Community Hygiene Output-Based Aid (CHOBA) in Vietnam and Cambodia

Purpose

Accelerating delivery of improved sanitation to low-income populations in rural areas of Cambodia and Vietnam using a results-based financing approach.

Activities

The CHOBA program is intended to increase sanitation coverage and the adoption of safe hygiene practices in rural communities across Cambodia and Vietnam, dramatically scaling up a previous output-based aid (OBA) latrine program. Under CHOBA, East Meets West (EMW) teams in Vietnam and Cambodia work with local implementation partners to facilitate the purchase of hygienic toilets and septic systems by vulnerable households. Going door-to-door, CHOBA program personnel encourage households to build improved household sanitation facilities and connect them with both approved local construction contractors and consumer lenders. Households are offered a consumer rebate upon verification of a properly built and used toilet with an associated handwash station, and the program also offers conditional cash transfers for the achievement of community-wide improved sanitation coverage benchmarks.

CHOBA targets ~155,000 low-income families across 289 communes over a 44-month period, and we estimate that when completed, an additional 45,000 households will also benefit from spillover effects among the “near poor.” The target beneficiaries earn US$30 per capita per month and are generally regarded as the most challenging group for sanitation delivery.
By targeting poor families, EMW aims to help their rural communities achieve open defecation free (ODF) status on a sustained basis, thereby improving living conditions and combating sanitation-related health problems.

CHOBA’s programmatic activities complement existing government policy as well as civil society efforts to further each country’s millennium development goal (MDG) targets. Key government institutions play formal, active roles in project implementation, and CHOBA’s innovative OBA mechanism is a means of directly addressing sanitation market failure.

Countries of activity

Location of main activity

Objectives

- To improve health outcomes by expanding improved sanitation coverage among low-income communities in Cambodia and Vietnam
- To establish one or more self-sustaining rural latrine delivery models in Vietnam and Cambodia.
- CHOBA aims to deliver at least 155,000 improved hygienic latrines and septic systems to low-income families in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Further information

Research or implementation partners:

Vietnam:
Vietnam Womens’ Union
a wide array of regional and local government authorities (Peoples’ Committees),
the Vietnam Bank of Social Policy (VBSP),
Vietnam Environmental Management Agency (VIHEMA), a division of the Ministry of Health
Mekong Development Research Institute (MDRI).

Cambodia:
Ministry of Rural Development (MRD)
Provincial Departments of Rural Development (PDRD)
Water and Sanitation Program (WSP)
International Development Enterprises (IDE)
WaterSHED.

This project was in the Building Demand for Sanitation (BDS) portfolio of the BMGF

Filter tags

Behaviour change Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Community sanitation East Asia & Pacific Enabling environment and institutional strengthening Health and hygiene International NGO Market development Operation, maintenance and sustainable services Political processes and institutional aspects Practitioners Rural Rural areas Specific to one or several countries Toilets or urinals (user interface)

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