WaterSHED – Rural Consumer Sanitation Adoption Study in Cambodia

Rural Consumer Sanitation Adoption Study: An Analyis of Rural Consumers in the Emerging Sanitation Market in Cambodia, 2014.

• Link

WaterSHED has published the findings from its comprehensive review of rural consumer sanitation adoption in Cambodia. The study evaluates WaterSHED’s Hands-Off sanitation marketing program, which was designed to catalyze the market for improved sanitation in rural Cambodia by stimulating household demand and improving the supply of affordable sanitation options for rural households. 

The study confirms that the WaterSHED program has resulted in a substantial acceleration in improved latrine coverage and usage in the study areas. Household consumers are now able to access an improved latrine more easily and more cheaply than before.

New distribution and sales mechanisms are increasing household awareness of and exposure to more affordable latrine products and increasing motivation to invest in an improved latrine.

Enterprises are demonstrating that they serve at least some segments of the previously unserved rural market.

Nonetheless, significant challenges still remain. The study reveals a number of opportunities to break down remaining barriers to uptake of improved latrines and to further evolve WaterSHED’s market-based approach.

Guy Hutton – Why Choosing the Preferred Sanitation Solution Should Be More Like Grocery Shopping

Guy Hutton – Why Choosing the Preferred Sanitation Solution Should Be More Like Grocery Shopping 

When we go to the supermarket, our decision-making is considerably aided by having the price, ingredients and source of goods clearly labeled. This allows us to rapidly compare the characteristics, perceived benefits, and price of different products to make what is usually an informed and instantaneous purchase decision.

When it comes to making investment choices for public programs, we do not traditionally have the same luxury of information. The full benefits and costs of those interventions, including the long-term costs to maintain and operate a service, are rarely understood or taken into account in the decision. As a result, public decisions are usually made based on the most visible costs (capital investment required from the public budget), historical choices and the political process.

To reduce the detrimental effects of these influences, we need to move public sector decision making more towards the supermarket model, and increase the availability of key information so that decisions can be more rational, consistent, and transparent.

Since 2007, the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), part of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice, has been attempting to put a price on sanitation by essentially understanding two sides of the same coin: what the costs of current inaction on sanitation are (i.e. how much poor sanitation costs households and the wider economy) and how much acting will cost (i.e. increasing access to sanitation services).

When it comes to acting, we need to understand the alternatives. What technology option best suits the preferences and local practices, available land, population density, disposable income, and willingness to pay of different population groups? What are the benefits of different technology options? And who is able to pay for the costs of behavior change, capital investment and sustained service delivery?

Read the complete post on the World Bank Water Blog, Jan 2015.

You can a join an ongoing discussion on this blog on the SuSanA Forum.

WSP – Economic Assessment of Sanitation Interventions in Southeast Asia: A Six Country Study Conducted in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Vietnam and Yunnan Province (China)

Economic Assessment of Sanitation Interventions in Southeast Asia:  A Six Country Study Conducted in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Vietnam and Yunnan Province (China) under the Economics of Sanitation Initiative, 2015. Water and Sanitation Program.

• Full text, pdf

Excerpts: The present study has presented evidence on the costs and benefits of sanitation improvements in different programmatic and geographical contexts in Southeast Asia. This evidence enables explicit comparison of sanitation options on the basis of their relative merits and thus informs both public and private decisions on sanitation investment.

The high socioeconomic returns of sanitation investment indicate that it should be promoted as a central development priority. The economic evidence generated in this study has demonstrated the importance of improved sanitation for a number of development outcomes, including public health, the natural environment, education, economic development, social outcomes, gender equality, and poverty alleviation. Improved evidence on the costs of sanitation and those potentially willing to pay for it, gives an evidence base for sanitation planners and providers on which to estimate the market size for sanitation goods and services.

World Bank – Promoting Handwashing and Sanitation Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Trial in Rural Tanzania

Promoting Handwashing and Sanitation: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Trial in Rural Tanzania, 2015. World Bank.

• Full text, pdf

Authors: Bertha Briceño, Aidan Coville, Sebastian Martinez

The association between hygiene, sanitation, and health is well documented, yet thousands of children die each year from exposure to contaminated fecal matter. At the same time, evidence on the effectiveness of at-scale behavior change interventions to improve sanitation and hygiene practices is limited.

This paper presents the results of two large-scale, government-led handwashing and sanitation promotion campaigns in rural Tanzania. For the campaign, 181 wards were randomly assigned to receive sanitation promotion, handwashing promotion, both interventions together, or neither. One year after the end of the program, sanitation wards increased latrine construction rates from 38.6 to 51 percent and reduced regular open defecation from 23.1 to 11.1 percent.

