Household Access to Sanitation and Hygiene in Small Towns in Tanzania: A case of Three Satellites Towns in Mwanza City

Abstract

The present study examined household access to sanitation and hygiene in small towns of Misungwi, Magu and Lamadi in Northwestern Tanzania. Specifically, the study envisaged to: (i) assess the availability of toilet facilities in the study towns, and (ii) assess hand washing practices at households level. The study used both primary and secondary data of quantitative and qualitative nature, collected through questionnaire survey, key informant interviews, observation and documentary review.  A sample of 417 households was involved in this study. Survey data were analyzed for descriptive statistics such as frequencies and means. Qualitative data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis technique. The study found that majority of households had toilets/latrines, with highest proportion in Lamadi (98%), followed by Magu (94%) and Misungwi (92%). Most of them were using private toilet facilities (96%) and only 4% used public toilet facilities. In Misungwi, a large majority of households had pit latrines (87%), and more than half in Magu (56%) and Lamadi (53%) had the same. In Lamadi 47% of respondents had flush toilets compared to 44% in Magu and only 13% in Misungwi.  The main type of flush toilet was ‘flush to septic tank’ which was reported by 68%, 83% and 68% of the respondents in Misungwi, Magu and Lamadi, respectively. Pit latrines without slabs were the most common in all study towns: 88% in Misungwi, 79% in Magu and 84% in Lamadi. Although availability of toilet facilities appeared to be high in all towns, most of the households had latrines with no slabs which could be viewed as temporary since are likely to be destroyed by rains. The results further indicate that the main source of financing for construction of latrines or septic tanks was self-savings as reported by 63%, 79% and 81% of the respondents in Misungwi, Magu and Lamadi, respectively. Most of the surveyed households had their toilets located in the household, mostly in Lamadi (88%), followed by Magu (79%) and Misungwi (75%). The findings further show that most of the respondents washed hands with soap before and after meals as reported by 86%, 88%, and 71% of the respondents in Misungwi, Magu and Lamadi, respectively. This shows that most of the respondents wash hands with soap at most of the critical times, suggesting that urban dwellers have high level of awareness on the importance of and, therefore, practice hand washing at critical time. It is recommended that outreach campaigns should be designed to reach all target groups with clear user friendly and culturally appropriate messages to impart knowledge and advocate for change of hygienic knowledge and practices.