HAUPA Hygiene and Sanitation Strategy and Implementation Plan

1October2009

Executive Summary

Context

Goal

Objectives

Numbers of Direct Beneficiaries

Principles in the Development and Implementation of the Strategy

Key Components

Phased Approach to Community Mobilization

Approach to subsidies/incentives

Phased Approach to School Mobilization

Key Messages

Empowering women & addressing the needs/interests of the most vulnerable

Water quality

Government Linkages

Media

Partners Roles and Coordination Processes

Monitoring and Evaluation

Immediate Follow-Up Plans

Workplans to June ‘10

Annex 1: WASH Ladder

Annex 2: Participants

Annex 3: References

Executive Summary

This Hygiene and Sanitation Strategy reflects the need for major change in the HAUPA program. Instead of being a minor element, sanitation and hygiene become critical elements of the project.

A phased introduction is suggested, which will start to kick in January 2010 with a six-month training, pilot and review phase, to be followed by a scaling up in the second part of the year. Implementation in the final year will be based on experiences during 2010, with the understanding that this last year of the project will be focused on hygiene and sanitation promotion as well as re-enforcement of WASH committees.

During 2010, as well as promotion in schools, the project aims to reach 43,000 community hygiene and sanitation beneficiaries – the same number as water beneficiaries. This compares to 6,026 sanitation reached in the first five years of the project.

The core of the new strategy can be summarized in terms of a move away from amodel household slab and model school VIP focused approach, to one based on four key points:

  1. Adoption of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) as the main mobilization strategy to achieve significant transformation and impact
  2. Defined minimum standards of a household latrine as one which has a lid, a superstructure and hand-washing facilities with soap or ash. Attention to hand-washing and promotion of the tippy-tap in particular
  3. Working with whole communities, prioritizing attention to WASH at household level and in all schools of those communities, but also ensuring that the CLTS method addresses WASH concerns for all other institutions within the community
  4. Maintaining strong links with health, education and water ministries as well as other NGOs working in the WASH sector in the two provinces, with a view to maximizing harmonization

The strategy also clarifies issues such as approaches to subsidies/incentives; key messages; ways of promoting women’s empowerment and ensuring alertness to the needs of the most vulnerable; priorities regarding water quality issues and engagement with the media. Finally the strategy looks at key monitoring indicators, lays out the roles and responsibilities of different partners, highlights follow-up points and summarizes work-plans going forward.

Context

This hygiene and sanitation strategy follows the Program Redesign for HAUPA agreed in October 2008. It was developed in two phases, an initial workshop in December 2008, followed by a second in September 2009 and has been thought-through by a HAUPA team,with technical support from CARE International[1].

Although developed for the HAUPA project it is the team’s recommendations that many of the principles and approaches highlighted here should be adopted by CARE Mozambique as a whole - in all its WASH initiatives.

The goal, the objectives and the numbers or target beneficiaries for the HAUPA program are providing by previous strategy and redesign documents. These are:

Goal

The goal of the HAUPA program is to contribute to poverty reduction among at least 311,000 rural inhabitants of five districts in Cabo Delgado and NampulaProvinces

Objectives

The objectives of the program are:

  • To increase sustainable access to water and sanitation in three districts of Cabo Delgado and two districts in Nampula Provinces
  • To strengthen local and provincial government and service providers from the private (for-profit and not-for-profit) sector in three districts of Cabo Delgado and two districts in Nampula, in order for them to fulfill their roles and responsibilities as stated in the MIPAR and LOLE
  • To ensure that communities are able to manage in a sustainable way, their water and sanitation infrastructure while ensuring equitable participation and benefits to disadvantaged groups considering income, gender, and HIV/AIDS
  • To test and document ad least two innovative and potentially replicable approaches or technologies that will contribute to improving national policies for rural water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion.

Numbers of Direct Beneficiaries

The redesign process is aiming for a major transformation in terms of hygiene and sanitation outreach. The initial approach of the program was to focus on water with a very small scale sanitation demonstration element. Numbers achieved were 113,000 water, to 6,026 sanitation beneficiaries,over the first five years. This is now being radically changed to at a target of marginally more sanitation than water beneficiaries – 74,000 water, to 74,950 sanitation beneficiaries, from 2009 to 2011.

The change in numbers represented in these figures requires a radical transformationof the sanitation and hygiene approach of the program. The program staff have thought through how best to achieve this transformation, and it is this re-think which is presented in this strategy.

Principles in the Development and Implementation of the Strategy

In the development of this Strategy,the following principles were adopted by the HAUPA team:

  1. To produce a strategy and implementation process that will achieve at least the level of sanitation and hygiene transformation outlined in the program re-design
  2. To have defined common approaches yet also encouragea flexibility and adaptation to local realities (e.g. differences between the two provinces)
  1. To ground the strategy and implementation process ingovernment initiatives, and look at opportunities for influence on all stakeholders in the region,i.e. to build harmonization and coordination between the key players
  1. To ensure that the approach taken empowers women, and has the needs and interests of the most vulnerable in mind.

