Barriers facing local governance in the implementation of sanitation and hygiene promotion services in Rungwe district, Tanzania

Abstract

Objective: Hygiene and sanitation in Tanzania is one of the areas suffering from chronic neglect. Sanitation and hygiene is still low on the agenda of political platforms and receives a low priority among the community members and public sector. Competing priorities such as education and health (especially curative) contribute significantly in making sanitation and hygiene an area of low priority from the household to the national levels. Local government authorities have been implementing various interventions pertaining to improvement of sanitation and hygiene practices but they have not achieved the results to the expectation of the community. The study aimed at exploring the barriers facing local governance in the implementation of sanitation and hygiene promotion services and recommends possible solutions to overcoming them.
Methods: A qualitative research method was employed whereby in-depth interviews were used to obtain information from 16 Key Informants. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and content analytical approach was employed to analyze the data.
Findings: Results from this study identified several major barriers facing the implementation of sanitation and hygiene promotion services at the local government authorities. These include fragmented coordination; unclear roles and responsibilities; weak collaboration with stakeholders to scale up promotion; low participation in planning processes among stakeholders and inadequate financial and human resources.
Conclusion: The study concludes that there are a number of barriers that hinder an effective implementation of sanitation and hygiene services in the district. The local authorities should put in place good local governance mechanism that is capable of integrating well the sanitation and hygiene services to the local development activities.

Keywords: Sanitation, hygiene, promotion, local governance, implementation, Tanzania