 This initiated a period of active involvement in water policy by the government, based on the principle that water is a social good to be either provided free of charge or subsidised.As a result, water tariffs between 1970 and 1981 were heavily subsidised and in contradiction with the principle of operating cost recovery.Throughout the 1960s, the Environmental Sanitation Programme supported by WHO-UNICEF was carried out in Kenya with the aims of developing water supplies for small rural communities, improving waste disposal methods and providing sanitary education for the rural population.