Supplementing government initiatives for universal access to sanitation through a district-wide approach

This paper describes the model of Districti Wide Approach that WaterAid is following in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as a model for universal coverage of sanitation. The Government of India has a political commitment to meet the universal access to sanitation target by 2019. However, the past experience of nearly three decades very clearly show that there are several hurdles and gaps that needs to be overcome to ensure that this happens. We believe that universal access can happen and it can happen if efforts are put in to strengthen the existing government mechanisms and through networking with multi-stakeholders on the agenda of sanitation. In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we have attempted district wide approach using six broad components – IEC/BCC, Capacity building, Rights based approach, Influencing policies, strengthening governance systems and demonstration especially to address vulnerabilities.