REOI-PH-2020-001: Creating Participatory Videos Supporting the Roll-out of the Philippines Approach to Sustainable Sanitation Policy

Philippine Approach to Sustainable Sanitation (PhATSS) is a sanitation program strategy and monitoring framework that helps local government units (LGUs) move communities from open defecation status to sustainable sanitation status. PhATSS helps break down the sanitation goals into doable steps, wherein a barangay could easily identify their contribution to gradually achieve a sustainable sanitation.

The PhATSS has been developed by UNICEF with Department of Health (DOH) to support the implementation of DOH’s Administrative Order 2010-0021, entitled “Sustainable Sanitation as a National Policy and a National Priority Program of the DOH”. It aims to achieve Zero Open Defecation (ZOD) status and attain universal access to safe and adequate sanitary facilities by 2028 which are also the goals of the Philippine Health Agenda (2016-2022) and aligned with the health targets of the FOURmula One (F1) Plus and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of safely managed sanitation services by 2030.

At present, sanitation is still a problem in the country, an estimated 25 million Filipinos are either practicing open defecation or using unimproved sanitation facilities, which poses a serious threat to the population in terms of health, nutrition, protection, education, environment, and productivity according to the 2017 Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey.

Overall, the PhATSS pilot implementation has so far resulted in 2,147 communities are open defecation free (Grade 1) and 293 communities with improved sanitation (Grade 2).

Currently, the PhATSS policy is being finalized and ready for sign-off of the DOH, while a PhATSS implementation toolkit is under development which will include different communication materials to promote the use of the PhATSS policy among local officials. UNICEF has envisioned to create participatory videos to support the roll-out of the PhATSS policy and raise awareness on key sanitation issues in the communities.

The objective of this contract is to facilitate the process of creating participatory videos that are intended to

1. share experiences of local officials, community health workers and sanitary inspectors, and youth leaders in implementing PhATSS and how this has helped provide WASH services and facilities for the communities; and,

b. support local officials in raising public awareness on specific issues on water and sanitation (e.g., inclusivity, disaster resiliency, climate change) which are affecting people’s access to water and sanitation services, especially that of people with disabilities (PWD) and children.