REPORT__Evaluating_the_potential_of_microfinance_for_sanitation_in_Tanzania_May_2013

Most households would empty the pit content onto the street, thereby spreading diseases
even further. Although the municipal Health departments are responsible for the
enforcement of the law that implies that every house in Tanzania must have a toilet,
enforcement is not strictly applied as households are not deemed able to pay the fine and
invest in an improved latrine (or adequate emptying) simultaneously. In addition, adequate
emptying services are very limited, due to inadequate technology: standard trucks cannot
reach households in dense peri-urban settlements due to the lack of road infrastructure.
The sanitation sector has received increased attention in the last few years, both at the
international level (following the International Year of Sanitation in 2008, which contributed to
increase the sector’s profile internationally) and at country level. In Tanzania, the country’s
Vision 2025 document pledged to provide access to improved sanitation to 95% of the
population by 2025. A long-awaited policy document for the sector, the National Sanitation
and Hygiene Policy, was adopted in 2011. Efforts to improve coordination in the sanitation
sector led to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the four
Ministries that are involved in sanitation in one way or another, including MoHSW, MoWI, the
Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and the Prime Minister’s Office for Regional
Administration and Local Government (PMO-RALG).
To support the implementation of this policy, the Government (with support from donors,
including the African Development Bank in particular) launched in June 2012 the National
Sanitation Campaign, targeting rural areas and peri-urban areas. However, promotional
activities - including demand promotion and sanitation marketing activities in order to
stimulate a supply-side response – have not yet taken place. 2
Financing arrangements and future needs
The government of Tanzania currently spends an insignificant percentage of its GDP on
sanitation. Although public funding for water and sanitation has increased four-fold following
the adoption of a SWAp (Sector-wide Approach) in 2005, funding remains insufficient to
meet the MDGs. Most of the additional funding has tended to go to the water sector until
relatively recently. For sanitation, the vast majority of public investment goes on sewerage,
with some very limited funding available for demand promotion and hygiene awareness. This
funding allocation is skewed and does not reflect the allocation of benefits for end-users. In
Dar es Salaam, a WaterAid study (2010) found that 99% of public funding goes to sewerage
whereas only 10% of the population is connected to sewers.
The national policy in Tanzania requires that capital investment in household sanitation
should be financed entirely by households themselves. However, how households are
expected to finance such investments is not clear, as confirmed by the recent CSO2
exercise conducted in Tanzania which estimated future financing needs as per Table 1
below. 3
The report states that “while the substantial user contribution to capital costs (as shown on
Table 1) follows the policy assumption (that households are expected to finance household
sanitation), it will not be leveraged in practice without sufficient funding, human resources,
coordination and tools for promotion”.
2
This is mainly because a study on “the drivers of behaviour change” is still under way. Outputs from this
research will be incorporated in the campaign.
3
The African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), supported by a number of donors including WSP, recently
conducted Country Sector Overviews (CSO2) for 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa based on a common
methodology. These CSO2 examined the current institutional and operational frameworks in each sub-sector and
the amount of funding available and future funding requirements to meet the MDGs. In collaboration with
Governments and national stakeholders, each report identified a list of agreed priority actions to tackle these
challenges, and ensure finance is effectively turned into services.
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