Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for ALL

Connected with

Programme Framework April 2011

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SNV Vietnam

Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All Framework

Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All aims at district-wide sanitation coverage and access to hygiene promotion. For this effective linkages with governance issues, as well as gender and social inclusion are made. National-level multi-stakeholder processes and learning are also integrated in the approach. The Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All Programme is currently implemented in 17 Districts across five Countries and is a partnership between SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and partners in Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. It is supported by AusAID and the Dutch government. The overall objective is enhanced access to improved sanitation and improved hygiene practices of 122,000 rural people in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Bhutan. SNV is an capacity building and knowledge sharing organisation and activities are implemented in collaboration with local government and line agencies. At the regional level the focus is on learning, documenting and sharing of best practices of the program within existing national and regional platforms, contributing to evidence-base for rural sanitation and hygiene in 5 countries. This has included developing a shared Performance Monitoring Framework with shared indicators which enables demonstrating impact at scale. In this approach, SNV has integrated insights in community-led sanitation promotion, private sector development for sanitation, hygiene behavioural change communication and WASH governance. It is based on a combination of validated methodologies for Sanitation and Hygiene promotion at village level, and experience and expertise in institutionalising such methodologies at different levels of government and society. By building the capacity of local organisations in these areas, and implementing joint programmes, these organisations have managed to ensure: Sustained use of hygienic toilets that actually block transmission routes of disease Movement of households up the sanitation ladder, and Increased local investment in sanitation. To effectively promote improved sanitation and enable behaviour change, whole communities need to be engaged. Creating awareness and demand for sanitation among rural households, for example through community-led total sanitation (CLTS), is a first step. It requires follow-up in the form of information about sanitation options and sanitary standards of toilets. Furthermore, initial demand needs to be linked to low-cost supply of services and hardware to help households move up the sanitation ladder. Local agencies should gradually include additional hygiene behaviour messages, making use of innovative behaviour change communication tools. All these efforts have to be embedded in local planning and learning, engaging different local stakeholders and encouraging them to invest in sanitation and hygiene. Key Components are the strengthening of professional and institutional capacity in: Sanitation demand creation Strengthening sanitation supply chain development Developing behavioral change communication for hygiene and sanitation marketing Improving WASH governance and multi-stakeholder sector development Analysing, dissemination, and learning

Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All Programme Model

Responsive institutional set-up (good WASH governance)

Enabling Environment

Sanitation Demand

Access to supply and finance

Creation

Specific institutional and cultural context

Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for ALL

Access to hygiene promotion and information

Sustainability for SNVs SS&H4A programme relates to: 1. The capacity of families to sustain and keep improving their hygiene behaviour (related to sanitation) 2. The capacity of different actors (local governments, private sector, local NGOs, grassroots organisations) in the enabling environment to sustain sanitation service levels and support (in demand creation, supply chain and BCC most importantly).

SSH4A Programme Components 1. Creating sanitation demand using CLTS

Demand creation is an essential and defining component of promoting sanitation behaviour change. Whilst new to Vietnam when introduced by SNV in 2008, CLTS as a tool for demand creation has been highly successful in other parts of Asia and Africa, even at scale. Having adjusted the methodologies for rural ethnic minority communities in Vietnam the component consist of developing the capacity at the Province level through training a pool of facilitators using a series of ToTs, coaching and monitoring by advisors and master trainers in the use of CLTS, as well as engagement of key decision makers. Gender and ethnic balance among facilitators must be ensured. In the North West Provinces, the programmes facilitators were nominated from the Provincial, District and Commune CPMs, pCERWASS and the Womens Union. The DoH then coordinates the facilitators to undertake triggering and post triggering activites at the village level as part of intensive campaigns to create sanitation demand. The leadership and follow-up at the village level is key to the approaches success and to support this, additional training is provided to motivators (village leaders, health workers and womens union across each village) and an incentive performance based scheme developed by the lead agency. Subsidies for sanitation are not part of the CLTS approach. Where subsidies are in place as part of NTP or other government programs approach needs to be timed to ensure the process supports sanitation demand and avoids delaying community action. SNV has demonstrated the feasibility of this in 2010 in communes as part of Lao Cai city. Key activities: Training of Trainers (ToT) training in triggering and post triggering for CLTS Facilitators; Motivator training for representatives at village level; CLTS triggering and post triggering activities at the village level; documentation and dissemination, follow-up and monitoring.

