The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed $17.4 million to support the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing project (TSSM) in Tanzania, India and Indonesia. In Indonesia, the initiative is a collaboration between the Government of Indonesia, the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Project objectives
- Support hygienic sanitation and improved health for poor communities in rural villages
- Generate sanitation demand at scale through Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and Sanitation marketing approaches by local governments
- Increase the supply of affordable sanitation products and services at scale by working with local small scale entrepreneurs through Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and Sanitation marketing approaches
Successes
- Between November 2007 and July 2011, over 1.1 million people gained access to improved sanitation facilities fully financed by households themselves
- Community investments for sanitation improvements in TSSM project districts were 10-30 times larger than the cost of government interventions of other districts in Indonesia
- TSSM approach resulted in 10-15 times the number of new household toilets, compared to subsidy-based approaches like “stimulant packages” or construction credit
- Within 18 months of intervention, a 49% increase in access to improved sanitation (over baseline access) was observed
Challenges
- Securing sustainable institutional and political commitments at national and local government levels
- Operationalizing a national rural sanitation program to act as a vehicle for scaling up in multiple provinces
- Sustaining local government sanitation budgets after the program ends
- Setting up a reliable country-wide performance benchmarking and monitoring system
