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Availability of safe drinking water services is a major concern for schools and healthcare centres in rural Bangladesh. A 2022 REACH survey of 1700 schools in Khulna district found tubewells and rainwater harvesting to be the main sources o.f drinking water, with 15% of schools having no drinking water sources on premises.

In rural schools, individual administrators are responsible for monitoring water safety post installation of waterpoints. Limited funds, training, time, and autonomy can hinder timely repair and maintenance of infrastructure and pose uncertain water quality risks.

To address the expanded focus of SDG 6.1 for schools and healthcare centres, REACH has been working with UNICEF and the Local Government Division (LGD) of the Government of Bangladesh to design and pilot a revised institutional model for rural water service delivery. The SafePani model aims to reform existing institutional design and move towards a professional water service delivery model, with timely and independently verified performance metrics unlocking results-based funding.

In rural Bangladesh, the responsibility for managing drinking water infrastructure and water safety is allocated to individual schools and healthcare centres. In response to uneven service delivery performance and increasing climate and environmental risks, the Government of Bangladesh has published its first National Operation and Maintenance Guidelines for Water and Sanitation. The guidelines recognise the role of professional service delivery models working at scale to ensure safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water services for all public schools in a defined service area. We estimated the annual costs of professional water services for 1,700 primary and secondary schools and 300 healthcare centres1 in Khulna district, based on observed data from a pilot in 171 schools and 33 healthcare centres in eight unions. The estimated cost is Tk 33.5 million2 (c. USD 350,000) per year for a district population of over 320,000 students and thousands of daily patient visits, equating to less than USD 1 per person per year.

Despite the increasing use of the term 'resilience', there is further ambiguity and a need to define it beyond certain systems. What does resilience mean under a changing climate where disasters are recurrent? Drinking water crisis in Bangladesh is worsening and the coastal population often experience water supply disruption due to non-functioning drinking water technologies. . Climate change can directly disrupt water supply infrastructure and indirectly cause damage through deteriorating water quality and quantity. The poster was presented at REACH Water Security and Poverty conference at University of Oxford.

This report presents a synthesis of published and ongoing research by REACH which explores the relationship between water security, climate and climate adaptation decisions, drawing on findings from REACH research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

It concludes with three recommendations for to advance water security for climate resilience:

1. More accurate and granular analysis of climate risk is needed to increase relevance of climate information
2. Metrics for monitoring climate resilience in water systems are critical to track progress and inform investments for water security
3. New institutional models that improve water security will be critical for climate resilience

The Rower pump is a reciprocating piston pump with 2" PVC pipe as the pump cylinder. This cylinder is inclined at 30* from horizontal and the operator pushes and pulls directly on a 'T' handle at the end of the piston rod. The pump is operated with a rowing action' hence the name "Rower".