Rural WASH in collaboration with UNICEF Madagascar
Partnering with UNICEF Madagascar to eliminate open defecation, improve hygiene practices, and ensure access to clean water through an adapted community-led total sanitation (CLTS) approach.
In the Anosy region, only 3.0% of people have access to basic sanitation, 13.0% practice basic hygiene, and just 26.0% have access to drinking water that meets basic safety standards (UNICEF, 2018). The absence of proper facilities, combined with a lack of knowledge of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues or solutions, leads to more than half of the population of Anosy practicing open defecation. This dramatically elevates the risks of faecal-oral contamination and threatens the safety of water supplies, leading to a high prevalence of disease and unnecessary mortality.
In support of the Malagasy government’s nation-wide Madagasikara Madio 2023 targets of
- 90% of the population being open-defecation free
- 90% of the population routinely washing hands with soap
- 50% of the population having access to and using basic latrines
SEED is supporting more than 190,000 people in over 1,200 rural villages across 21 Anosy communes to improve their WASH knowledge, practices, and services. The project will use an adapted CLTS approach to empower communities to address these WASH challenges and improve their healthcare outcomes.
The central premise of the CLTS approach is to bring about lasting behaviour change through community mobilisation. This begins with ‘triggering’ sessions, where imagery and information are shared to motivate communities and institutions to take ownership of and action to meet their own needs. To address gaps in supply chain, SEED is building the capacity of local actors to produce improved latrine parts and materials for menstrual hygiene and handwashing. Educational outreach, including hygiene promotion sessions and radio campaigns, generates demand for these products, ensuring that communities have the skills and resources to sustainably meet their WASH needs.
Employing a holistic approach, the project works to build WASH capacity in 70 primary schools and 13 health centres, which will enable them to reach government WASH standards and help students to access safe WASH facilities. Strengthening local governing bodies and water management committees is also a priority, in order to create an enabling environment for improved WASH practices.
Phase II (July - December 2021)
SEED’s Rural WASH project has now entered its second phase, building on the progress made during the initial phase, which ran from February 2020 to June 2021. The main objective remains the same: strengthening community-level access to sustainable WASH services. However, in this new phase SEED will turn to focus on the training of local masons and seamstresses to produce sanitary products. SEED and UNICEF will then look to establish a market around hygiene and sanitation in the Anosy region.
A survey led by SEED in November 2020 revealed a concrete demand in target communities for hygiene and sanitation products available at local prices. From July to December 2021, SEED aims to build the capacity of local entrepreneurs in supplying community demand for two main products: latrines and reusable menstrual hygiene pads. To achieve this, SEED are training and providing materials to both masons and seamstresses to help them to set up their businesses. While the demand for these products exists, nudging the communities to invest in the entrepreneurs' products remains important. This is achieved by the introduction of innovative financing mechanisms such as village savings and loan associations in which members collaborate to lend each other their savings when needed.
Our Progress
Working together with communities, we have:
- Created action plans to reach water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) goals best suited for them.
- Built 22,679 safe latrines
- Delivered 47,093 handwashing training sessions
- Decreased open defecation by 40% across 12 districts
- Trained teachers and healthcare workers to implement improved WASH facilities in schools and health centres
- Trained 17 masons in building latrines
- Trained 17 seamstresses to make reusable menstrual hygiene pads
Impacts map
Zoom and drag the map to explore. You can also click a cluster to zoom in and explore the communities in that area, and click map markers for further details on individual villages.
DLM: handwashing station, ODF: Open Defecation Free.
