDG for water supply and sanitation. The target of the project was to develop and demonstrate sustainable hygiene, sanitation and water supply service delivery through Local Government Institutions (LGI). PRISM Bangladesh in association with the IWM was conducted implementation activities for the project. Based on the intensive fieldworks, implementation strategy and relevant success information, a final report was prepared.

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Project Period: May 2008 - February 2009

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Monitoring & Evaluation)

Position: National Consultant

Organization: WSP-SA (World Bank, Dhaka)

Project: Monitoring and Evaluation Protocol for National Sanitation Monitoring in Bangladesh

Activities: Involved as a National Consultant of the World Bank Group for their Water and Sanitation Program in WSP-SA, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The objective of this assignment was to prepare for a “Monitoring and Evaluation Protocol for National Sanitation Monitoring in Bangladesh”. In recent times, concerns have been expressed by the stakeholders regarding the quality of data collected with wide variations reported by different surveys. These are due to the lack of a common assessment framework and a standard protocol to collect and analyse data.

The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has constituted a National Monitoring and Evaluation Committee under the National Sanitation Task Force to address the above problems. WSP is a key member of the committee. To assist in this effort, WSP organized study tours to Indonesia and India for selected committee members to learn from monitoring and evaluation (M&E) operations in those countries. To further assist the M&E committee, WSP wished to recruit a competent professional to complement the committee’s work.

The responsibility was to develop a new system for monitoring the progress of WASH programs in Bangladesh. The tasks for the study were to: (a) assess and review the M&E activities of various organizations involved in promoting sanitation in Bangladesh; (b) review the national M&E activities of India, Indonesia and other countries to indicate potential good practices for adaptation in Bangladesh; (c) conduct fieldworks to investigate the existing data collection system from field and data transfer system to the Sanitation Secretariat (national level); (d) develop an implementation plan for M&E framework and protocol including appropriate indicators and data collection modus operandi with sufficiently rigorous quality control measures.

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Project Period: February - May 200

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Monitoring & Evaluation)

Position: Convenor

Organization: Caritas Bangladesh and AusAID

Project: Strengthening of Arsenic Preparedness and Mitigation Project (SAPMP) Off-shore Island People in the Coastal Belt (IWSPOIP-C)

Activities: Involved as a Convenor in evaluating a groundwater arsenic project on “Strengthening of Arsenic Preparedness and Mitigation Project” of Caritas Bangladesh. The SAPMP aimed to improve the health situation of the communities, equip local communities, and provide arsenic-safe drinking water. While it was evident that arsenic and relevant activities conducted by Caritas Bangladesh are justified, the big challenge remains how to scaling-up the project success at the national level to cover the MDG in the drinking water sector. The objectives of this evaluation were to examine the actual achievements of the project in relation to the stated objectives in the project proposal. Following the SAPMP targets, the specific evaluation tasks of the project were: (a) to assess the effectiveness of the SAPMP approach in terms of methodology; (b) to investigate the improvements in health and social situation of the communities and affected people through proper awareness education, preventive and curative health care for arsenic illnesses; (c) to investigate the status of arsenic-safe water option provided by Caritas; (d) to understand the level of awareness campaign through community participation; and (e) to assess sustainability of SAPMP. These objectives ensured the strength and weakness of the SAPMP to get a better understanding of the impact on the affected community.

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Project Period: June - August 2006

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Monitoring & Evaluation)

Position: National Consultant

Organization: NGO Forum for DWSS, Bangladesh

Project: Success of NGO Forum’s Follow-up Activities in 100% Union-based Sanitation Coverage

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant to evaluate a project on “Success of NGO Forum’s Follow-up Activities in 100% Sanitation Coverage Unions in Partnership with the Local Government Institutions”. The main objective of the project was to review the sustainability of the achievement of 100% sanitation coverage unions. The impact and the pattern of success of NGO Forum’s follow-up activities in 100% Sanitation Coverage Unions in Partnership with the Local Government Institutions (LGI) were the main focused areas of activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the actual achievements of the project in relation to the stated objectives in the proposal. An attempt had been made to analyse two targeted issues: (a) how successful the project has been in changing hygiene practices; and (b) how to overcome the detected weaknesses? In order to address these two issues, a number of tasks were accomplished and they were: (a) assessment of the effectiveness of the total sanitation approach implied by NGO Forum; (b) assessment of the sustainability of the project; (c) exploring the safe water supply facilities; (d) investigating the present status of hygiene practices; (e) understanding the level of LGI and community participation, and sustainability of the sanitation facilities and its hygiene use; and (f) comparing the success of 100% coverage between unions having NGO activities and without NGO activities.

