Rolling out Zimbabwean approach to demand-led sanitation in most vulnerable communities

Rural WASH Project (2012-2016) is being implemented in 33 of 60 rural districts in five provinces of Zimbabwe aiming at improving WASH services. One of the major components under this project is the implementation of demand led sanitation and hygiene promotion which focuses on elimination of open defaecation through promotion of household sanitation technologies confirming to national standards. The approach is a hybrid of traditional CLTS, and PHHE and Zimbabwe technology specific sanitation approach. The results from the implementation for the last 23 months suggest a major breakthrough including construction of 57,542 household latrine and 525 ODF communities. It also demonstrated a strong potential of achieving sanitation SDG before 2030 if replicated nationwide with maintaining the current level of efforts. This paper describes the evolution of sanitation approaches in Zimbabwe and share unique experiences from the implementation of the demand led sanitation.