Promoting handwashing and sanitation: An impact evaluation of two large-scale campaigns in rural Tanzania.
Scaling Up Rural Sanitation and Hygiene.
To prevent diarrheal diseases and their consequences, the Government of Tanzania implemented two concurrent strategies to promote access to proper sanitation and handwashing with soap, with the support of the Scaling Up Rural Sanitation Program and Global Scaling Up Handwashing Project of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program (WSP)
This 8-page research brief discusses the challenges of poor sanitation and hygiene in rural Tanzania, provides an overview of two large-scale campaigns that sought to address these problems, and shares key results of an evaluation to assess the impact of these two campaigns. The campaigns - the Handwashing with Soap programme and the Rural Sanitation programme - were designed to promote access to proper sanitation and encourage handwashing with soap by influencing people’s behaviour, changing marketplace dynamics, and strengthening the role of local government in service delivery. The two projects were led by the Government of Tanzania, with the support of the Scaling Up Rural Sanitation Program and Global Scaling Up Handwashing Project of the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program.
The brief explains how the Handwashing with Soap (HWWS) programme engaged community members to work as "front-line activators" to educate caregivers with young children about proper handwashing. This community level action was complemented by radio commercials, a radio soap opera, printed materials such as posters, and roadshows. The second campaign, the Rural Sanitation programme, sought to create demand among households for upgrading latrines and stopping open defecation.