US$10.9 Mln for Improving Sanitation, Hygiene Practices in Vietnam, Cambodia

East Meets West has received a US$10.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve sanitation and hygiene practices among poor rural communities in Vietnam and Cambodia in the next three years. Open defecation and the unsafe disposal of human waste result in an estimated 17,000 deaths annually, 90 percent of which occur in children under age 5 – and US$1.2 billion in economic losses each year.

 

The grant is the first of its kind from the Gates Foundation to support a results-based approach to sanitation and hygiene aid, which requires an initial investment from recipient families and communes, and then rewards them when results are achieved.

 

East Meets West was awarded the grant to expand their unique business model, which applies an integrated, community-driven approach to supporting sanitation and hygiene-related behavioural change among the rural poor. The programme combines community-based education about proper sanitation and hygiene; access to credible sources of financing for families to install latrines and hand washing devices in their homes; a cash rebate to families once installation and use of a latrine has been independently verified; and conditional cash transfers to communes that achieve at least a 30 percent increase in sanitation coverage.

 

Thanks to this approach, the programme will benefit 1.7 million people in 344,000 households and 290 communes in Vietnam and Cambodia, which represents a significant undertaking in hard-to-reach rural communities.

 

About 50 percent of households in Vietnam and approximately 80 percent of households in Cambodia do not have sanitation facilities, according to government data.