General Background
This consultancy is based in the Water Supply and Sanitation
Collaborative Council (WSSCC), hosted by UNOPS. Founded in 1990, WSSCC is a
membership organization, based on individual membership. WSSCC’s mission is to ensure sustainable
sanitation, better hygiene and safe drinking water for all people, especially
the poorest and most marginalized members of society in developing countries.
In order to achieve its mission, WSSCC manages the Global Sanitation Fund,
facilitates sector coordination at national, regional and global levels,
supports professional development, and advocates on behalf of the 2.5 billion
people without a clean, safe toilet to use. More information on WSSCC can be
found at: www.wsscc.org.
Background and Scope of Assignment
The Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) works to achieve a situation where
all people use appropriate sanitation and hygiene services in an affordable,
accessible, safe, and sustainable manner. GSF currently supports
country-programmes in 12 countries, with additional programmes under
development. Sustainability and universality are key-concepts for GSF and are
part of the Fund’s commitment to supporting governments achieve their
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.
The Global Sanitation Fund’s Theory of Change
is centred on an ambitious vision of using targeted investments in large-scale
collective behaviour change and strengthening of enabling environments, to
catalyse and drive achievement of adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene
for all, first at the subnational level, then towards national scale. The
challenge of achieving SDG 6.2 will require more attention to safely managed
sanitation services. The indicator for SDG target 6.2 defines this as “an
improved sanitation facility which is not shared with other households and
where excreta is safely disposed in situ or treated off‐site” (in addition to a handwashing facility
with soap and water). This means that human waste is safely managed across the
entire sanitation services chain, including, where appropriate: containment,
emptying, transport, disposal/treatment, and possible re-use.
WSSCC is keen to learn more about the range
of possibly effective approaches in increasing access to safely managed
sanitation. While there are common assumptions that collective behaviour change
approaches, such as Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS), are only effective
for demand creation and are limited to facilitating the construction of basic,
sub-standard latrines, emerging experience from several GSF-supported
programmes indicates that these approaches in themselves can be a powerful entry-point
for moving households and communities up the ‘sanitation ladder’ to improved
sanitation facilities. This is underscored by national definitions of ‘Open
Defecation Free’ (ODF) status, which commonly incorporate the universal usage
of improved sanitation facilities, or at minimum a basic service as per the
revised JMP definition, amongst other criteria.
There is emerging evidence in some GSF-supported programmes that moving
up the sanitation ladder may not progress linearly, and that collective behaviour
change approaches without formal Sanitation Marketing may be sufficient for
communities to skip the first rungs of the ladder and enter at the basic
services level.
In terms of approaches, several GSF Executing
Agencies (EA) and Implementing Partners (IPs) have reported success in moving
households and communities up the sanitation ladder through an emphasis on
emerging local technologies and artisans and innovative facilitation
techniques. Though more traditional Sanitation Marketing approaches have been
applied at some scale in some GSF-supported programmes, they have yet to show
large-scale results – especially in reaching the poorest and potentially
disadvantaged households.
In addition, there is a need to understand
and measure ‘safely managed sanitation (services)’ within context; while
high-density urbanized settings may require more advanced technologies,
services, and markets along the faecal sludge management chain, on-site
containment using local, low-cost technologies may be a more affordable option
for safely managing waste and promote sustained usage in rural environments.