Lessons from nearly 30 years of Hygiene Promotion

Year of publication: 2011

The objectives of this note are (1) to give an overview and an analysis of what IRC has done on the promotion of hygiene in the past and (2) identify gaps and opportunities for its further development in the context of IRC’s sector role as innovator and change agent.

Experiences

IRC was one of the first actors in the WASH sector to call attention to the development of Hygiene Promotion (HP). IRC has been particularly successful in documentation and sharing of HP experiences, approaches and lessons, building HP partnerships in North and South and training. The organisation has also become one of the prime knowledge centres on HP in school programmes.

IRC has been less successful in those conceptual developments that assist HP practitioners to focus on the essential ‘what’ and ‘how’ of HP. It also did not establish the participatory approach to HP.

Under training and capacity building, IRC has not analysed and addressed the development of HP policies, strategies and capacity development through national education and training centres. This means that frequently when HP staff are involved in a project or programme for or with HP, they need to be trained on recent content and skills for HP, because the HP educational system itself has not improved.

Finally, the many community-oriented HP activities of IRC have never led to a long-term programme for HP through the intermediate-level organisations that support communities and which are IRC’s target groups. Nor has IRC activity sought to assess and develop the roles of the local rural and low-cost urban private sector in HP.

Future action

IRC will use a part of its core funds to explore directions and the formulation of a joint programme in the most needed and promising subject area. It will involve:

1. making an inventory of the key stakeholders in the public and private sector and their HP-related work, interests and demands;
2. establishing a learning dialogue with the most important stakeholders to bring together new partners, innovative views and exciting new horizons and goals for one or more development areas of HP;
3. jointly developing projects/programme.

- Download:

Hygiene Promotion in IRC 1984-2011.pdf (90.4 kB)