Identifying Households Eligible for a Targeted Sanitation Subsidy in Rural Ghana - Policy Brief

In partnership with two District Assemblies, Tatale and Kpandai, in the Northern region of Ghana, UNICEF Ghana and USAID’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Partnerships and Learning for Sustainability (WASHPaLS) project are piloting and evaluating the implementation of targeted subsidies in 61 rural Open Defecation Free (ODF) communities with funding from Global Affairs Canada and USAID. The subsidy was designed to cover the cost of installing a durable toilet sub-structure (i.e., pit lining and slab) and a vent pipe.

As part of this collaboration, the team developed and tested a methodology relying on community consultation to identify poor and vulnerable households. The 61 community consultations gathered over 3,600 community members and identified 444 households eligible for the sanitation subsidy. Lessons from this experience, summarized in this policy brief, can inform future iterations of Ghana’s Pro-Poor Guidelines and targeted subsidy programs in Ghana and around the world. The approach for deciding the eligibility of poor and vulnerable households for targeted subsidies is detailed in this related technical brief. The baseline brief can be found here.