Guidance on Programming for Rural Sanitation

The guidance note aims to use and build on existing guidance and sector materials wherever possible. The intention of the guidance is to bring together current knowledge and recent thinking on how best to achieve the sanitation SDG in a user-friendly format. This guidance note was developed based on: a) desk reviews of the literature on rural sanitation and hygiene approaches and existing guidance materials, b) mapping of experience, innovations, and lessons learned from large-scale rural sanitation and hygiene programs, and c) consultation with key sector informants through interviews, workshops and ongoing consultations with the strategic and user reference groups. The guidance note builds on existing sector guidance wherever possible.

The audience for this guidance includes governments, donors, implementing agencies, NGOs, and private sector actors who are familiar with the main rural sanitation and hygiene approaches and who are involved in the development of more effective, sustainable, and equitable large-scale rural sanitation and hygiene programs. The partners (Plan International, UNICEF & WaterAid) envisage that the guidance note will be used by their staff while supporting government partners to develop programs, and hope that the content will form the basis of a training course on rural sanitation programming that can be rolled out to other partners over time.