A Clean (Sampoorna Swachh) India

On 2nd October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, India celebrated the end of the first phase of the five-year Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), the world’s most extensive ever programme aimed at eliminating open defecation.

The country achieved a remarkable milestone by providing toilet access at home to over 105 million additional rural households in just five years. This meant that over 500 million people across 630,000 villages had the opportunity to be freed from the practice of open defecation. 

This feat is something that all can be proud of, and UNICEF is pleased to be a partner in the effort. 

While keeping success in mind, there is a need to ensure equity and sustainability in sanitation services and to leave no one behind. Working towards changing behaviours and beliefs, and addressing myths surrounding toilets, remains crucial to sustaining open defecation-free (ODF) status in all communities across India. 

Consistent government focus through vibrant flagship programmes, sustained budgetary provisions, institutional strengthening within Government, participatory planning, involvement of local governments in infrastructure creation and operation and maintenance activities, professionalization of services, and sensitizing the rightsholder remain priorities on the way forward.

These priorities are all aimed towards achieving Safe sanitation as the Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 strives for.

According to the State of the World’s Sanitation Report (2020) by UNICEF and WHO, over half the world’s population (approximately 4.2 billion people) still use services and display behaviours that leave human waste untreated, threatening both human and environmental health.

This hampers child development and social and economic progress, making the fulfilment of child rights and good physical, mental and social well-being unattainable in the absence of safe sanitation.

Plastic waste and stagnant wastewater are also significant issues that are affecting communities.

Phase II of the Swachh Bharat Mission aims to create ODF Plus villages – villages that sustain the gains made under Phase I to ensure the ODF status of communities and improve the overall cleanliness of rural and urban areas through effective solid and liquid waste management.

Solid and liquid waste management encompasses the management of biodegradable waste, including human, cattle, agricultural, and food waste, as well as non-biodegradable waste such as plastics, metals, and e-waste. Another vital area that is included and requires significant attention is managing and raising awareness of menstrual waste.

Getting thousands of gram panchayats, villages, towns and cities to reach this ODF Plus milestone calls for decentralized planning, investment in human resources, sufficient budgetary provisioning, and an excellent supervisory, management and support structure involving multiple stakeholders.

This also ensures that sustained interventions, including behaviour change activities, are undertaken at the community level even after the initial declaration of ODF or ODF Plus status.   

UNICEF, on its part, has been supporting the Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) phase I since 2014, and now again under phase II, working with the Government to strategize and support ways forward for rural sanitation programming in the country.

In addition to supporting the technical areas mentioned earlier, UNICEF is promoting critical handwashing with soap, which is crucial in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It provides options for safely managing solid and liquid waste and addresses the often-overlooked issue of child faeces.

Furthermore, UNICEF is investing in climate-resilient systems that can withstand natural disasters, prioritizing behaviour change communication at the community level, and promoting sanitation in institutional settings and public places.

UNICEF also supports efforts to address issues related to the quality of construction, the sustainability of sanitary services, and the safety of safely managed sanitation.

For this, effective social and behavioural change communication approaches must be aligned with service delivery to ensure that families receive quality services.

UNICEF is further supporting the Government of India in rolling out a massive capacity-building effort aimed at enhancing the capacities of rural local government representatives pan-India.

The support is provided by training them to invest in sustainable sanitation interventions, enabling the development and operation of sanitation projects, aligning efforts with water supply programming, and promoting gender-inclusive and climate-resilient sanitation services in the villages.

As a longstanding partner to the Government of India, UNICEF provides technical support at the national level and to 16 state governments in planning, developing district-wide ODF Plus plans, and supporting implementation models that incorporate behaviour change messaging to generate demand for waste management systems.

UNICEF strives to ensure that the piloted rollout models adopt a strong equity dimension to prioritize the most vulnerable communities and are risk-informed, especially in disaster-prone districts.

UNICEF supports monitoring systems to help gather real-time data that informs the Government’s policymaking on sanitation.

As part of our support for safely managed sanitation in urban areas, UNICEF collaborates with central, state, and city governments to enhance capacity building and social and behavioural change communication efforts.

This includes developing national frameworks for capacity-building and behaviour-change communication for garbage-free towns, as well as supporting their rollout in priority states.

UNICEF looks forward to working with individuals, agencies, and corporations on collaborative projects for its sanitation programme. We are committed to supporting the world to realise Sustainable Development Goal 6 by 2030.