A coherent national policy on sanitation and hygiene is critical for raising the profile of the sanitation and hygiene sector and for improving access to safe and hygienic sanitation facilities. However, policy alone is not adequate. In Rwanda, like many other developing countries, it remains a mammoth challenge to translate policy on sanitation and hygiene into practice.
For information to be of use in integrating policy with practice, surveys need to take into account the human and environmental aspects of the situation – that is, whether toilets function as they should and are being used as intended. A function-based monitoring approach, as proposed by SEI, would capture these aspects.
