National Rural Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Policy 2016-2020.

The National Rural Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Policy 2016-2020 is the second national WASH Policy and aims to provide guidelines for WASH sector partners to implement WASH-related programs and activities in rural areas. The timeframe of the Policy is 4 years between 2016 to 2020. The Policy has been drafted as a result of the mid-course review and revision of the first WASH Policy 2010-2020 and replaces the previous version. The Policy has been adopted in line with new Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, and shall be reviewed again in 2020 to ensure the achievement of the SDG 6 by 2030.
The Policy emphasizes that improvement in public health and wealth, and social and economic development is rooted in easy access of all people to safe water and sanitation services and promotion of hygienic behavior. The main objectives of the Policy include: to provide various actors in the WASH sector with sufficient guidelines; to provide operational guides and information services to communities, rural schools, and health centers on efficient access to WASH services; to enhance WASH services in rural areas; to provide rural schools with clean, user-friendly, gender-separated, and hygienic toilets; to equip rural toilets with washing facilities and safe waste disposal; to prepare a set of national standards for drinking water and sanitation; to encourage the investment of the private sector, national and international actors in the WASH sector; to reduce open defecation and support families to construct household toilets; to collect data and report to the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development; to ensure gender equity in community participation and decision making process; to improve public-private partnership; to protect human rights; to protect environment while providing WASH services to rural people.
The Ministry of Rehabilitation and Rural Development, the Ministry of Public Health, and the Ministry of Education are key authorities responsible to provide people in rural areas with safe drinking water and sanitation services. The Ministry of Rehabilitation and Rural Development, through Water, Sanitation Sector Group coordinates the activities of all partners and provides them with a platform for technical and operational cooperation. The Ministry of Public Health shall set out a water quality control standard and monitor the hygienic behavior improvement in the country. The Ministry of Education is committed to providing safe drinking water, sanitation services, and hygiene training in schools. The Policy establishes an evaluation and monitoring system to monitor the Policy’s targets.