Regional governments channel funds to institutional sanitation through micro-finance institutions
In 2005 EFY the regional governments of Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray have showed remarkable commitment towards improving the status of the institutional sanitation in their respective regions. Altogether the four regions allocated approximately 8,050,000 ETB for school and health institution sanitation from the regional block grant budgets. This specific budget allocation is to be implemented using the Community Manager Project (CMP) approach. Thus, as it is typical for the CMP approach, the investment funds are transferred through a micro-finance institution to the Parents' and Teachers' Associations and Health Facility Committees that act as the responsible WaSH Management Committees for the schools and health institutions respectively. The CMP approach is found to generate strong ownership among the users and thus it contributes to achieving high sustainability and functionality of the sanitation and water supply services.
The special feature of the bi-lateral Community-Led Accelerated WaSH Project (COWASH) that accelerates the CMP approach is the joint WaSH funding with the Finland Government and Regional Governments. The regional investment funds are generated from the regional block grants and directed to the COWASH project implementation so as to match together with the financing for capacity building in institutional WaSH. For the first time in the history of Ethiopia, the regional sector bureaus agreed to invest in institutional sanitation through a bi-lateral program. More uniquely, the funds are channelled to the institutions through a micro-finance institution. The institutions’ WaSH Management Committees are responsible for the planning, implementation and maintenance of institutional latrines whilst woredas provide project facilitation through capacity building and technical support. In this year, these joint efforts count for the construction of 26 school latrines and 23 health facility latrines in 24 woredas throughout the country.
The photo of the school latrine is taken in Guangua woreda, Amhara region.
