Newsroom
The project will engage and empower multiple stakeholders including the private sector, civil society, local governments, and targeted communities to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, transformative, and locally owned sanitation marketplace
NAIROBI, KENYA — The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded a five-year sanitation and hygiene project in Kenya. The $24 milion USAID Western Kenya Sanitation Project (WKSP) will facilitate, develop and implement approaches that address the systems-level barriers and provide incentives to strengthening markets for sanitation and hygiene products and services in eight western Kenya counties.
Using new market-driven approaches, USAID’s WKSP will catalyze and transform the accessibility and delivery of sanitation and menstrual hygiene management (MHM) products and services in western Kenya. This new project will advance the Government of Kenya’s Vision 2030 by introducing innovations and facilitating partnerships between individual and private sector stakeholders with sustained support from local governments and market players. Through collective change we can achieve universal sanitation and hygiene access in western Kenya.
Challenged with providing access to basic sanitation, which remained at 30%, and having adequate menstrual hygiene management (MHM), where 65% of women and girls could not afford sanitary pads, the Government of Kenya has set directions for improved quality of life through better environmental management. Through its Vision 2030 agenda, the Government of Kenya specifically calls for universal access to sanitation with 100% open defecation free status by 2030. This ambitious goal would require multi-stakeholder engagement and new strategies that will drive better access to sanitation and hygiene management goods and services. Aligning with this national agenda, USAID WKSP will pioneer market-based solutions to test and accelerate improved sanitation services and MHM together with county governments, private sector players, and other stakeholders of Siaya, Kisumu, Busia, Bungoma, Kisii, Migori, Kakamega and Homa Bay.
USAID WKSP objectives include:
- Analyze the market system, the target market and business enabling environment for sanitation and hygiene management products and services.
- Identify, implement, and scale pilots to strengthen both the sanitation and MHM market systems market for MHM services and products.
- Strengthen the enabling environment that would facilitate sustained market system presence and increased resource allocation to sanitation and hygiene management.
Ultimately the project will increase access to and uptake of better-quality, market-based sanitation, fecal sludge and MHM products and services for over 500,000 people. In the process, USAID WKSP will enable customers and households to procure necessary goods and services more easily and motivate enterprises to enhance their offerings with greater customer orientation and with broader marketing and distribution capabilities, especially towards marginalized communities, women and youth.
About USAID
USAID is the world's premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID works to help lift lives, build communities, and advance democracy. USAID's work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity; demonstrates American generosity; and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience. For more information, visit www.USAID.gov.
About the USAID Western Kenya Sanitation Project
The USAID Western Kenya Sanitation Project is a $24 million five-year sanitation and hygiene project wholly funded by the United States government through the United States Agency for International Development and implemented by RTI. The project will facilitate, develop, and implement approaches that address the systems-level barriers and provide incentives to strengthening markets for sanitation and hygiene products and services in eight western Kenya counties.
