For our program we argue that a safe water supply must go hand in hand with long-term medical support and primary health care. This lesson is clear from past experiences. Shallow tube-wells were introduced alongside many other public health interventions (including, for example, Oral Rehydration Therapy).
The drinking water sector experienced a radical transformation after a particularly tragic event. One night in November 1970, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded in human history smashed into Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and West Bengal (India). Half a million people were killed, crops were destroyed, and homes and livestock were swept away. A group of staff from UNICEF also happened to be caught directly in the path of the storm and witnessed the devastation. After their rescue, they reported on the requirements for food and shelter, but also on the need to rehabilitate thousands of flooded and broken down tube-wells. Over 11,000 of them were repaired in the months following the storm.
Aside from the tremendous immediate death toll, the survival of an estimated 5 million people was still at risk. As with destructive floods, more people generally die during the months after a cyclone as a consequence of spoiled water sources and the loss of work opportunities on the land. This time bomb set in motion a significant relief program, but only a few months had passed since the cyclone when relief operations were interrupted by the war for independence in East Pakistan. Public health quickly deteriorated, a famine was imminent and cholera spread. With open warfare, relief efforts were forced to reduce operations to a minimum. In the years following Bangladesh’s independence, the newly formed government struggled with the immense problems of reconstruction and the thousands of refugees.
This period also marked the beginning of what has been referred to as a ‘tube-well revolution’. UNICEF contributed to rehabilitation efforts by sinking and repairing tube-wells in collaboration with the national lead agency for the provision of drinking water, the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE). UNICEF gradually became the main contributor to a tube-well program that had moderately started about twenty years earlier with the assistance from various international development agencies. Today, the technology is used by 97 per cent of the population, which is a remarkable feat in itself. The shift to tube-wells was credited with halving infant mortality since the 1960s by reducing exposure to communicable diseases from micro-biologically contaminated surface water. Underground water reserves presented a promising substitute because pathogens won’t survive in the absence of oxygen.
However, while everyone acknowledges the monumental shift that took place, there is some disagreement about its impact relative to other factors, such as improved sanitation, hygiene interventions and education. As shown in the short video, the invention of Oral Rehydration Therapy in the 1960s has also played a major role. With water and health being interrelated, next to the establishment of arsenic-free drinking water supplies, we aim to provide medical health care facilities through the establishment of a clinic in Munshiganj. It will provide health care services, especially for women and children in the project area.
