For Development of a District–Wide WASH Sector Development and Investment Plan for Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh.

Title

Development of a District – Wide WASH Sector Development and Investment Plan for Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh.

Purpose

To develop an evidence-based, costed, and phased district-wide WASH development and investment plan.

Location

Coxs Bazar District

Estimated Duration

Six Months after signing the contract.

Reporting to the Technical Supervisor of this assignment

WASH Specialist, WASH Section, UNICEF Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

1. Background and Rationale

Cox’s Bazar District occupies a unique and strategically important position in Bangladesh’s development and humanitarian landscape. The district has an estimated population of about 2.8 million and simultaneously hosts approximately 1.2 million Rohingya Refugees, mostly concentrated in highly congested settlements. This dual population reality places sustained pressure on public services, natural resources, local infrastructure and host communities.

The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector is central to this pressure. WASH services in Cox’s Bazar must respond to two overlapping realities: first, the long-term development needs of Bangladeshi communities across urban, peri-urban, rural, small-town, slum, and informal settlement contexts; and second, the sustained humanitarian service needs associated with the Rohingya response. This requires a planning approach that goes beyond project-by-project interventions and moves toward a district-wide, evidence-based and investment-oriented WASH development framework.

Previous WASH mapping and planning efforts in Cox’s Bazar provide an important foundation for updated district-level planning. However, the current context requires a more comprehensive and forward-looking plan that integrates household WASH access, institutional WASH, water resource security, sanitation and fecal sludge management, solid waste management, climate vulnerability, infrastructure investment needs, and financing gaps.

A District-Wide WASH Sector Development/Investment Plan is therefore proposed as a critical instrument for aligning humanitarian and development investments, strengthening government-led planning, improving service equity and supporting sustainable resource allocation across Cox’s Bazar District. The plan will serve as a practical tool for Government authorities, sector partners, donors, development banks, humanitarian actors and private sector stakeholders.

2. Purpose of the Consultancy

The purpose of this assignment is to engage a qualified team of experts to facilitate the development of a comprehensive District-Wide WASH Sector Development and Investment Plan for Cox’s Bazar District. This plan will provide an evidence-based framework for identifying current WASH service gaps, infrastructure needs, water resource risks, institutional service deficits, financing gaps, and investment priorities. It will support coordinated planning across the district and contribute directly to the Humanitarian-Development Nexus Strategy for the WASH sector in Cox’s Bazar District. This consultancy will work in close collaboration with key stakeholders, including the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), Dhaka University, ITN-BUET, Cox’s Bazar District Administration, Cox’s Bazar Municipality, Upazila-level authorities, the Development & Humanitarian actors and other relevant partners, who will provide both technical and administrative support and oversight.

A key component of the consultancy is supporting the formation and effective functioning of a Steering Committee led by the District Administration, including serving as its secretariat to ensure smooth coordination, documentation, and follow-up on decisions. The consultancy will undertake a systematic review of existing data, conduct gap analyses, and consolidate findings generated by various entities and studies. This includes integrating sectoral data, identifying overlaps and inconsistencies, and ensuring alignment across different assessments. The consultancy will conduct a desk review on the impact of climate change on WASH services across the district and map opportunities for inclusive, adaptive, and resilient WASH service delivery. The process will also involve analyzing existing and projected investment needs, identifying financing gaps, and prioritizing interventions based on evidence and stakeholder inputs. Ultimately, the consultancy team will lead the development of a comprehensive, actionable District-Wide WASH Development Plan through participatory consultations and engagement, ensuring all stakeholders are on board and aligning the plan with national policies and development frameworks.

3. Overall Objective

To develop a district-wide, evidence-based WASH sector development and investment plan for Cox’s Bazar District that guides short-, medium- and long-term investments for equitable, climate-resilient and sustainable WASH services for both host communities and refugee-affected areas.

4. Specific Objectives

Generate reliable and disaggregated evidence on WASH service access, infrastructure, water resources, institutional WASH, climate vulnerability and financing across Cox’s Bazar District.

Assess WASH service gaps at household, institutional, community, settlement and system levels.

Map existing and planned WASH infrastructure, including large-scale water supply, sanitation, fecal sludge management, solid waste management and related service systems.

Analyze water resource availability, demand, vulnerability and exploitation practices across the district.

Identify climate-related hazards and shocks affecting WASH services, including floods, cyclones, salinity, drought, landslides, contamination risks and water scarcity.

Estimate investment needs and financing gaps for achieving improved and sustainable WASH services across the district.

Develop a prioritized and phased WASH investment plan aligned with government systems, sector standards, humanitarian-development priorities and donor financing opportunities.

5. Strategic Importance

The proposed plan is strategically important for the following reasons:

Cox’s Bazar is unique in terms of its development dynamics. It combines high poverty, climate vulnerability, fragile water resources, rapid urbanization, institutional service gaps, and large-scale humanitarian demand.

WASH services must be planned at a scale that reflects both host community development needs and refugee-response pressures.

Investment decisions require stronger evidence. The just-completed Bangladesh MICS 7, census data and national WASH surveys provide an opportunity to apply small area estimation and generate more granular WASH evidence for local-level planning.

Cox’s Bazar development planning requires stronger integration of water supply, sanitation, fecal sludge management, solid waste, hygiene, climate resilience and water resource management data to inform decisions.

Donor funding for humanitarian response is becoming more constrained, making it increasingly important to identify sustainable, government-aligned and development-oriented investment pathways.

6. Geographic Scope

The assignment will cover the entire Cox’s Bazar District. The analysis should be disaggregated, where feasible, to the union level. Where union-level estimates are not financially attainable, findings should be presented at the upazila/sub-district level.

The analysis should also distinguish between the following settlement types:

Urban areas

Small towns

Slums/informal settlements

Rural areas

Where relevant, the plan should also reflect the interface between host communities and refugee settlements, especially in areas where shared resources, water systems, waste management, etc., affect both populations.

7. Thematic Scope

Water supply

Water quality

Sanitation services (including on and off-site fecal sludge management)

Solid waste management

Hygiene practices, including menstrual hygiene management (MHM)

WASH in