Promoting Latrine Sales in CLTS Interventions through Integrated Sanitation Marketing – USAID ACCES

LEARNING BRIEF: Promoting Latrine Sales in CLTS Interventions through Integrated Sanitation Marketing. USAID ACCES, January 2020.

USAID/ACCES has found that hygiene and sanitation marketing is effective in generating demand for latrines and contributes to sanitation market development in both rural and peri-urban communities.

Key ACCES success factors include high levels of community engagement, active community leaders through the VMC model, and innovative financing mechanisms.

Below are recommendations derived from USAID/ACCES’ experience:

• Establish fundamental success criteria to use in CLTS site selection.
• Develop sanitation product models in advance through participatory approaches to ensure products are well adapted to CLTS sites.
• Ensure a thorough mapping exercise to prevent targeting villages with active subsidized latrine projects.
• Ensure sufficient locally-based human resources, in both quantity and quality, ideally: two community-level agents for each group of 5 – 6 villages, one to manage the CLTS/SBCC activities and the other to manage the income-generating activities (IGA)/financing activities.
• Integrate existing community members and networks into the latrine marketing process (e.g. community leaders, women’s groups, community-based organizations, local entrepreneurs and service providers
• Broker lending via microfinance institutions to pre-finance latrine purchases.
• Train local networks to promote latrine sales to groups.
• Include IGA training activities in the project to better support women’s groups in CLTS communities to generate income, which can be used to purchase latrines.
• Encourage women’s groups in CLTS communities to promote Sagal latrines, to provide financing, and to participate in IGA training.
• Establish a relationship between local health workers and community-based agents so that patients who do not have adequate hygiene and sanitation facilities at their homes can be referred by the health workers to the project actors.

Webinar: Examining the Sustainability of the Millennium Water and Sanitation Program (PEPAM/USAID) in Senegal

Webinar: Examining the Sustainability of the Millennium Water and Sanitation Program (PEPAM/USAID) in Senegal. Globalwaters.org, November 11, 2019. 

This evaluation addresses the Millennium Water and Sanitation Program (PEPAM/USAID) in Senegal. Implemented from 2009–2014 by Research Triangle Institute and a consortium of partners, PEPAM/USAID aimed to improve sustainable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in four regions of Senegal.

About the PEPAM Evaluation

This evaluation assessed PEPAM/USAID’s implementation approaches to understand the extent to which increased access to WASH services was sustained several years after the activity ended and why or why not these interventions endured over time.

In November and December 2018, an evaluation team (ET) conducted observations of 169 water points (WPs); water quality testing of 105 functional WPs; 514 water user surveys; 617 household sanitation/hygiene surveys with observations; and 56 qualitative interviews with government officials, implementers, local entrepreneurs, water committees, and community members.

Read the complete article.

Household survey: hygiene and sanitation behavior as well as willingness to pay in rural Senegal

Household survey: hygiene and sanitation behavior as well as willingness to pay in rural Senegal, 2015. 

• Full text, pdf

Water and Sanitation Program.

The indicators for access to drinking water in Senegal suggest that 32% of the rural population have a piped connection on their premises while 35% cover their needs from other improved sources. This means that 33% of the population still satisfies their needs from unimproved sources, including 1% from surface water (WHO/UNICEF, JMP, 2015).

Access to water is also fundamental to good hygiene behavior, notably for washing hands. However, in rural areas, dedicated hand washing stations have been observed in 24.8% of all households. Among the members of these households, only 44.6% used water and soap for hand washing; 18.7% used water only and 35.2% had neither water nor soap or any other detergent to wash their hands (EDS, 2014).

With regard to sanitation, important efforts need to be made in Senegal as in the rural area, 34% of the population have access to improved sanitation; 42% use unimproved latrines (including 8% who share latrines) and 24% practice open defecation (OD; WHO/UNICEF, JMP, 2015). Hygiene and sanitation are thus priorities for the government of Senegal, as demonstrated by the inauguration of the Programme d’Eau Potable et d’Assainissement du Millénaire (PEPAM, Millennium Drinking Water and Sanitation Program).

 

Global Sanitation Fund Field Trip in Senegal – Interesting points and reflections by Jamie Myers

By Jamie Myers, Research Officer at the CLTS Knowledge Hub

Photo: Alma Felic/WSSCC

Last week in the run up to AfricaSan I joined a Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) field trip and learning event in the Matam region, Senegal. Along with GSF programme managers and Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) National Coordinators, we visited different villages where local NGOs have been triggering communities. Matam, in the north east of Senegal separated from Mauritania by the Senegal River, has a population of over 550,000 of which 98% are Muslim. In the region, 47.2% practice open defecation.

Following the field trip I also joined a sharing and learning event in Dakar where executing agencies presented the work they had been undertaking in their own countries.

Throughout the week there were a number of interesting points. The ones I found most interesting were use of religious leaders, support mechanisms for the most vulnerable and ways to change and sustain the hygienic management of child faeces. All three are discussed in more detail below.

Religion  

As mentioned above, in Matam 98% of the population are Muslim. The sub-grantees in Senegal have made sure to not just gain the support from local Imams but make sure they play a central role in the intervention. Imams in some of the villages we visited are involved in post-triggering and post-open-defecation free (ODF) activities through their participation in village sanitation and hygiene communities. The use of religious leaders to promote sanitation and hygiene messages appears to have been very effective for collective behaviour change and hopefully the sustainability of ODF villages.

From country presentations in Dakar I learnt that a similar approach is being used in Togo and Nigeria where messages from the Koran and the Bible are used to promote hygienic messages.

In addition, it was also interesting to hear that in one village in Senegal a demonstration latrine had been set up at the mosque – a place frequented mostly by men who are often harder to convince about the benefits of stopping open defecation.

