3.3.9 Adequate Sanitation - Tanzania

In Tanzania, WaterAid has been supporting its partners (LGAs, LNGOs) to improve living standards of rural and peri-urban communities through WATSAN projects since the 1980s. Sanitation services have been noted to have low priority at different administrative levels especially at district councils and villages. Government and village data show that sanitation coverage is very high in most areas of Tanzania. However, the quality of sanitation facilities (latrines) in most households is not adequate enough to provide protection against diseases spreading. WaterAid Tanzania has been working in 11 with districts Rural LGAs.

The success of the project has been attributed to stakeholder partnerships namely local NGOs as partners of WaterAid Tanzania, Water User Groups and hygiene promoters at village level. In terms of resources financial support came from WaterAid, other NGOs provided stationery, transport and allowances.

Some of the main achievements of the project are that it designed adequate sanitation checklists which were pre-tested and used for baseline data of sanitation in rural areas and that sanitation coverage improved from between 25% - 45% to 80% - 98% (as reported from LGAs data).

The main lessons were that before the project there was no proper co-ordination of sanitation services in LGAs, extension services to support rural sanitation were weak and that communities have a great level of sanitation improvement BUT are lacking appropriate technological options of low-cost sanitation.

Challenges which were identified include the need to integrate adequate/ basic sanitation data in the local Government Management Information System, the need to establish a sanitation database at district level, the introduction of sustainable latrine technologies in rural areas, and how to provide sanitation facilities for those communities that have no permanent settlements (e.g Maasai, Sukuma – all livestock keepers).