Mozambique One Million Initiative

A rural water and sanitation program launched in 2007 as a cooperative undertaking between the Government of Mozambique, the Government of the Netherlands and UNICEF, with a planned seven-year duration. The One Million Initiative set out to bring clean drinking water and adequate sanitation to about a million people across 18 districts in three provinces of central Mozambique, aiming for 70 percent of the target population to use safe drinking water and 50 percent to use improved sanitation, while also building the capacity of local authorities and communities to plan, manage, coordinate and supervise integrated water, sanitation and hygiene services and extending clean water and sanitation facilities to more than 400 primary schools serving over 140,000 pupils. An independent impact study found that the water point component reduced waterborne disease among young children while the sanitation training component raised latrine ownership, together contributing to a documented fall in self-reported waterborne illness in the areas where the program worked between 2008 and 2010.