2.

Strengthening sanitation supply chains

Development and strengthening of the sanitation supply chain facilitates the access of households to pro-poor sanitation services and their movement up the sanitation ladder. Without it, practical barriers are often simply too high and the momentum gained through generating sanitation demand is lost. Emphasis in this component is on sanitation value chain development with an initial analysis of the value chain to provide an assessment of capacities and potential of the key private sector actors in promotion as well as their needs for support and capacity building to strengthen the value chain recommendations about how to best support the private sector to promote their sanitation business. This component works on local enterprise development with SMEs, sanitation marketing and informed choice, training masons teams linked to SNVs Biogas masons networks and working with government partners to address the barriers to private sector participation. Strategies are used to include women and poorer households in enterprise development and masons training, which creates employment and income. Key activities: Sanitation value chain analysis; tailored capacity building and training for SMEs and masons, linking the private sector, developing informed choice manual and sanitation marketing, piloting innovative financing models and working with government partners to address private sector engagement.

3.

Developing innovative behaviour change communication

Sustainable hygiene behavior change involves more aspects than only giving up the practice of open defecation. To consolidate hygiene behavior change, initial motivation triggered in the demand creation process, needs to gradually incorporate other key hygiene message such as safe hand washing and disposal of childrens faeces. Such messages need to be carefully designed with the IEC department for different target groups based on the findings of formative research, taking into account motivators for behavior change (beyond health alone) as well as communication channels as part of a localized behavior change communication strategy inline with the national communication strategy. This component aims to influence both personal and domestic hygiene practices through behavioral change communication delivered by existing community health structures, schools or other structures with the appropriate outreach such as the womens union. For this purpose, a behavioral change strategy will be developed with the IEC for those actors based on formative research and further improved through joint monitoring and feedback.

Key activities: Review of current IEC strategy and existing materials; formative research of hygiene behaviors; developing localized BCC strategy, technical support for training in communication and IEC for outreach, testing innovative outreach approaches.

4.

Improving WASH governance related sanitation

At district level, demand creation will be further reinforced by district level planning processes aiming to put sanitation higher on the agenda and creating a broader base of support among the district level actors. Facilitation of local multi stakeholder sector development around WASH governance related to sanitation is incorporated to move towards raising the profile of sanitation, improving planning and coordination as well as supporting a more enabling environment for sanitation business development. Through a good understanding of the practical barriers for sanitation business development, district and province level advocacy and multi-stakeholder processes, some practical changes can be implemented to create/allow for a more favourable business environment. This is a longer term process, which is integrated in this proposal, but also needs continuation. SNV also contributes to meeting the need for greater attention to the sanitation needs of the most marginalised groups in society and together with local government partners we are testing different pro-poor support mechanisms to help ensure these needs are met. Key Activities: Communicating the findings of the sanitation value chain analysis; multi stakeholder forums, district level planning.

5.

Learning and dissemination

Learning and exchange with national level platforms is incorporated into the program. In Vietnam, SNV is actively involved in national level platforms and learning, as well as policy development, and the main elements and results are fed into those platforms through presentations, dissemination and field visits of key national officials. This also aims to engage actors who influence the wider enabling environment for sanitation. For example, in September 2010 a participatory review of SNVs approach was facilitated with two provincial multistakeholder teams including the government partners. In a final national consolidated sharing and analysis workshop including NTP, participants reviewed both the factors of success reported during consultations and also identified strengths and assets of their institutions that would contribute to scaling up the programs. These key learnings would be brought to this scale up phase. Key Activities: Learning and dissemination is essential for scaling-up and SNV contributes to this in several ways: Involving national and sub-national WASH professionals across the Asia region in thematic mail discussions and exchange workshops Promoting learning between countries through comparative multi-country studies Connecting local partners to regional and international knowledge organisations Contributing to national-level learning platforms and working groups on sanitation and hygiene Documenting and sharing our work.

