Financing Options

Service expansion has been constrained by insufficient resource allocation and inefficient investments in hygiene promotion programs. Similarly, operation and maintenance (O&M) of existing facilities is hampered by lack of capacity to mobilize resources from users, lack of O&M plans, and insufficient O&M training.

To ensure long-term financial sustainability, school hygiene, sanitation, and water projects should adhere to two basic guidelines:

Establish a financial policy which ensures that operation and maintenance can be carried out in a sustainable manner.
- Prepare O&M plans that clearly define responsibilities and monitoring procedures
- Prepare O&M plans that are focused on preventive maintenance, with lists of tasks as well as detailed task schedules
Establish financial policies that are sustainable, preferably ones in which O&M costs are covered by the education budget.
- Ensure that, at a minimum, O&M costs are covered
- Obtain parent and school consensus if they must pay part or all of the investment costs associated with higher service levels
- Ensure that subsidies for the cost of facilities are transparent and well targeted
- Provide detailed information on the cost of facilities
- Ensure that the government pays for facilities and O&M through the school budget and takes responsibility for the delivery of hygiene promotion, capacity building, and training
- If the government is unable to pay for routine O&M, design user fee structures (either in-kind or in cash) in such a way that they do not hamper the ability of the poor to send their children to school

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