Key Components

The core of the new hygiene and sanitation strategy can be summarized in terms of four key points:

  1. Adoption of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) as the main mobilization strategy in order to achieve significant transformation and impact
  2. Agreed and defined minimum standards of a household latrine as ones which:
  3. have a lid(which provides a barrier to flies);
  4. have a superstructure (to ensure sustainability, reducing erosion and provide privacy;
  5. have hand-washing facilities (e.g. tippy-taps) with soap or ash
  6. Working with whole communities, prioritizing attention to WASH at household level and in all schools of those communities, but also ensuring that the CLTS method addresses WASH concerns for all other institutions within the community
  7. Maintaining strong links with health, education and water ministries as well as other NGOs working in the WASH sector in the two provinces, with a view to maximizing harmonization

Phased Approach to Community Mobilization

Three phases of community mobilization are now planned.

Phase 1: Continue with current mobilization strategy to complete obligations project has already entered into, until end December 2009.

Phase 2: for 6 months from 1st Jan 2010 to 30 June 2010,pilot CLTS with the aim of achieving ODF, Open Defecation Free, status in12 communities[2] (6 each in each province) which have been provided with water in 2009 (see below re criteria). Review findings and revise methodology as appropriate.

Phase 3: Overlapping with phase 2 by 2 months, in May, start roll out to all 75 new communities where water support is planned to be installed in 2010. In this revised strategy, the government would identify which communities they want to prioritize for water provision, then CLTS ignition would be performed in those communities, with a view to achieving ODF. Once ODF is achieved (estimated at within 2 months or so), work towards borehole provision would start. The water would therefore follow sanitation mobilization. The community participation of $100 could either be collected or counted as part of the labor involved in 100% latrine coverage.

The last half of the year, which is when water points come on stream, will also be the time that HAUPA will focus on WASHCO formation and strengthening.

During phase 2 and 3 together, i.e. for 2010, the program will to reach 43,000 community hygiene and sanitation beneficiaries– the same number as water beneficiaries.

A review and development of the strategy for 2011 should be considered in January 2011. This will be the last year of the project and given that no water points are planned to be constructed in this last year, the focus will be on returning to old communities with the CLTS approach and working on strengthening the WASH committees in these communities.

Training in the CLTS methodology is planned at the beginning of Phase two, for 60-70 people in each of the two districts (4 members of each community including leaders; teachers in schools within the community; government officials (SDPI (water), SDS (Health), ‘Postos Administrativos’), HAUPA field staff)

Criteria for Selection of the communities in pilot phase

  1. Communities who received water in 2009
  2. Communities where households were not provided slabs by HAUPA
  3. Where there is a significant population size
  4. Proximity to the district capital or ‘Administrative Post’
  5. Where Cholera is being talked about
  6. Communities which have a school
  7. Where the community has so far shown some dynamism/receptivity
  8. Where the leadership is supportive

Approach to subsidies/incentives

HAUPA is moving to an approach which aims for total sanitation and hygiene behavior change within the communities targeted, minimizing the use of subsidies and economic incentives. Disgust, shame and the strength of a collective enthusiasm are the main drivers of change within the CLTS methodology. However, some prizes and economic considerations for efforts taken are also usually adopted. in the HAUPA case, there have been agreed as follows:

Community level

  1. Each member of communities that develop an action-plan post ‘ignition’ meeting to be provided with a tippy tap.

  1. The community as a whole to beawarded an ODF status poster which is ceremonially handed over and erected following a verification process
  2. TV coverage of the first ODF communities in each province
  3. Possibilities of the project contributing toward clothes-washing basins or livestock watering troughs as prizes for a few of the most impressive ODF communities following the verification process.

Community leader level

  1. On declaration of ODF community, leader presented with certificate and prize (e.g. bicycle)

WASHCO and community facilitators/animators

  1. Badge to be provided when they start work
  2. Tee-shirt and cap for committees who are evaluated through a 6 monthly review as being particularly effective
  3. Other economic recompense for effort undertaken to be considered

District leadership

  1. Certificate

Phased Approach to School Mobilization

School communities are a particular target of the HAUPA program. A phased approach is planned similar to the community mobilization process. However, in Nampula the CLTS methodology will start in Phase one, i.e. prior to December 2009 in 3 schools. This period will also see work on the legalization of artisan groups able to construct school latrines with hand-washing facilities.

In Phase 2 starting in January 2010,the CLTS methodologywith a strong emphasis on hand-washing will be used in the schools in the 12 communities being focused on for community CLTS piloting. In Phase 3, all 75 communities in which water is being provided will also be targeted for school CLTS and hand-washing promotion work.

