The Government of Bangladesh, World Health Organization (WHO) and health and development partners are advancing coordinated action to address gaps in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in health care facilities, drawing on evidence from the 2025 WHO–UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) assessment, which tracks progress at national, regional and global levels.
The latest JMP 2025 findings for Bangladesh show that significant gaps in WASH in health care facilities persist, especially in rural areas. 71% of facilities have basic drinking water; however, this does not guarantee the water is safe. Only 25% of facilities have basic sanitation and 32% have basic hygiene services. Waste management and environmental cleaning remain major gaps: just 16% and 20% of facilities have basic waste management and environmental cleaning services, respectively.
These gaps have direct health impacts. Inadequate WASH in health care facilities weakens infection prevention and control. It increases the risk of health care-associated infections and compromises patient safety. In communities, poor hygiene drives the spread of infectious diseases, including neglected tropical diseases. Rural populations face the greatest risk.
To translate these findings into action, the Government of Bangladesh, with support from WHO, UNICEF and partners, is advancing a coordinated national response. A national consultation led by the Local Government Division brought together senior government officials and key partners and identified three priorities:
- improving data quality and use, including alignment between national and global standards and more regular data collection;
- scaling what works by identifying high-performing institutions and expanding effective approaches; and
- strengthening coordination across Health and WASH sectors and enhancing accountability, including through improved water quality monitoring and use of district-level data to inform local planning and action.
Based on these recommendations, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives are set to provide overall policy leadership, with the Department of Public Health Engineering leading implementation and monitoring.
The recommendations also envisage the Directorate General of Health Services integrating WASH indicators into quality improvement, and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics generating national data through periodic surveys. Bangladesh will continue to contribute to the WHO–UNICEF JMP and track progress towards key WASH-related Sustainable Development Goals, particularly targets 6.1 and 6.2.
WHO, together with UNICEF and partners, will support alignment with JMP methodologies, strengthen national capacity for data analysis and use, advance implementation of the Water and Sanitation for Health Facility Improvement Tool (WASH FIT) and facilitate multisectoral coordination.
The challenge now is to turn these priorities into measurable improvements in health care facilities across Bangladesh – particularly where the gaps are greatest.