Bangladesh confident of achieving sanitation for all

, by OneWorld

Across Bangladesh, the situation is much better than it was 30 years ago both in terms of the proportion of the population with access to improved sanitary facilities and in terms of absolute numbers. In the late 1970s, the national sanitation coverage was 2%, while over 300,000 children under five died of diarrhoeal diseases annually. In the early 1980s, the government of Bangladesh, with money and technical assistance from the international community, moved to change things, and by 2000 Bangladesh had achieved considerable success in installing sanitary latrines throughout the country. Today the majority of households have access to improved sanitation facilities, and diarrhoeal deaths have been dramatically reduced. Read more