Improved latrine funding mechanism for the most vulnerable

In some communities solidarity funds have been set up. There is a registration fee along with a fee collected each month when members meet. The fund can be used for the construction of new toilets and maintenance of existing toilets for those who need it. In two villages we visited, the funds had been used to build four toilets for the most vulnerable households in the community. Over the whole project area 60 improved latrines have been built through these funds over the past two years.

I learnt that this idea had been taken from another non-sanitation related development programme that was already underway in the region. It shows that it is worth investing time into thinking more about successful programmes in different sectors and thinking about how community-led total sanitation (CLTS) and those working on sanitation and hygiene could borrow and adapt effective initiatives from others.

It is worth noting that the communities visited had the perfect environment for this kind of activity. They were very tightknit homogenous communities.

Read the full article on the WSSCC AfricaSan 4 blog. 

Engaging communities in Matam, Senegal

wsscc

By Alma Felic and Okechukwu Umelo

Last week, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) family, including Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) programme managers and WSSCC National Coordinators, visited rural communities in the region of Matam, Senegal. It was an unprecedented opportunity to engage with communities and hear about their successes and challenges related to water, sanitation and hygiene. Browse through the photos and captions below to learn more.

Achieving ODF status

Photo: Okechukwu Umelo/WSSCC

Photo: Okechukwu Umelo/WSSCC

The village of Belly Thiowi became open-defecation free (ODF) thanks to efforts led by communities and supported by GSF implementing agencies through behavior change approaches. The first photo shows the situation prior to reaching ODF status – multiple defecation zones are drawn in red between houses and trees. The second photo shows the community after achieving ODF status, with no visible open defecation zones.

Young members of the community are activated to…

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Oxfam – Proposals to design, develop sanitation system for flood areas

Oxfam America – International call for Proposals to design and develop an innovative sanitation technology system for flood and flood-prone areas by firms or companies.

Background – Oxfam America is an international NGO, and member of the Oxfam International confederation which operates in more than 90 countries throughout the world working on both development and humanitarian projects. It is one of the leading humanitarian organizations in the field of water, sanitation and public health.

OXFAM America has recently received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the project entitled “Improving sanitation conditions for the most vulnerable households in the flooded and flood-prone areas of Pikine and Guediawaye, Dakar, Senegal“.

The call for tenders is initiated on December 16th ,2013 for a 45 day term. Therefore, the deadline for submitting proposals is January 30th , 2014 at 12.00.

• Download Proposal, pdf

Behavioral Determinants of Handwashing with Soap in Senegal and Peru: Emergent Learning

A new Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) Learning Note found that beliefs and ease of access to soap and water were correlated with handwashing with soap behaviors for given proxy measures among mothers and caretakers in Peru and Senegal.

“Behavioral Determinants of Handwashing with Soap Among Mothers and Caretakers: Emergent Learning from Senegal and Peru,” is based on survey data from nearly 3,500 households in Peru and 1,500 households in Senegal. This data was analyzed using FOAM, a conceptual framework developed by WSP to help identify factors that might facilitate or impeded handwashing with soap practices at critical times.

The analysis revealed that the impact of different determinants varies depending on the chosen proxy measure, such as the presence of a handwashing station or its distance from kitchen or latrine facilities. Given this variability, the Learning Note found that program managers must clearly define the exact behavior they seek to improve before choosing which determinant to focus on in their formative research.

Developing a Decentralized Performance Monitoring System

Large-scale projects that engage multiple government and non-government agencies entail specific considerations when designing and implementing a management information system (MIS) to support performance monitoring. Training and independent evaluation are key.

These and other insights are summarized in a new Learning Note from the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), Developing a Decentralized Performance Monitoring System in Senegal, by Seydou Koita, based on an MIS system developed to support the Global Scaling Up Handwashing Project in Sengal.

WSP – Financing Household On-Site Sanitation for the Poor

Financing Household On-Site Sanitation for the Poor, 2011. Water and Sanitation Program

Link to full-text

Key Lessons

Public funding can trigger significantly increased access to household sanitation. Public investments of varying forms enabled an absolute increase in the fraction of the target population gaining access to sanitation, which varied between 20 and 70 percent. Each of the programs enabled significant numbers of people to improve their sanitation—from the largest (more than 21 million gained access in Maharashtra) to the smallest (more than 140,000 in Ecuador). Although sanitation projects have earned a reputation as difficult and often ineffective, there is compelling evidence that government investment can yield results.

The different financing strategies adopted had a profound influence on equity, scale, sustainability, levels of service, and costs. No project represented a “silver bullet” approach that can be replicated globally: different models will be more appropriate based on specific project objectives. One indicator of the effectiveness of public finance use is the number of households gaining basic access per US$1,000 of public funding. Like most indicators, this ration cannot tell the whole story by itself because both the levels of service offered and the costs varied between projects. Nevertheless, it is revealing that in rural Bangladesh, US$1,000 of public investments resulted in improved sanitation for 135 households, while in Senegal the same public funding only served 1.6 households with improved sanitation.

New WSP/World Bank report shows catalytic potential of factoring political economy into sanitation investments

A better understanding of a county’s political and social processes and entities that determine the extent and nature of investments in sanitation could catalyze a sharp increase in numbers of people with access, especially for the poor, according to a new report released by the World Bank and the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP).

Recent World Bank research shows that the current limited focus on sanitation is driven largely by political motivation in the context of competing demands for resources, and to a lesser extent by technical or economic considerations.

Based on an analysis of experiences in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Senegal, The Political Economy of Sanitation, proposes an approach to address the political economy of sanitation in a given country in order to more effectively advocate with policy makers to invest more and to better target services for poor people.