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Project Period: March - June 2006

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Monitoring & Evaluation)

Position: National Consultant

Organization: WSP-SA (World Bank, Dhaka)

Project: GIS based system for monitoring the existing activities of different stakeholders in Water and Sanitation Programmes in Bangladesh

Activities: Acted as a National Consultant for the World Bank Group for their Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP). The objective of this assignment was to prepare for “a GIS based system for monitoring the existing activities of different stakeholders in Water and Sanitation Programmes in Bangladesh”. The tasks were to: (a) assess and review the M&E activities of various organizations involved in promoting sanitation in Bangladesh; (b) review the national M&E activities of different countries whether there are any GIS based monitoring system in the WASH sector; (c) exploring the suitable indicators to monitor the progress in water and sanitation activities; and (d) develop an implementation plan for M&E framework including appropriate indicators with computer programming literacy. A GIS based Sanitation Information System (SIS) was developed to address the growing gap between the average GIS user and available GIS technology. The prepared SIS software has the facilities of automated GIS mapping, tabular data and graphics was based on the Visual Basic, Map Object, ArcView, and Microsoft Access. This SIS can analyse the progress through its automated map generation, data query and analysis capabilities. This SIS is completely different from the existing mainstream GIS and was designed to scrutinize and to examine the progress of the sanitation programmes that is simple and user-friendly.

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Project Period: June - September 2003

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Monitoring & Evaluation)

Position: Consultant

Organization: UNICEF, Bangladesh

Project: Assessment of Capacity Building

Activities: Engaged as a Consultant on “Assessment of Capacity Building Component in the Bangladesh-UNICEF Country Program 2001-2005” with AcNielsen (Dhaka). The main objective of the assignment was to assess and review the M&E activities of the Unicef in Bangladesh regarding the promotion of school sanitation and hygiene education, and arsenic mitigation in Bangladesh. The evaluation was aimed to assess the project’s effectiveness, sustainability and relevance and draw lessons for future programmes. The purpose of this study was to examine the actual achievements of the project in relation to the stated objectives in the proposal. A number of tasks were accomplished: (a) assessment of the effectiveness of the school sanitation and hygiene education; (b) assessment of groundwater arsenic concentrations, its mitigation options and sustainability; (c) exploring the safe water supply facilities; (d) integration of sanitation, hygiene promotion, and safe water supply.

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Project Period: April - September 1999

Project Category: Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

Position: GIS Specialist

Organization: Government of Bangladesh, World Bank (WB) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

Project: Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project (BAMWSP)

Activities: Acted as GIS Specialist on “Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project” (BAMWSP) with the joint venture of Government of Bangladesh (GOB), World Bank (WB), and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The project aims to significantly reduce the quantity of arsenic ingested; increase access to a sustainable safe water supply; and increase the percentage of treated arsenicosis patients in the project areas. There are three components: (a) on-site mitigation with community interventions by alternative water supply and sanitation infrastructure; (b) strengthening the capacity of Project management Unit (PMU) to collect, manage, and evaluate data for water quality, arsenic concentrations, and socioeconomic conditions; and (c) institutional strengthening for capacity building in arsenic mitigation and participatory water supply and sanitation.

The job responsibility was: (a) to collect water sample and analyse arsenic concentration from each tubewell with georeferencing; (b) analyse spatial data; (c) mapping the ‘Problem Regions’ with respect to the pattern of groundwater arsenic concentrations; and (d) to find out the availability of alternative arsenic-safe sources for drinking water. In addition, investigation of the impact of arsenic poisoning on health, social and environmental issues were also the focused activities. Spatial mapping with GIS was used to justify priority areas for installing different arsenic-safe drinking water technology.

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