Programme Indicators Progress in the number of households with access to a sanitary toilet Progress in the number of schools with access to sanitary toilets Progress in the number of toilets used in a hygienic way in households Progress in the number of toilets used in a hygienic way at schools Progress in the number of households with adequate facilities for hand washing with soap (or substitute) Progress in the number of schools with adequate facilities for hand washing with soap (or substitute) Increase in sales of sanitation hardware and/or paid services by SMEs in the last 6 months Progress on female involvement in sanitation related enterprises Progress on SMEs engaging in sanitation related business and marketing activities Progress in innovation of localised hygiene BCC strategies at province/ district/ commune level Progress in multi-stakeholder sector development for sanitation Progress in strengthening the enabling environment for the small private sector in sanitation Progress in the development of pro-poor support mechanisms for sanitation Progress in the Degree of influence of women in commune/ district/ province level dialogue Progress in the Degree of influence of people from socially excluded groups in commune/ district/ province level dialogue Progress in the Degree of influence of people from ultra-poor households in commune/ district/ province level dialogue Sharing of lessons learned in national RWSS platforms or thematic groups Progress in the capacity of implementing organisations (local NGOs and other local implementing organisations) to facilitate quality CLTS processes at community level Progress in the capacity of local line agencies to steer and monitor performance in rural sanitation and hygiene

Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All: Vietnam

Programme Goal:
Improved health and quality of life of 11,000 households in 3 districts in north western Vietnam through access to sustainable sanitation and hygiene.

Partners:
SNV Vietnam, Provincial Departments of Health in Dien Bien, Lao Cai and Lai Chau and the Dien Bien Provincial Womens Union. The SSH4A programme engages 149 villages in three northwest provinces, including a district-wide approach in one province. These provinces have some of the highest populations of ethnic minority groups and households registered as living in poverty in Vietnam. Open defecation is commonly practiced and access to improved sanitation is as low as 21%. The SNV program is conducted within the framework of the governments National Target Program and included introducing CLTS in 2008 aiming to demonstrate an innovative approach to accelerating increased sanitation access that was an alternative to the current subsidy approach. A participatory review in 2010 highlight that the approach is generating strong change, both in reducing or eliminating open defecation and changing the way the health departments approach behaviour change communication. CLTS has now been adapted to create demand for sanitation as part of the broader SS&H4A program.

About SNV SNV is a development organisation, established in the Netherlands in 1965 as part of the Dutch government. In 2002 SNV became an independent non-governmental organisation with capacity development as its core business. Today SNV works in 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Balkans with offices at both national and subnational level. SNV is dedicated to a society in which all people enjoy the freedom to pursue their own sustainable development. We contribute to this by strengthening the capacity of local organisations around three lead sectors: agriculture, renewable energy and WASH. We believe that the best work is done in multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams, among our 900 advisors there are 62 nationalities, of which 60% are nationals from the countries where we work. Furthermore we collaborate with a network of local organisations.

Contact Information SNV Netherlands Development Organisation Vietnam Office Address: 6th floor, Building B, La Thanh hotel 218 Doi Can street, Ba Dinh, Ha Noi, Vietnam Tel. 84 - 4 -8463 791, Fax. 84 - 4 -8463 794 Email. vietnam@snvworld.org Contact person: Bruck Aregai, baregai@snvworld.org SNV is dedicated to a society where all people enjoy the freedom to pursue their own sustainable development. We contribute to this by strengthening the capacity of local organisations.