From 1 January 2010 the aim is for all schools - even and especially those that are traditionally constructed and that are in fact the majority of schools- in the communities selected for CLTS promotion to have latrines with hand-washing facilities, based on low-cost and appropriate designs, instead of focusing on a few schools with VIP latrines. Communities’ will therefore be encouraged to look at all the schools in their locale,(traditionally constructed village schools to more modern structures) and to work out an appropriate comprehensive hygiene and sanitation intervention strategy for their area. The new strategy also means that the schools in which the promotion and construction will be taking place are those in which there is a wider community WASH initiative supported by HAUPA, rather than the situation in the past, in which the school and community work were sometimes in different areas and therefore follow up was more difficult.

Key Messages

A community discussion-led process with pictoral, drama and other engaging tools will be used in the CLTS approach to sanitation promotion and in the wider WASH activities such as training of artisans, WASHCOs, water-point care-takers etc).

The program has adopted an overall message/slogan at the centre of its strategy which is: ‘Health and Safety’

The key messages are:

  1. Proper use of a latrine by all – including proper disposal of infant’s faeces and cleanliness of latrines
  2. Wash hands at critical times (after defecation, before food preparation, before eating, before breastfeeding and after cleaning a baby’s bottom)
  3. Protect water quality from source to point of use(ensuring latrines not too close to water point, cleanliness of water point, fencing for protection particularly against animals and safe drainage, cleanliness of storage vessel, pouring not dipping to avoid contaminating stored water)

Additional messages

  • Wash face, teeth and body at least once a day and ensuring menstrual hygiene for girls and women
  • Ensure food cleanliness, e.g. washing, covering, etc and keep utensils clean (e.g. use of rack)
  • Maintain cleanliness of compound Including safe disposal of solid waste, e.g. waste disposal pit

In the CLTS mobilization and subsequent WASH re-enforcement activities, attention will be given to ensuring that words and imagesused portray people from a range of background and specific needs. For example,targeting children of different ages/gender; adaptation to the needs of the disabled/elderly women and men, the extra importance of hygiene for people living with HIV/AIDS and other critical illnesses, etc.

Empowering women addressing the needs/interests of the most vulnerable

One of the principles in the development of the hygiene and sanitation strategy was to ensure that the work would empower women and address the needs and interest of the most vulnerable. The following points will therefore be considered critical to addressing this concern:

  1. In all structures and training, e.g. animators, WASHCOs, etc, the project will aim for at least 50% representation of women and the gender composition of these events and structures will be monitored
  2. The constraints of women that hamper their effective engagement will be looked at by facilitators/event organizers. The building of women’s confidence and discussion of matters that hinder their effective participation is as important as the first point which can be tokenistic and symbolic otherwise. For example, ensuring that WASCHO’s as a whole address the fact that some women committee members might need male support in the construction of their latrines and that unless this is addressed they cannot be effective models to the community as committee members or animators.
  3. Mobilization and sensitization work will aim toidentify opportunities to challenge traditional sexual divisions of labor rather then re-enforcing them.
  4. The project will ensure that the support provided and the designs developed are inclusive of - and both sensitive and appropriate to - the needs and interests of vulnerable and disabled people.

Water quality

HAUPA’s aim is to provide safe water. The strategies to ensure safety will focus on:

  • Providing water quality testing kits and training to government (undertaken 2008 and 2009)
  • Monitoring that the government undertakes the water quality analysis of the new water point undertaken by the project prior to sign off of completion of the water point
  • Providing support to the Ministry of Health at district level to undertake water quality checks where communities raise concerns
  • Raising awareness about loss of water quality from source to point of use

Government Linkages

The HAUPA program design has built in strong relationships to DNA, public Works and District Administrations. However, the links with the health and education ministries has been weaker. This strategy suggests that at national and provincial levels CARE explores closer working relationships with these ministries and that SNV,OLIPA-ODES and AMASI link up with them ideally in a systematic way at provincial and district levels.

In terms of the government decentralization process HAUPA is supporting the process in terms of building capacity and providing funds for district tendering and overseeing of water provision and similarly by providing funds for district tendering and overseeing of school latrine construction.

Currently, provincial level Water thematic groups are providing a venue for coordination between government and NGOs at provincial level. The aim is to replicate this at district level and to encourage exchange visits between districts.

Media

So far, HAUPA has not been involved in media work. However, there is a community radio in Montepuez and Erati broadcasting in Portuguese and local languages. The Strategy suggested here is that the media are contacted to publicize and share the success of the first Open Defecation Free communities in each province as well as the winners of a competition which will be looking at the most effective WASHCOs in each province. Follow up media work should be explored in the future.

Partners Roles and Coordination Processes

The following provides a summary of partners’ roles, particularly vis a vis hygiene and sanitation, together with agreements about coordination processes amongst partner NGOs:

Communities

  • Engagement with HAUPA where there is interest from the community in WASH support
  • Mobilization of community in all aspects (e.g. committee formation, hygiene and sanitation behavioral transformation, capital and O&M contributions, overseeing maintenance and sustainability of WASH transformation)

District Government