The major aim of national policy on community sanitation is to improve the health and quality of life of the whole population. Improved sanitation facilities will reduce the incidence of disease, but only if there is improved hygiene practice and behaviour as well. Health department personnel at local level will play an important part in the promotion and education activities that are essential for success. The sanitation programme should check that health is really being improved and modify health education approaches if necessary.

The National Sanitation Policy is important because it will help to shape the development of Malawi for years to come. So far there has been no single sanitation policy in Malawi. Various pieces of legislation, some dating back to the colonial period, have been used to guide sanitation development in Malawi. Many of these are now antiquated and irrelevant to the future development of the Country and a single policy is now needed to give guidance to all, from Government departments to householders in rural and urban communities, from local government to NGO's and international donors, on just what Malawi feels it needs in the hygiene and sanitation sector to take it forward in the 21st Century