Country background
- Ethiopia has one of the lowest coverage for improved sanitation and water supply facilities worldwide.
Policies and strategies
- The National Water Resources Management Policy (1999) and the National Water Sector Strategy (2001) steer the development and management of Ethiopia’s water resources, as well as provide guidance for investments in rural, town and urban water supply and sanitation.
- A National Water Sector Development Programme (2002) defines concrete interventions in terms of projects and programmes to achieve the water policy objectives.
- Water supply and sanitation is given high priority in the second phase of the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Programme (SDPRP): The PASDEP (Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty) water supply and sanitation targets covering the period 2005-2010 go well beyond the MDG targets. They are based on the concept of achieving universal access by the year 2012.
- The National Hygiene and Sanitation Strategy (NH&SS, 2005) has been developed to enable 100% adoption of improved sanitation and hygiene practice particularly in rural areas. A National Hygiene and "On-Site" Sanitation Protocol (2006) has been designed to follow the NH&SS with its focus on universal access primarily in rural and peri-urban environments. Both documents stress a zero-subsidies policy.
- In 2007, an Urban Sanitation Strategy has also been drafted, but urban issues being much more complex than rural, the strategy still is in need of thorough review and consultation.
- Ethiopia has launched a Universal Access Plan (UAP) in 2006 to achieve safe water supply and sanitation for all people by 2012. UAP for water supply has been revised as of 2008 because the achievements were lagging behind the national target, especially in rural areas. The revised UAP for the years 2009-2012 is now focusing on low cost technologies at household and community levels.
- The Health Extension Programme (2007) is a defined package of basic and essential promotive, preventive and selected high impact curative health services targeting households. The health extension has 16 components, seven of which cover hygiene and environmental sanitation.
Institutions
- The Ministry of Water Resources is responsible for formulation of policies and regulations, provision of technical support and raising funds. Regional water bureaus do the same at the regional level, but with additional mandate to provide technical assistance to the districts and towns.
- The Ministry of Health is in charge of policies related to sanitation and hygiene promotion.
- The Ministry of Education focuses on WASH in schools.
- Services have been fully decentralized to local governments and local Woreda Water Desks (WWD) to plan, implement and maintain their water supply and sanitation schemes.
- Coordination: In 2006, the sector ministries (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Water Resources) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate their cooperation in joint planning, implementation and monitoring of water supply, sanitation and hygiene education (WASH). To evaluate progress in the sector, a Joint Technical Review (JTR) for WASH takes place every six months among concerned government, donor, NGO and private sector representatives. In addition to the JTR, an annual Multi Stakeholders Forum (MSF) has been established where new studies, approaches and findings are presented for discussion.
