Pathways to improving sustainability of WASH services: influencing government planning and decisions, Indonesia

The Indonesian Government estimates that it will cost US$21.6 million to achieve the country’s 2019 Universal Sanitation Access goal. However, an assessment, by Plan in ten districts found that district governments were allocating under 1% of their annual budget to WASH. A key pathway to achieving the Universal Sanitation goal and to improving WASH service sustainability is through enabling local governments to independently and sustainably resource and support WASH improvements. This is critical for improving services sustainably for the poor, who are most affected by government resource decisions. Within a project context, Plan and local government partners developed and applied a series of successful strategies to influence government decision making processes. The combination of these strategies had not been undertaken previously in Indonesia. In only three years, these strategies have resulted in the project’s five district governments securing funding for sanitation and hygiene implementation for 363,000 people in 242 villages.