SACOSAN 6: Changing WASH Practices in Southwest Bangladesh, One Small Doable Action at a Time

WASHplus's Julia Rosenbaum co-presented a paper on "Changing WASH Practices in Southwest Bangladesh– One Small Doable Action at a Time" at SACOSAN 6 in Dhaka in January 2016. An abstract for the paper is provide below. Read the paper here. Abstract The global USAID WASHplus Project successfully increased access to water, sanitation and hygiene by applying a comprehensive and innovative approach in hard-to-reach areas of southwest Bangladesh. Rather than promoting ideal water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and behavioral improvements, households were encouraged to take ‘small doable actions’ – feasible yet effective improvements – that moved toward the ideal practice. Through taking this approach, the project met and surpassed all project targets before the end of the project period. Project implementers worked with community members to develop age-specific behaviors for safely disposing infant and child feces and also for patching leaky latrines that dump feces back into the environment. Citation: Julia Rosenbaum, Muhammad Faruqe Hussain, Selina Ferdous, and Khairul Islam, January 2016, Changing WASH Practices in Southwest Bangladesh– One Small Doable Action at a Time, FHI 360/Bangladesh, WASHplus Project, WaterAid/Bangladesh, SACOSAN 6, Dhaka, Bangladesh.