Programme Principles

Target the unserved and poor people

WSSCC only exists to serve these people. Therefore it concentrates its energies on the countries in which the largest number of unserved people live, and on unserved communities in other countries. All aspects of its work focus on unserved, marginalized and poor people and communities, especially in rural and peri-urban areas.

Be people-centred and demand-driven

WSSCC's members and partners put people at the centre of their thinking and hence adopt the principles of community management in the way they work with communities. These principles cannot be imposed from the outside – but local civil society organizations in particular have considerable experience with them. In sanitation provision, a people-centred and demand-driven approach is essential because each household makes its own decision about latrine types, location, use, etc. A community centred approach is demanded by the externalities of sanitation, namely that one household’s lack of a latrine will adversely affect the health of its neighbours.

Concentrate on sanitation and hygiene, while being aware of their relation to broader water supply and water resources management issues

WSSCC's specialization in sanitation is fairly unusual among sector organizations. It is not intended to imply that water is unimportant, but that sanitation is more neglected. WSSCC's networking, advocacy and grants programmes focus on sanitation and hygiene at global and national level. The overall objective of all WSSCC's work is to support households to achieve basic domestic sanitation facilities and improved hygiene and to encourage the use of sanitary facilities including those that are currently not being used (because of technical difficulties and/or lack of understanding of their importance for reducing the spread of disease). WSSCC understands that in some places hygiene behaviour change is hampered by a lack of water and so it will support work in water in those circumstances, either itself or in partnership with other organizations.

While the emphasis is on household sanitation and hygiene, WSSCC does encourage school sanitation programmes where the need is clear and no other organizations are providing such assistance. It also supports public toilets as these may offer a viable way to improve secure access to sanitation facilities pending the further development of household facilities.

One person’s waste disposal may result in another person’s pollution. Historically, sanitation professionals have not been sufficiently aware of these problems: WSSCC expects its members to place their domestic sanitation work within the broader framework of safeguarding the quality and quantity of water resources. It works in partnership with other organizations that have more expertise in water resources management.

Create demand by raising people's awareness not by offering subsidies

This is a vital feature of WSSCC's philosophy, derived from the experiences of its own members over many years. It recognizes that sanitation is much more than the construction of sanitary facilities. It entails fundamental and sustained change in people's behaviour. Supply-driven centrally planned programmes have a bad track record in trying to achieve this change, compared to demand-responsive programmes that raise the priority that people themselves give to sanitation.

Hence, in its approach to awareness raising, WSSCC is well aware that while health professionals believe sanitation is important for health reasons, most householders are more motivated by other factors such as privacy, convenience and status.

Promote simple, affordable and appropriate solutions

It is particularly important to promote sanitation systems that are affordable and use local materials. WSSCC does not impose elaborate or costly standard latrine types, but promotes basic latrines which ensure privacy and safe excreta disposal needed to cut faecal-oral disease transmission. WSSCC's members and subgrantees assist people in making their own choices for designs, based on a number of appropriate options and taking experience with these options into account. All latrine types being promoted must reach a basic quality standard, be sustainable, and take into account environmental considerations with regard to waste management, while aiming for cost optimization where possible.

WSSCC also promotes the construction of simple low cost and low technology hand-washing and water storage facilities. In those cases where safe water is not easily accessible, WSSCC encourages people to look for opportunities to improve their access to water through affordable, appropriate technologies and household treatment, as well as wastewater reuse, and to link these efforts to other programmes for possible funding. Good sanitation options without water have improved over the years and can have an additional positive impact on the lives of women in particular through reducing the demand on their time fetching water.

Be sensitive to gender issues and aim for gender equality

Sanitation has very strong gender links. For example, women have particular needs for privacy and dignity relating to use of latrines. Girls and boys need separate toilet facilities at schools. Effective local-level sanitation work is often led by women, and involvement of both women and men in programme management and implementation is necessary. For many years WSSCC has been involved in networking and advocacy on gender issues in water and sanitation, and this will continue.

Encourage the development of innovative financing strategies

WSSCC does not favour external subsidies but encourages people to finance their own sanitation services. Of course there are problems with this approach, notably for the poorest people and those living in difficult locations, such a floodplains, and places with loose soil. So WSSCC helps people to think creatively and design their own financing mechanisms such as loans, internal cross-subsidies within communities, and income generation, for example through user fees.

Take into account operation, maintenance and sustainability of the services

The main sustainability issue in on-site domestic sanitation is emptying latrine pits, or where this is not an option, ensuring that new ones will be built. WSSCC, through its networking and knowledge management work has considerable experience on how to solve this problem, through the latrine designs (e.g. pit depth, accessibility), people’s attitude to re-use of contents (e.g. for agriculture) and through the community management systems (e.g. sanitation committees). It puts this experience into practice in its Global Sanitation Fund. Since the understanding of this subject is still evolving, WSSCC will continue to keep a close link between the Global Sanitation Fund and its members’ knowledge network.

All sanitation facilities need to be cleaned, emptied, upgraded or reconstructed at some time, so WSSCC maintains a continued focus on sustainable behaviour change and sanitation marketing in order to prevent people from falling back into old habits and to offer them sufficient opportunities to continue their usage of a safe sanitation system.

WSSCC's work builds on the full range of knowledge of WSSCC's members and encourages its partners and subgrantees to try out new technologies and approaches that may make systems more sustainable. These may include waste water treatment and reuse through aquaculture, ecological sanitation, rainwater harvesting in the schools with sanitation, and community pay-and-use toilets, or other community-managed communal systems, particularly in densely populated areas such as slums.

Be part of well-coordinated strategies owned by the people and their governments

WSSCC never works uninvited. As a membership organization, it takes a lead from its members in any particular country. They decide when they are ready to form a National WASH Coalition for advocacy work, and that coalition advises WSSCC when the conditions are right in-country for the Global Sanitation Fund to support work there. Since the Fund aims to scale up existing good ideas rather than to support yet more pilot projects, the existence of a national sanitation policy or strategy is essential. Then WSSCC's money augments the government's own funding (which may be inadequate for the work to be done in that country) rather than creating a parallel system. All WSSCC's country activities are planned with the knowledge, and active involvement, of government representatives. In each country, WSSCC holds appropriate discussions with the national government before its work starts, to ensure that government support is secured for the programme. This in turn helps to legitimize the status of the National WASH Coalition as the platform where different actors can meet, share experiences, avoid duplication of efforts, coordinate, review policies and approaches and jointly boost the sanitation efforts in the country under the guidance of the government policies.

Promote good governance including zero-corruption, accountability and quality control

WSSCC and all its members and implementing partners are committed to the principles of good governance and aim to have robust governance mechanisms that ensure accountability and oversight. They follow acknowledged anti-corruption approaches – for example those developed by the Water Integrity Network – to ensure that funds get to their intended recipients.

Respect and collaborate with people and agencies of all backgrounds such as public sector, private sector and civil society

WSSCC is a neutral platform for sanitation and water work. It respects and works with all agencies and has no dogmatic objection to working with particular groups such as private sector companies. Indeed, small-scale private sector involvement in sanitation has become much better understood by WSSCC and other sector agencies in recent years. WSSCC aims to involve local government, civil society organizations and local entrepreneurs for promotion, marketing, latrine component supply, construction and maintenance such as pit emptying. Details on how this can be carried out vary in different countries. In some places the small entrepreneurs can become the corner stone of sanitation promotion, construction and maintenance. Sanitation then becomes a viable business, not a charitable activity, which can make scaling-up more feasible.