WASAs officials of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna WASA visited Khulna WASA and participated in an exchange meeting to exchange experience on the importance of integrity management to ensure sustainable water and sanitation for urban residents.

The experience sharing meeting was held on 27 November 2022 at Khulna WASA conference room as a joint initiative of Khulna WASA, WIN and NGO Forum. Engr Taksim A Khan, Managing Director of Dhaka WASA, Engr A K M Fazlullah, Managing Director of Chittagong WASA, Mr. Md. Zakir Hossain, Managing Director of Rajshahi WASA, Mr. Md. Abdullah, P eng, Managing Director of Khulna WASA, Mr. S M A Rashid, Executive Director of NGO Forum, senior officials of all WASAs, Project Focal and Coordinator of BAWIN and BAWIN representative participated in the meeting.

The Managing Director of Khulna KWASA presided over the program and Mr. S. M. A Rashid, Executive Director of NGO Forum delivered the welcome speech. He said, NGO Forum for Public Health and Water Integrity Network (WIN) has established a successful collaboration with the aim to strengthening integrity measures and processes within the Water Supply and Sewerage Authorities (WASAs) in Bangladesh over the last five years. He said Bangladesh's water sector has started getting results of integrity management. He called for the use of the Integrity Management Toolbox to accelerate integrity management practices in all WASH utilities in Bangladesh.

Project Focal NGO Forum and Coordinator BAWIN moderated the event and presented the keynote on Integrity Management practice and progress in Bangladesh. He said, In Bangladesh three WASAs have already been engaged for Integrity Management. Each WASA is already practicing some good learning in integrity management that need to be disseminated by sharing with everyone.

Mr. Abdullah recounted the experience of KWASA and said KWASA has developed an integrity roadmap by implementing IMT which has helped KWASA address its challenges. He also said that IMT serves as an effective tool for establishing integrity management in a project for efficiently and timely implementation. Practicing integrity management in different tiers of the organization will ensure transparency and increase financial progress and reputation of the organization. He urge all water utilities to use the tool in project management.

Engineer A K M Fazlulllah, MD, CWASA recounted his experience and said that CWASA has received many innovative ideas through integrity management practices that they have used, particularly the implementation of the CWASA Customer Complaint Management System and implementation of the District Metering Area (DMA). Now,their customer satisfaction level is increasing day by day. In this they have found ways to control non-revenue water and are working accordingly.

Engineer Taksim said Dhaka WASA has given importance to automation to maintain integrity. He said water integrity management can be ensured only through full automation of WASA activities. He mentioned that by introducing DMA, Dhaka WASA has been able to reduce the amount of non-revenue water.

Sharing the experience Mr. Zakir Hossain, Managing Director said RWASA has already prepared an Integrity Roadmap using Integrity Management Tool and various initiatives have been taken to implement it. They have initiated work to ensure transparency in providing water connections and to legalize or disconnect illegal connections.

All WASAs benefited greatly from the experience exchange event. In particular, RWASA will be able to proceed with roadmap implementation tasks more efficiently and DWASA became aware of integrity management and IMT as the successes of IMT were presented through KWASA, CWASA and RWASA. DWASA strives to link integrity management to its operations.