Table 2.

WASH intervention mechanisms

Intervention type	Mechanism of delivery	Definition
Demand‐side	Health education	Directive hygiene, and sometimes sanitation, education where participants are provided with new knowledge or skills to improve their health based on reasoning. These information campaigns may be provided through television, radio, theatre or printed media; provided directly to specific households or through sessions at community meetings, schools or other places; or provided directly to community leaders or health workers
	Directive triggering (e.g., social marketing)	Psychosocial “triggering” covers approaches that use emotional and social cues, pressure, or motivation to encourage community members to change behaviours. Directive mechanisms are typically social marketing campaigns, which use commercial marketing techniques to promote the adoption of beneficial behaviours. They can also include other styles of campaign that use emotional or social triggers rather than information
	Participatory triggering (e.g., CLTS)	Participatory mechanisms are typically a community‐based approach and promote behaviour change through consultation with the community, a two‐way dialogue, and joint‐decision making. For example, CLTS uses this mechanism
	Subsidies and microfinance	All intervention mechanisms that use pricing reform or financial mechanisms to promote the uptake of WASH technologies. This includes subsidies, vouchers, microcredit, and other forms of microfinance, aimed at consumers
	Legal reform	Intervention mechanisms that enact or implement legal reforms proscribing open defaecation, discharge of contaminated water or dumping of waste.
Supply‐side	Direct hardware provision	The provision of any WASH hardware for free and which has been chosen by an external authority. This includes interventions where new or improved water supplies are constructed, handwashing stations are built, soap is handed out, water purifiers given away, latrines provided, or sewer connections installed by external actors (e.g., government or an NGO)
	Improving operator performance	Intervention mechanisms aiming to improve the functioning of the current service provider. This includes improving accountability, oversight or regulation, capacity building and output‐based aid
	Utility ownership	Interventions to change ownership (e.g., privatisation or nationalisation of utilities, public‐private partnerships)
	Small‐scale independent provider involvement	Intervention mechanisms to encourage small‐scale independent organisations, including nonprofits, to become the providers of WASH facilities and services on a commercial basis (e.g., sanitation marketing)
Combined interventions	Decentralisation	Focuses on putting the community at the centre of the planning, design, implementation, and operations of their service provider. Examples include community driven development, also called Social Funds, which are supposed to use a participatory approach to community decision making, provide block grants with cost sharing, and a component of local institutional strengthening to fully decentralise provision. Other approaches to involving the community but keeping government ownership include water user associations
	Combinations of intervention mechanisms	Intervention mechanisms combining multiple demand‐side (e.g., health education with subsidies), supply‐side (e.g., hardware provision with privatisation) or combining demand‐ and supply‐side mechanisms (e.g., CLTS and sanitation marketing)

Abbreviations: CLTS, community‐led total sanitation; WASH, water, sanitation and hygiene.