Enabling environment

Published on: 14/10/2012

Regarding the ‘enabling environment’ of the policies, laws, regulations and institutional and financial support, sanitation still faces a double challenge:

• the low priority for sanitation in comparison to water supply and economic development programmes
• reluctance of authorities to drop short-term construction programmes and toilet subsidies and shift to programmes which make it possible for everyone to meet life-cycle sanitation needs through local resources.

For guidance on advocacy of sanitation, there are several documents, e.g. from IRC and AED, WaterAid, the WSP, the Working Group on Promotion of sanitation of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and a WASH advocacy study from the USA. More recently, improvement of the sanitation cycle is advocated through evidence of economic and financial benefits, and economic return studies in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Background information and materials referred to in the article:

• guidance documents on advocacy of sanitation from IRC and AED, WaterAid, the WSP, the Working Group on Promotion of Sanitation
• a WASH advocacy study from the USA
• economic return studies in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam