Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion

Having access to water and sanitation services does not immediately generate positive health impacts unless communities are fully aware of the behavioral changes required to fully benefit from adequately using these services. Hygiene education should be an integral part of projects to ensure that health benefits are materialized.

In the past, Bank project interventions frequently centered on building water and sanitation infrastructure, at the street level, with little regard to the facilities inside the households.  The underlying assumption was that the provision of infrastructure would result in an automatic improvement of the user’s health.  It is now clear that the health benefits of accessing water and sanitation services are only marginal when appropriate hygiene education is not present. In some cases they can even worsen the sanitary situation unless behaviors change and new habits regarding hand washing with soap, food and water manipulation and storage and hygiene practices are internalized. 

In recent years, Bank projects have brought multidisciplinary teams to better connect with communities and thus to identify appropriate ways to influence their hygienic behaviors while respecting their traditional cultures. This is achieved through improved communications skills and cultural understandings help to craft appropriate financing terms and subsidies. Currently, there are “hand-washing initiatives” under implementation in Colombia and Peru and under preparation in other countries. Linked to NGOs and to private sector support, these programs rely on mass media to promote hand washing and better use of soap.

ACTIVE PROJECTS