Putting people at the centre of development : a case study of village hygiene promoters in promoting hygiene in Marayo community in Jigawa state, Nigeria : paper prepared for the West Africa Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Symposium, 10-12 Nov 2009, Accra

Diarrhoea, a disease associated with inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene, and unsafe water accounts for 13.5% of child mortality and is the third most prevalent cause of death among children under the age of five in Nigeria. To reduce disease transmission not only requires providing toilets and other hardware. Village Hygiene Promoters play an important role in ensuring that households comply with communally agreed standards in addition to sharing and disseminating information to the community at large. VHPs are a group of community based people whose members are selected by the community. They are trained and equipped with knowledge and tips on how to work with the community to promote safer hygiene practices that can reduce and eliminate the risky behaviours practiced by the community. A review of the assigned roles and scope of operations of the VHPs was carried out in Marayo community in Jigawa state. Various participatory and qualitative assessment tools were used to document the findings. The study comes across with win-loss outcomes in terms of household compliance and ownership, reliability and sustainability. The community has reached 100% latrine coverage, locally adaptable communication strategy for information sharing was identified by the VHP and they have also be able to develop a monitoring approach to track status of latrines whether new or old. (authors abstract)