Overview

Since 2006, Nepal started implementing various 'Total Sanitation' modalities moving from a fragmented approach to the universal approach of sanitation. In this approach, a community or a catchment area is selected for a programme intervention instead of the conventional approach of selecting a disadvantaged household or a group of households. The School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS) and Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) were some of the initiatives introduced in the universal approach which led to thousands of schools and communities declaring their catchment areas as Open Defecation Free (ODF). As the number of ODF declarations increased over the period, the rate of toilet coverage also rapidly increased. However, the devastating earthquake in April 2015 hit several districts and affected 8 million people of 39 districts of Nepal; 2.8 million of them were living in severely affected 14 districts. More than 300,000 toilets were damaged or destroyed from that earthquake. Open defecation practice is assumed to have increased among the affected population, who had developed a crucial habit of using toilets, and who have lost access to sanitation facilities. Because of the impact of COVID-19, there is more stress to the sector to decrease shared sanitation services and facilities to the people. Similarly, there is a greater need for meeting the demand for hygiene supplies to the people, especially the poor and marginalized. There might be obvious reasons for increased demand on sanitation and hygiene facilities because of the increased level of awareness on risk associated with COVID. The sanitation and hygiene programming hence may require some adjustments to result a sustained behavioral transformation to the people in general.
The purpose of the evaluation is to contribute generating evidence on ODF and sustaining ODF status with thorough assessment of the sanitation programmes, mainly inspecting their success and setbacks.

Report Details