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Bangladesh is the ninth most populated country in the world, with about 120 million inhabitants and a population increasing at an annual growth rate of about 2.2 percent. Except some island-states, Bangladesh has the highest population density in the world, which has increased by 3.7 times during the last nine decades. Agriculture, the primary industry of the country, provides employment to about three-quarters of the population. Rice is the main crop grown, followed by wheat, jute, sugarcane, etc. The country is often facing natural disasters causing acute disruption in the food supply resulting in severe malnutrition of the most vulnerable groups. Nutritional levels have declined significantly during the 1965-85 twenty years period and this situation continues to deteriorate. A large majority of the population, both urban and rural, is affected by this phenomenon. An estimated 50% of the total population suffer from malnutrition. This particularly affects women and young children, and some 13.5 million children under the age of 5 are malnourished.


The over population of Bangladesh suffers from extreme poverty, malnutrition, ignorance, illiteracy, unhygienic living conditions, diseases and consequent deaths. The deplorable condition of public health is one of the drawbacks hindering the development of the country. The rural population represents about 85% of the total population. The vast majority of the rural population face poverty and lack hygiene. The housing conditions are deplorable and most people lack proper knowledge for health care and hygienic practices. Despite the fact that 85% of the rural population have access to handpump water (tubewell) within 150 meters of their households, only 97% use it for drinking purpose and 26% use it for all domestic purposes, and only 46% wash hand properly before taking meal and after defecation.


On the other hand, 36% of the rural households have hygienic latrines which implies that the other 64% have unhygienic latrines or defecate in the open space. Thus 28,000 metric tons of human excreta are deposited in the open everyday, which constantly pollutes the surface water. The attacks of unhygienic and environmental sanitation practices combined with a limited use of safe water, constantly threat the public health of the country. About 80% of diseases are related to unclean water, to which children are found to be most vulnerable. Every year, an average of about 300,000 children under 5 years of age -accounting for one-third of all child deaths- die of diarrhea in Bangladesh. This alarming figure counts for one third of the total child mortality.


The Social Mobilization for Sanitation Project:


Social mobilization is a concept which involves the creation of a social movement for initiatives in development projects. This movement aims to create a major thrust to solve problems of national magnitude by promoting participation of all possible sectors and levels of society, mobilizing local resources and using indigenous knowledge. It aims to enhance people's creativity and productivity through mass campaign. This concept is of extreme relevance for a real change can be initiated by orchestrating a joint attack against the alarming sanitation situation with minimum social conflict. The participation of people in any development programme is the pre-requisite for sustaining any achievement. Social mobilization involves not only people in the community, but all sectors and levels of society as well as service delivery agencies, i.e. where local resources are tapped to its fullest which ensures the sustainability of the programme.


The strategies adopted for the above objectives are spelled out as follows:


* To increase the awareness of all communities of the benefits of sanitation improvements with the help of appropriate communication media;


* to promote affordable and appropriate technology with an emphasis on defecating in a fixed place and on construction of home-made latrines;


* to mobilize resources and build alliances with all potential partners -such as political leaders, local governments, professional groups, NGOs, CBOs, women groups, educational and religious institutes, mass media, cultural groups, etc.- for sanitation improvement through dialogues and advocacy campaigns.


However, it was decided that the programme would have national coverage with a special focus given on intensive sanitation activities in the selected diarrhea prone areas. Accordingly, NGO Forum implemented the SOCMOB project in collaboration with the DPHE (Department of Public Health Engineering), a government department, and with the financial assistance from UNICEF. NGO Forum made agreements with its NGO partners for implementation of the programme, jointly determining the operational strategies. In complement of the NGO Forum and its NGO partners’ staffs, additional personnel was hired for supervising, monitoring and coordinating the project’s activities : for each thana, one Thana Coordinator, three Field Supervisors and twenty Field Extension Workers were hired. It was then decided that a Baseline Survey would be undertaken in each and every thana before starting the project activities for assessing the existing situation and potential needs.