Improving access to sanitation and hygiene through CLTS

With the implementation of decentralisation in Burkina Faso, municipalities are now responsible for managing the water component, Hygiene and Sanitation. However, they lack the skills to manage this transfer nevertheless essential to improve people's access to sanitation, hence the need for capacity building.

The Strategic Plan 2011- 2015 BF SNV is part of this dynamic and aims to strengthen the technical and organizational capacities of Commons to allow them to meet their responsibilities for the provision of water services, sanitation and sanitation to their citizens. A major focus of this strategic plan is the component promoting hygiene and sanitation.

Several strategies are possible to improve access to sanitation, including Total Sanitation Led by Communities. Moreover, in 2014, Burkina Faso adopted an official approach to sanitation programmes post 2015. It is an integrated innovative approach of encouraging the community to analyse its own situation and hygiene sanitation.

The Eastern region is characterised by:

• Defecation rates in the open air of 92.7%

• Moderate acute malnutrition rate of 12.6% and moderate chronic malnutrition rate of 44.8%

• School average rate of access to sanitation (67.5% against a national average of 70.2%) for the year 2012-2013

• Prevalence of diarrhoea of 3.1%

At the provincial level the defecation rate in air passes 91.5%

It should be noted that even when adequate sanitation facilities are in place, the problem of maintenance remains a challenge. Indeed, we find that the causes of low utilization or abandonment of the latrines are as follows:

• poor maintenance that forces users to prefer the surroundings or to return to nature;

• low maintenance (cracked walls, sloping doors) leading to the abandonment of facilities;

• pressure of external users (neighbourhood) on latrines: co-use by local residents;

At the specific level of girls, the results of a study conducted in 2013 by UNICEF in Burkina Faso and Niger show that 'School WASH facilities are currently inadequate for girls to securely manage their periods.'

These shortcomings are sources of diseases and dropouts (especially for girls). School performance declines for students in general due to repetitive illnesses.

Attempts to support teachers to sustainably organize the maintenance of facilities were often met with the argument of lack of resources to cope with acquisition costs of consumables needed.

Riparian families of schools do not have latrines in concessions and thus practice defecation in the open air or overexploit latrines in schools.

This initiative SNV will improve the hygiene and sanitation of households and a revitalisation of the proper use of drinking water and sanitation facilities by households and students to disease prevention .