Sanitation as a business – the poor will have to wait

Malawian sanitation entrepreneur Martius using “The Gulper” to empty a pit latrine. Photo: Water for People

Providing toilets to the poorest may be “dear to the hearts of many non-profits, aid agencies and governments” but if you want to involve business you have to start with the better-off families first. So says business woman and sanitation entrepreneur Towera Jalakari who runs a pit emptying service in Blantyre, Malawi.

“We will get to Everyone in Blantyre one day, but the only way to make sure Blantyre actually solves its sanitation problems is to recognize that the market must function.  [...]  As we get better, as we scale city-wide, then costs will come down, services will improve, and pressure will build for all people to have a toilet.  We will get to the poorest, but they are not our first targets.  [...] If we rush too fast [...] then the poor will not have lasting services but rather a lot of useless toilets and nowhere to go to the bathroom.”

Malawi is one the countries in Water for People’s Sanitation as a Business program (2010-2014), which is funded by a US$ 5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Water for People has contracted Tools for Enterprise & Education Consultants (TEECs) to support pit emptying businesses in Lilongwe and Blantyre.

India, Bihar: Poo Highway

The high incidence of open defecation in the Indian state of Bihar is not due to a lack awareness about toilets, according to this new Water for People video. In their view, it’s more of a supply chain, marketing problem.

The toilets on offer are not particularly good.

Until recently, Water for People India had worked mainly in West Bengal state, but in 2011 the NGO expanded into Bihar, where it is collaborating with the local government.

The current sanitation coverage in Bihar is less than 25% with usage percentage much lower, according to the SWASTH (Sector Wide Approach to Strengthening Health) Programme web site. In the district where Water for People will be working, sanitation coverage is only 14%.

Related web site: Water for People – India

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sustainability Charter launched

On 27 July 2011, more than 20 leading international water and development organizations signed and launched the WASH Sustainability Charter. This Charter is a collaboratively-developed mission and set of guiding principles to advance lasting solutions in water, sanitation and hygiene education (WASH).  The Charter is available to read and endorse at www.WASHCharter.org.

Sanitation graveyard video featured on Blog Action Day

The Water for People video “Sanitation graveyard”, filmed at at Ayabaraya Primary School in Rwanda, features in “Beyond the Ribbon Cutting” written by blogger Jennifer Lentfer for Blog Action Day.

When “solutions” are delivered to disadvantaged people without sufficient thought about how community ownership, maintenance, and long-term access to water and sanitation will occur, here’s what can happen:

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year’s topic is water.

Rethinking schools-based programming

“Schools are graveyards of failed infrastructure”, says Water For People CEO Ned Breslin in his blog Rising Tide on 27 August 2010. To rectify this, Water For People is now promoting integrated water and sanitation programs that cater both for schools and communities. “We don’t help a school and not help a family”.

Water For People gets US$ 5.6 million Gates grant for Sanitation as a Business program

Denver-based charity Water For People has received a US$ 5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support their Sanitation as a Business program.

The four-year grant allows Water For People to test and scale-up sustainable sanitation services in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The program will combine profit incentives for small local companies and income generation programs for poor households and schools. The aim is bring about a shift from “unsustainable, subsidy-based sanitation programs toward sustainable, profitable sanitation services”. To bring about this shift, the program will employ the business principles of market research and segmentation as well as comprehensive community involvement and evaluation of results.

Water For People first began experimenting with Sanitation as a Business principles in Malawi, Africa in 2008. Since then, sanitation entrepreneurs have developed ongoing maintenance relationships with households to service over 1,000 latrines.

Read more about Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Read the full press release (Peter Mason, Water For People, 30 Aug 2010)

Central America: SWASH+ program expands to 150 more schools

Photo; Water For People

With new funds from the Inter-American Development Bank and The Coca-Cola Foundation, the SWASH+ program will provide safe drinking water, restroom facilities, and improved hygiene education to over 15,000 more students at 150 schools in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

SWASH+ (School Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Education Plus Community Impact) Central America is a regional of the Millennium Water Alliance (MWA) that is be implemented by the US NGOs Water For People, CARE and Catholic Relief Services. So far the program has provided school sanitation facilities to 17,331 students in 152 schools.

In Guatemala, SWASH+ is targeting 65 additional schools and communities in Guatemala. In each school, the program trains the Parent-Teacher Association and school director to build a water supply system. Training on water treatment is also provided. The community helps to build or renovate school restrooms.

Co-financing from local governments and communities is a key part of SWASH+.

Parents and students also participate in hygiene training that emphasizes the importance of handwashing to prevent disease.

UNICEF, ITT and the Global Water Challenge have also been key supporters of the SWASH+ program.

Related web site: SWASH+

Source: Water for People, 23 Aug 2010

Rising Tide Water/Sanitation Blog – Ned Breslin, Water for People

Rising Tide – A Blog by Ned Breslin

Ned Breslin, Water For People CEO, challenges conventional thinking and calls for transformative change within the water and sanitation sector.

Link – http://nedbreslin.tap.waterforpeople.org/

Rethinking Hydro‐Philanthropy: Smart Money for Transformative Impact

Full-text: Rethinking Hydro‐Philanthropy: Smart Money for Transformative Impact (pdf, 185KB)

Edward D Breslin, CEO, Water For People

Conclusion – People without improved water and sanitation services are not helped by bad programming, simplistic giving and a focus on short‐term results that counts beneficiaries immediately after implementation. Philanthropists can make a dramatic non‐financial contribution to people without safe water and hygienic sanitation by simply asking harder questions about how sustainability will be programmed for and measured, demanding long‐term results and requiring NGOs, and other development agencies to be held accountable over time as a condition before they invest in an NGO’s initiative. This means that monitoring will actually happen instead of being neglected by NGOs, and results over time will matter more than annual beneficiaries of new services.

The NGO sector will respond to this because NGOs are filled with tremendously smart and dedicated professionals who are currently responding to the philanthropic market. More investment in water and sanitation interventions without dramatically different results and metrics should no longer be accepted.

If philanthropists and NGOs spoke frankly and honestly about what needs to change to alter the dysfunctional philanthropic market and unsustainable programming that currently exists, in a way that focuses on smart investments and accountability for sustainable outcomes, then we really can eliminate
water and sanitation poverty worldwide and truly transform lives forever. And that would be a great story indeed!