Sanitation and Hygiene: Some Case Studies, Principles and Issues

This powerpoint presentation was delivered by Mr. Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez of the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of The World Bank during one of three Learning Centre courses held at the 13th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13) in April 2005. The presentation aimed to provide perspectives on the various factors - hardware, software, resources and finance, and an enabling environment - that make sanitation happen and to share lessons learned from case studies.

The presentation shows different approaches to sanitation promotion, including increased health and hygiene awareness, social marketing, and community and individual incentives and sanctions. It also mentions that there are different implementation models, such as non-governmental organisations and externally funded projects, city or country-wide government programmes and public-private partnerships. Information about a number of case studies is provided from countries such as Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam.

Lessons learned from these case studies are presented:

• Get political support and consensus on vision and approach, including subsidy policy
• Understand the drivers for demand
• Improve the enabling environment (financial resources allocation, policies, institutional arrangements, monitoring and evaluation, regulation)
• Mainstream hygiene promotion in all programmes to install a culture of hygienic lifestyle (hardware is not enough !!!)
• Build on the potential of the local market to develop strategy and programme
• Support the private sector and the local sanitation industry to supply what people want, are willing to pay and will use and maintain
• Allocate public resources strategically to maximise public and private benefits
• Provide a range of technologies that can be improved over time
• Decentralise planning, implementation, and monitoring to adapt strategies and programmes to contextual factors
• Prioritise sanitation and hygiene in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and other financial instruments to scale-up programmes and interventions
• Address poverty through better demand assessment and segmentation
• Conduct monitoring and evaluation to learn and improve services and infrastructures delivery