Government of Nepal

Ministry of Finance

AID MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR NEPAL

Input: 

SNV Nepal mobilised adequate Human Resources, financial resources through mobilising local capacity building partners (LCB). The direct project staff were WASH sector Leader-1, Project Leader-1, and District WASH Advisor – 5, and thematic advisors - 3. Accordingly the local capacity builders were mobilised in all seven districts to implement the project activates.

SNV WASH Advisors capacitated the LCB and district WASH stakeholders through: working together for annual plan preparation, strategy plan preparation, organising training on sanitation demand creation, BCC, Sanitation supply chain development engaging private sector, strengthening WASH governance through formation and orientation of WASH Coordination Committees. The district WASH Advisors took led in facilitating the WASH CCs for consideration of issue of PLWDs, women and poor.

The LCB were engaged at community level for triggering the communities, creating awareness on importance of toilet construction, hygienic use and hand washing with soap and water at critical times.

Sanitation:

Outputs have focused on locally adapted CLTS triggering tools; mobilising newly elected local body representatives, local leaders, police force, volunteers, women’s groups, and the health and education sector networks; follow up of households and communities to build toilets; linking to supply chain actors for materials and construction of toilet; and building capacity of masons, ring producers, and households on suitable toilet options.  

The project is also putting in significant efforts in orienting the new cadre of local body representatives on sanitation and enlisting their support for the sanitation movement.  Here many of the representatives had campaigned for distributing “free” toilets as part of their election manifesto; therefore, after being elected the project and other sector partners are having to familiarise the elected representatives with the policy and practice of no-subsidy.

Hygiene:

Outputs in hygiene are largely evidence-based BCC campaigns which follow closely behind the sanitation demand creation activities and are continued after a VDC becomes ODF.  The BCC messages are based on the district BCC strategy which was developed using the findings from formative research conducted in the terai.  Importantly BCC campaigns target different audiences and hence progress can be seen in both female and male headed households.

The planning outcomes of the project are as follows.

1. Strengthening capacity for steering and implementation of sanitation demand creation
2. Strengthening capacity for sanitation supply chains and finance
3. Strengthening capacity for behavioral change communication (BCC) for hygiene promotion
4. Strengthening capacity of WASH governance

Knowledge and Learning: Government partners and project staff together with project teams of other 6 countries have attended annual learning events in Uganda and Zambia.

Sanitation

The results of impact indicator on access to a sanitary toilet show a significant increase not only in access to sanitation but rather construction of environmentally safe toilets across all districts in the programme area, all wealth quintiles except the poorest wealth quintile, and for both male and female headed households. Furthermore, almost all toilets are flush toilets with safe disposal to a pit.

The poorest wealth quintile consists of only 1.7% of the households of the project area.  As per the programme approach, pro-poor mechanisms are initiated when access to sanitation in a community has reached 80 – 90% and hence the ultra-poor and vulnerable households will be targeted in the coming months.  The project made progress in access to sanitation in spite of the numerous set-backs impacting field work in 2017- the local elections in the early part of the year, the floods during the monsoon season, and finally the provincial and national elections towards the end of the year.

Hygiene

Findings for impact indicator on the hygienic use and maintenance of sanitation facilities show that most of the households that have constructed a toilet are using the toilet and this applies for households for all wealth quintiles and to both male and female headed households.  Only 2.1% of households with toilets were found not to be using the toilet. 

The results also show that the majority of toilets that are being used are also functional, clean and provide privacy (QIS 4).  This is due to the project’s focus on implementing evidence-based BCC using the BCC strategy developed in the districts (based on formative research conducted for the terai on the two behaviours of HWWS and hygienic use of toilets).   Mahottari district had the highest percentage of toilets that were functional but not clean (5.4%).  The project will continue with BCC as a part of ODF and in post-ODF activities.  

Also Siraha district had 6.1% of households were toilet were functional and clean but did not provide privacy.  This is because of the strong focus in Siraha on achieving ODF and upgrading of superstructures to provide privacy will be continued after achieving ODF.

The survey results for impact indicator on access to hand washing with soap show that knowledge on all six critical moments of hand washing has increased since baseline and this has been accompanied by the establishment of facilities near the toilet and food preparation area.   Furthermore, increase in access to hand washing stations near the toilet is following closely behind that of increase in access to sanitation (46.6% with access to toilets, 38.9% with access to hand washing near those toilets).  This is also reflected across the districts with Mahottari, Siraha, and Saptari having made the most gains in both toilet access and HWWS and distribution across wealth quintiles following the same trends for toilet and hand washing access.  Importantly, soap was commonly found at the hand washing stations. 

The results also show that progress on hand washing with soap after defecation and food preparation have been similar for both male and female headed households.