The Finnish and Ethiopian governments have committed 18 million euros to launch the fourth phase of a project that works on hygiene and sanitation at the beginning of this coming January. The project will be launched in six regional states to benefit one million people.

Having a four-year span, the Community-Led Accelerated Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (CO-WASH) project will be supervised by the Ministry of Water, Irrigation, & Energy. The project includes installing water pipes at the houses of beneficiaries and ensuring water point accessibility for people with disabilities.

The Finnish government has allocated 18.4 million euros for the project along with capacity building, while the government of Ethiopia will be responsible for physical infrastructure development. Finland has also pledged an additional four million euros for other water projects in the country.

A federal technical team comprised of government representatives from both countries will choose the consulting team for the upcoming project. The consulting team will be accrued through an international bid by the Finnish government. The project aims to convince half of the community under the project to begin using toilets. It also targets to increase access to safe water in the area by 35pc and rural water supply access by 85pc.

The number of the projects and the method of approach will be decided by the consulting team, according to Melaku Tekola, community and knowledge management advisor for CO-WASH.

"If the team finds the community-managed project used in the third phase preferable, they could continue with it," he said. "If they have another methodology and approach, they may also apply that instead."

The project will be implemented across Amhara, Tigray, Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Southern Nations, Nationalities & People's regional states, as well as the tenth and latest regional state for the nation, Sidama. The community from these regional states cover 15pc of the COWASH projects.

The third phase of COWASH, which expired last June, was started in 2011 and was implemented across 76 rural districts of Amhara, Tigray, Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, SNNP regional states. It has built 16,961 water points for communities, schools and health facilities. Sanitation, a major component, has seen the construction of 814,000 latrines and the project has addressed 4.3 million people overall.

The result of the third phase was more than what was planned due to the community's high contribution in the projects, which covered almost 33pc, according to Melaku.

"The community contributed by digging, carrying stones and wood for the construction of water and sanitation points," he said. "We'd planned to do these activities by payment, but they did it for free."