A/HRC/15/55* about how much money is allocated to water and sanitation, and of reporting information on how that money is spent, creates additional obstacles to accountability. 53. As mentioned above, the rights to water and to sanitation do not fall within the current mandate of the National Human Rights Commission; and only rarely has the judiciary been seized of alleged violations of these rights. In order to operationalize human rights, including the rights to water and to sanitation, they must be claimable and enforceable. Accountability mechanisms are crucial for ensuring that people are able to exercise their rights. B. Sanitation 54. Bangladesh has made important progress in extending access to sanitation; 18.2 per cent of the population have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990. Open defecation rates have also decreased from 33 per cent of the population in 1990 to 7 per cent in 2008. Notably, the Community Led Total Sanitation approach (see also paragraph 73 below), developed in Bangladesh by the Village Education Resource Centre and WaterAid, and officially adopted by the Government, has been credited with raising awareness about the importance of sanitation and helping to eliminate open defecation. The approach emphasizes the importance of behaviour change in improving access to sanitation, and is based on a participatory model, whereby the community examines its sanitation status and is motivated to take action to address it. The approach advocates the empowerment of the community to find and finance its own sanitation solutions; as a result, low-cost sanitation technologies have been developed. The non-governmental organizations implementing these projects indicate that once people have experienced reliable access to a household toilet or latrine, they remain committed to continue to take steps towards improving that access. 55. The experience of Bangladesh with the above-mentioned pioneering approach has positively influenced countries in other regions of the world and has instilled confidence in the belief that low-cost sanitation is possible. It has also had a powerful effect in breaking the taboo that often surrounds the issue of sanitation. The independent expert observed that most people with whom she met, including the Prime Minister, were pleased, and even proud, to discuss sanitation and the achievements of Bangladesh in this domain. 56. The Government has allocated special funds to achieve its sanitation objectives. The annual development programme, which comprises funds from both external (aid) and internal sources, is formulated in accordance with a five-year strategy concerning the Government’s development priorities, and includes an allocation for local governments (or upazilas). The Government has earmarked 20 per cent of the programme grant to upazilas for sanitation, which amounted to 400 million taka (or 5.7 million dollars) in 2005, for 470 upazilas.23 A total of 75 per cent of the money is for providing hardware for latrines to the very poorest, and 25 per cent is allocated to hygiene education. The programme has had good results; four fifths of latrine recipients indicate that the programme subsidy improved their environment in terms of odour and cleanliness. However, challenges have also been noted in ensuring that the hardware truly reaches the people who need it most, and in the lack of awareness of the programme among the population. With the Government’s ambitious and laudable target of reaching 100 per cent total sanitation by 2013, concerns have also been reported about a lack of monitoring of continued latrine usage, maintenance of latrines and overreporting of sanitation coverage. There are also concerns about overemphasis on hardware provision and less attention to the necessary behaviour change 23 14 Huq et al., op. cit., p. 12. GE.10-15451