CoWASH IV, Community-Led Accelerated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Ethiopia

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

COWASH IV (Community-led Accelerated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene ProjectI) increases the availability of safe water and sanitation in rural areas of Ethiopia. The aimed long term impact is to improve the health of the population. WASH (water-, sanitation and hygiene) sector is important in poverty reduction. In the water and sanitation sector, the global policy direction is formulated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes the targets for rural WASH as SDG 6.1 and 6.2. The project is based on the CMP model (Community Managed Project Approach): the communities are themselves in charge of the construction, management and maintenance of thier water points. In the course of Phase IV, the CMP model will be developed further to be modified towards higher technologies (deep wells, water supply) largely triggered by the need to adapt to climate change, especially droughts. CoWASH IV will continue in the same regions selected during Phase III: Oromia, Tigray, SNNPR, Benichangul Gumuz and Amhara. The first phase of CoWASH project started in 2011. Since then, the project has managed to build 15,000 water points enabling access to clean water for 3,1 million rural people. Safe water supply and sanitation facilities has been provided for 967 schools and 419 health facilities. In phase IV the targeted number of people having new or re-habilitated/upgraded safe water supply is 800,000. The aim is to increase the percentage of households using latrines from the current 42% up to 62%. Institutional WASH is targeted to schools and health facilities and the objective is to provide new safely managed water supply systems to 100 schools and health centres. Support to strengthened equity focuses especially to disabled people as well as girls and women. Empowerment of women in WASHCO management, including participation in the decision-making processes is supported at the region and community level cooperation. CoWASH IV has an important role to ensure that project achievements and learning activities will be well documented and shared strategically to enhance the impact of COWASH IV on WASH sector policies and practices. Finland’s contribution for Phase IV is 18,4 MEUR which is an estimated 44% of the total budget; the regions and the communities will contribute the remaining 56% totaling to an estimated grand total of 41,4 MEUR.