National WASH Coalition
The WASH coalition in Madagascar, called Diorano-WASH, includes members from the Ministries of Water, Health and Education, international partners, Malagasy NGOs, and the private sector. It has established 17 regional coalitions throughout the country.
Focus
Diorano-WASH provides a national, multi-stakeholder platform for discussing the needs and challenges of the water, sanitation and hygiene sector in Madagascar. The main aim is to improve hygiene behaviour which helps to spread diseases linked to unsafe water. It does this through focusing on the three key hygiene messages and raising awareness of the importance of hygiene and sanitation linked to disease and poverty. The three key messages are:
- Wash your hands with soap
- Use hygienic latrines
- Transport and store water safely.
Milestones and achievements
The coalition has been successfully implementing its activities for the last 10 years. Recent highlights include:
- Ensuring the active participation and strategy of the coalition: the Diorano-WASH Charter aims to determine activities at all levels and has been signed by each member of Diorano-WASH and by the line ministries. The new strategy of Diorano-WASH (2008-2015) covers six strategic areas: coordination, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, partnership, advocacy for and mobilization of funds, and behaviour change. The strategy is included in the Government’s Madagascar Action Plan.
- Coordination with Government for policy development: the National Diorano-WASH Committee has cooperated closely with the Ministry of Water in the process of elaborating the National Sanitation Policy and Strategy document as well as that on the National Programme of Access to Potable Water and Sanitation, and in the Water and Sanitation Sector Annual Review.
- Outreach to local level: the coalition has also achieved its objective of setting up sub-national WASH committees in almost all regions and communes, and of forming “Schools friends of WASH" and "Health care centres friends of WASH" groups in all parts of Madagascar.
- Scouts and Diorano-WASH: in a partnership involving Diorano-WASH, WaterAid and the Scouting Federation of Madagascar, this project is mobilizing the Scouts in learning and spreading the three key messages (above). The aim of this project is to ensure a sustainable behaviour change by promoting the youth-to-community approach in hygiene education campaigns. The project started in April 2009 and is continuing in 2010 in one urban and one rural community.
- Roving camera: the coalition undertook this project in seven of the WASH sub-regions during 2008. A clearly visible camera van entered the target villages, and started filming WASH problems evident in each village and interviewing three village representatives. The films were screened later in “government-citizen” workshops in which the grassroots had the opportunity to be the main actor, confronting local officials by proposing solutions to issues related in the film.
