Bangladesh OBA Microfinance Sanitation Project - Evaluation Report

In 2009, a pilot project was initiated with support from the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program (WSP). This pilot aimed to leverage private sector resources and help poor households in rural areas access affordable, high-quality sanitation facilities from local businesses. In 2016, this project was scaled up with finance from the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches (GPRBA), through the Bangladesh OBA Sanitation Microfinance Project.

This report provides an overview of the use of microfinance in implementing a type of results-based financing to extend sanitation services. Microfinance (the provision of financial services to low-income people) has a long and successful history of reducing poverty in Bangladesh. However, it has only recently emerged as a viable avenue to facilitate increased access to finance for water and sanitation products and for the development of small-scale providers of water and sanitation products and services.

Cover photo: Mirva Tuulia Moilanen / World Bank