Translating research into national-scale change : a case study from Kenya of WASH in Schools

Recent years have seen greater attention to achieving national-scale sustainable school water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Yet practitioners and advocates focusing on school WASH services face manifold challenges and pitfalls. They must engage and develop partnerships with a diverse set of government, community, and development-sector stakeholders and navigate often complex policy environments. They must also develop a robust evidence base, select a coherent set of manageable objectives, learn how to constantly adapt and re-adapt tactics when policies change, identify the right staff given limited resources, and find ways to effectively monitor progress. Over the past five years CARE, Emory University’s Center for Global Safe Water, and Water.org, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Sustaining and Scaling School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Plus Community Impact (SWASH+) project, have worked to achieve sustainable and national-scale school WASH services in Kenya through applied research and advocacy. The project tested a multi-armed school WASH intervention through a randomized, controlled trial with multiple policy-relevant sub-studies. Research results were then used to advocate for policy change to bring about sustainable school WASH services nationally. These efforts have focused on improving budgeting for operations and maintenance costs, improving accountability systems with a focus on monitoring and evaluation, and more effectively promoting knowledge of WASH through teacher training and the national curriculum. [authors abstract]

This is a SWASH+ -output.