Orlando Hernandez – Behavioral Challenges and Potential Solutions to Reach Universal Sanitation Coverage

Behavioral Challenges and Potential Solutions to Reach Universal Sanitation Coverage by Orlando Hernandez, USAID/WASHplus Project and Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor, Global Health, Population and Nutrition (GHPN), FHI 360.

The comments below are from Dr. Hernandez’s participation at the World Water Forum 2015 and then posted to the Sanitation and Water for All website.

Behavior change specialists rely on frameworks to dissect a problem and define a strategy to address it. The Water Improvement Framework (WIF), previously named the Hygiene Improvement Framework (HIF) developed in connection to USAID WASH projects some 15 years ago, is one such framework. Given its openness and comprehensiveness, the WIF has stood the test of time. Other donors and implementation agencies are thinking along the same lines as there are other similar frameworks developed by WSP, SVN, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, among others.

The WIF is a three-legged stool which brings together: 1) supply, 2) demand, and 3) the enabling environment. It suggests that behavior change (BC) strategies are more than mere promotion, channels and messages. They bring a human dimension to the WASH sector, and when based on the WIF’s the three elements, it guides us to design, implement and evaluate WASH activities.  

Behavior change frameworks require us to segment our audiences as social groups involved in development are not monolithic. One obvious breakdown in sanitation is a split between urban, peri-urban and rural dwellers. The needs, preferences, sanitation practices and certainly resources of urban, peri-urban and rural populations may be different. With growing urbanization throughout the developing world, coverage in peri-urban areas represent a challenge, especially when we think of tenants living in crowded quarters with no services.

iDE Cambodia hits 100,000 toilet sales in 2 years

ide Infographic

iDE Cambodia has facilitated the sale of 100,000 Easy Latrines in two years through sanitation marketing, reaching an estimated 470,000 people, according to a June 14 press release.

The iDE Sanitation Marketing Scale Up (SMSU) project operates in seven Cambodian provinces. It started with a pilot project in 2009 and scaling-up began in September 2011. So far total latrine sales including the pilot is 118,000.

The average latrine coverage in the seven provinces where the project is taking place inceased by 11% to 40% over the two years since scale up began. Coverage for the poor increased 6% overall. In Kandal province alone, 18% of project-linked sales went to poor households, nearly doubling poor coverage in that province from 15%  to 29%.

The three-year SMSU project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Stone Family Foundation, and technically supported by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank. The project is supported by the Ministry of Rural Development.

For every latrine sold through a small business trained by iDE, another latrine is sold through a non-connected business, creating a ripple effect. The average latrine sells for US$ 41.50.

Cambodian “Easy Latrine” wins international design award

A low-cost pour-flush latrines, especially developed for a project in Cambodia, has won a prestigious international design award.

The ‘Easy Latrine’, designed by Jeff Chapin while on sabbatical from IDEO, was one of three winners named Best in Show by the jury of the 2010 IDEA awards. The International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) is an annual competition organised by IDSA, the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Chapin designed the ‘Easy Latrine’ at the request of International Development Enterprises (IDE) for the Sanitation Marketing Project that was launched in Cambodia in early October 2009, under funding from USAID and the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP).

Users and schematics for the award-winning IDE Easy Latrine. Photos: Jeff Chapin and IDE Cambodia.

Village masons can build ‘Easy Latrines’ themselves from locally available parts. It consists of a pan, a bucket of water with a ladle, and pipes to connect a hut to a latrine buried in the ground. The latrine itself has three receptacles made of rings of concrete bound by the ash of rice husks — material that’s readily at hand and much cheaper than cement. Once a receptacle is full, it can be capped, and after two years, the sediment can be used as compost.

One latrine costs about $25 and more than 2,500 have already been purchased and installed by villagers. The aim to install 10,000 latrines by April 2011, all without subsidy as prescribed by the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach that the project is following.

Local producers are receiving training in sanitation and hygiene education, latrine production, and basic business and sales management. They are asked to invest a minimum of US$500 and produce three latrines per day.  A local mason—having seen his monthly income jump from US$50 to nearly US$400 in a matter of weeks—decided to invest more by purchasing another trailer for his motorbike in order to deliver more latrines to villages. He has also begun to sell his latrines to supply shops in the region as a secondary means of distribution. One supply shop is even selling the latrine core without making a profit, as they expect to earn their profits from the above-ground components that they will sell in conjunction with the core.

The IDEA jurors loved the clear thinking behind every aspect of the design of the ‘Easy Latrine’. Chapin and his team “understood how to bring the idea to the community, how the product would be made, and how it would be sustained,” says jury head John Barratt. “It’s an integration of strategy, service design, and product design.”

Source: Fast Company, 1 Jul 2010 ;  Aaron Langton, IDE Blog, 24 Jun 2010 ; WSP, Sanitation Marketing Takes Off in Cambodia, WSP, 2009