Lagging behind many of its middle-income peers in terms of access to sanitation, in particular in rural areas, Indonesia has recently experienced an acceleration from 36% in 2008 to 47% in 20151 as a result of the Government of Indonesia’s sanitation program called Sanitasi Total Berbasis Masyarakat (STBM) that was initiated in 2008. Building on this recent success, in 2014, the Minister of Health declared STBM as the national program in order to reach the government’s new target of universal access to improved sanitation by 2019.

Nationwide implementation to reach universal access by 2019 implies that capacity at local level in highly-decentralized Indonesia will need to be drastically increased in a short time span.

This WSP Learning Note describes the transformative process and key lessons learned while developing a nationwide sanitation capacity building program in Indonesia.