Sanitation Revolving Funds for Rural and Peri-Urban Communities in Malawi

Highlights

Malawi is off-track to achieve basic and safely managed sanitation services by 2030, as per Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2: to ‘achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations’. As a majority of the population relies on on-site sanitation systems, there is an urgent need for financing strategies to move communities up the sanitation ladder. UNICEF Malawi Country Office, in collaboration with its partners, has developed a scalable model based on revolving sanitation funds for peri-urban and rural areas to enhance access to market-based sanitation products and services. This approach has also proven effective in unlocking sanitation-related business opportunities for private sector operators and entrepreneurs. This field note follows a year of piloting the sanitation revolving funds in Malawi and captures key lessons and challenges.