Nicaragua : rural water supply, sanitation, and environmental health program

Final report of the two year Environmental Health Project (EHP) Nicaragua : Rural Water Supply, Sanitation, and Environmental Health Program (EHP/Nica) documents the programme's history from design and start-up through the final review and evaluation of specific components and closeout activities. It draws upon a wide range of inputs: program documentation, monitoring outputs, final reports of private voluntary organizations (PVO's), and the results of a wrap-up workshop that discussed key lessons and conclusions. Chapter 1 provides a background to the programme. Chapter 2 describes programme components and activities and presents a global picture of the quantifiable outputs. Chapter 3 presents an in-depth description and analysis of the programme's main components and discusses their impact upon the beneficiary population. Chapter 4 discusses key aspects pf programme management and technical assistance. Chapter 5 summarizes some of the most significant conclusions and lessons learned with the objective of informing the design and management of future such programmes. Lessons learned vary from technical issues to the design and delivery of project software and overall programme management. Results have been encouraging with progress made in key software areas as well as in meeting physical output targets. Community management structures have been established or strengthened, hygiene promotion has brought about improvement in critical behaviours, and retention of hygiene-related messages is high. By increasing the institutional capacity of partner PVO's, the programme has had a strategic impact upon the sub sector in Nicaragua. The programme demonstrated that it is possible both to implement a large-scale rural WSS programme and to achieve relatively high-quality results within a narrow time frame. A key lesson is that a WSS programme of this magnitude and complexity benefited enormously from having a continuous and proactive programme management and technical expertise of an organization such as EHP/Nica. One of the programme's most significant aspects was its strategic impact upon redefining the emphasis of WSS project interventions, consistently reinforcing the conceptual shift from a water and sanitation intervention, which includes a health component, to a health intervention with water and sanitation infrastructure components. The impact of this change in approach was clearly recognized and welcomed by key players.