HÀ NỘI – As many as 35,000 poor households in the rural areas of five provinces will gain access to hygienic sanitation by building new latrines at their houses over the next two years, a conference heard yesterday.

The project, which was jointly organised by East Meets West and the Việt Nam Women’s Union, will offer loans for these households to build latrines, thanks to VNĐ9.45 billion (US$425,250) provided by East Meets West.

Poor households in Trà Vinh, Bến Tre, Thanh Hóa, Hòa Bình and Ninh Bình will be eligible for the loan.

The project is scheduled to begin this month and completed in May 2018.

The project is the second phase of the Community Hygiene Output-Based Aids programme which was also implemented by the two organisations. The project used the output-based aid approach – a type of results-based financing well known for improving the delivery of basic services when users are not able to pay the full cost of service.

From 2012-2015, almost 110,900 poor households in 10 provinces and cities nationwide improved sanitation and built new latrines with loans worth nearly VNĐ300 billion ($13.3 million). Households were rewarded for completing new latrines.

Trần Thị Hương, vice president of the Việt Nam Women’s Union, said the first period of the project succeeded in helping poor people improve sanitation and change family hygiene habits for better health.

During the second phase of the project, poor households will access loans without being rewarded for completing new latrines. As a result, nearly 4,000 communicators who joined during the project’s first phase expect challenges in disseminating information to help poor people get loans.

But a hygienic latrine is a basic need for any household. So it was necessary to expand the model to improve sanitation in rural areas, Hương said.

Nguyễn Thị Tỉnh, chairwoman of northern Ninh Bình Province’s Women Union, said that during the first period, as many as 13,420 latrines were built. Households in 51 communes were each rewarded VNĐ760,000 after building new latrines.  

In the second phase of the project, the union expects 7,000 latrines to be built in poor households.

“We hope more people, especially the poorest of the poor, can access hygienic latrines to improve their health because it’s a basic need among the many needs of humans,” she said.  

The project was designed in line with the goals of the national Programme for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation, which targeted 65 per cent of rural households to have hygienic latrines by 2015.

There are currently about 21 million people in rural areas who do not have hygienic latrines. -- VNS