Scaling up rural sanitation in Tanzania: evidence from the National Sanitation Campaign

Access to improved sanitation facilities has been a challenge, especially in developing countries. In 2012, Tanzania launched a rural-based National Sanitation Campaign to address the challenge of low coverage of improved sanitation and hygiene at household and school levels using a combination of approaches including Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and behavior change communication. In June 2016, a study that involved interviews with heads of households, complemented by observations of sanitation and hygiene facilities in 2,875 households from 289 villages, was carried out in campaign and non-campaign villages. Overall, 94.7% of the households had a basic toilet; whereas 7.0% of the households from non-campaign villages against 3.5% from the campaign villages had no toilet. Moreover, overall coverage of improved sanitation was found to be 52.6% and varied between campaign (62%) and non-campaign (43%) villages. Hand washing points were hardly observed in both campaign and non-campaign villages, although they differed significantly between the two areas: 42.7 vs. 26.7% for campaign and non-campaign villages, respectively. Factors associated with households9 access to improved latrines include economic status of the household, education level of the head of household and geographical location of the household. Further studies are needed before drawing clear-cut conclusions about the impact of the campaign.