Households in handwashing wards show marginal improvements in handwashing behavior related to food preparation, but not at other critical junctures. Limited interaction is observed between handwashing and sanitation on intermediate outcomes: wards that received both handwashing and sanitation promotion are less likely to have feces visible around their latrine and more likely to have a handwashing station close to their latrine facility relative to individual treatment groups.

Final health effects on child health measured through diarrhea, anemia, stunting, and wasting are absent in the single-intervention groups. The combined-treatment group produces statistically detectable, but biologically insignificant
and inconsistent, health impacts. The results highlight the importance of focusing on intermediate outcomes of take-up and behavior change as a critical first step in large-scale programs before realizing the changes in health that sanitation and hygiene interventions aim to deliver.

Presentations from the 3rd International Conference on Faecal Sludge Management

SuSanA has developed a page which contains presentations from FSM3, the 3rd International Faecal Sludge Management Conference, Hanoi, Vietnam, January 2015.

Also, follow the interesting discussions about the conference on the SuSanA Forum.

Below is a partial listing of some of the presentations:

• Turning the tide on Fecal Sludge Management: Almud Weitz, Principal Regional Team Leader at Water and Sanitation Program East Asia & the Pacific and South Asia – World Bank, Indonesia
• Market Structuring of Fecal Sludge Management for the Benefit of Poor Households in Dakar: Mbaye Mbeguere, ONAS, Senegal
• On-site Sanitation Systems and Willingness-to-pay of Emptying in urban areas in Indonesia: Reini Siregar, Water and Sanitation Program World Bank, Jakarta, Indonesia 
• Septage Management: An option for improved sanitation in Tripura: Ashutosh Jindal, Urban Development Department, Government of Tripura, India
• Political economy analysis (PEA) of FSM services: Ian Ross, Oxford Policy Management, Oxford, United Kingdom
• A Technology Applicability Framework to enable sustainable sanitation technology introduction: Alison Parker, Cranfield Water Science institute, Cranfield University, Bedford, United Kingdom
• Status of Faecal Sludge Management in Botswana: Review of Policies and Practices: Phillimon T. Odirile, University of Botswana, Mopipi, Botswana

WASHplus Weekly: Focus on Fecal Sludge Management (FSM)

Issue 176| Jan 30, 2015 | Focus on Fecal Sludge Management (FSM)

This issue highlights the recent conference on fecal sludge management in Vietnam; many of the abstracts from the conference are now available. Also included are new reports and articles from IRC; Water For People; the International Institute for Environment and Development; and country reports from Senegal, Vietnam, and Zambia. Also included are links to FSM tools and innovative organizations working on FSM issues.

EVENTS

FSM3, 3rd International Faecal Sludge Management Conference, Hanoi, Vietnam, January 18–21, 2015. Conference website | Conference abstracts page set up by SuSanA
The purpose of this conference was to present innovative solutions to FSM issues. Also, Jonathan Annis from WASHplus made a presentation on low-cost technologies to improve traditional sludge practices in Madagascar. Link to WASHplus presentation.

REPORTS/ARTICLES

Achieving Systemic Change in Faecal Sludge Management, 2015. G Galli, IRC. Link
FSM is a critical element of sanitation in dense urban centers, but poor practices are causing disease outbreaks. The multiple actors, institutions, and organizations involved in urban sanitation can address the problem by acting in coordination to shift the focus from building infrastructure to providing and maintaining safe services under government leadership. This briefing note proposes a process for achieving transformational change.

Strengthening Public Sector Enabling Environments to Support Sanitation Enterprises, 2014. Water For People. Link
Water For People is piloting sanitation business approaches and seeks to discover under what conditions these approaches are successful. Public sector influence is one condition that has the potential to facilitate or hinder private sector sanitation endeavors. This study aims to understand: 1) how the public sector enabling environment can facilitate or hinder low-cost sanitation enterprises and 2) how NGOs can effectively engage the public sector to support sanitation businesses. Data were collected from Water For People staff and partners in nine countries, and summary case studies were coded to identify prevailing themes.

SACOSAN returns to Bangladesh in 2016

7th inter-country working group (ICWG) meeting of SACOSAN, 27 Jan 2015. Photo: Focus Bangla/Financial Express

A Bangladesh government official has disclosed that the 6th South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN-VI) will be held in Dhaka on 11 January 2016. Bangladesh hosted the first edition of SACOSAN in 2003.

Manjur Hossain, a senior secretary of the Local Government Division (LGD) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives was speaking at the 7th inter-country working group (ICWG) meeting of SACOSAN. The meeting was hosted by LGD from 27-28 January 2015 in Dhaka.

Also at the meeting was Md Akram Al Hossain, coordinator of the SACOSAN-VI secretariat and Joint Secretary, Upazila Branch at LGD.

Related website: SACOSAN-V

Source: 97 percent use hygienic sanitation, Dhaka Tribune, 28 Jan 2015 ; 97pc people brought under sanitation coverage, Financial Express, 28 Jan 2015