Sustainability Planning and Monitoring

ACHIEVING SUSTAINED SANITATION FOR THE POORMajor findings and learningemerging from the studies1. Sanitation coverage figures generally maskedthe fact that the poor households withincommunities, which constituted between 20-54 percent of all households in the samplevillages in the three countries, are not gainingaccess to sanitation. Sanitation programseverywhere have tended to promote only onetype of technology/design of facility at a fixedcost, and have not developed options speciallysuited to the poorer sections of communities.2. Demand-responsive approaches are essentialto increasing sustained access to sanitation,since sanitation facilities tend to have thecharacteristics of consumer products.Household latrines that people build at theirown cost are of higher quality, prove moresatisfying to their users and are maintainedmuch better than latrines that are subsidizedor provided free of charge.3. Demand for and ownership of sanitationfacilities are not synonymous with improvedcommunity sanitation behavior, i.e., consistentuse of safe excreta disposal practices by allmembers of the household. A very highproportion of latrine-owning householdscontinue to occasionally use unsafe, outdoordefecation practices.4. “Health improvements” are not the mostimportant motivating factor for people toacquire household latrines. Sanitationpromotion methods currently in use are notutilizing other, locally prevalent motivations foracquiring sanitation improvements.5. Women are markedly more interested inacquiring household latrines, but programshave not adequately targeted promotionalactivities to women.6. Even though some key hygiene behaviors areuniversally important, their promotion methodsneed to be varied because risky hygienepractices take many different forms in differentcultures and vary from one community toanother. Communities usually know best whattriggers behavior change among theirmembers.7. Time frames for sanitation projects need to belonger than 4-5 years, because measurablechanges in community sanitation behavior onlyhappen after a viable, self-sustaining marketfor sanitation services has developed, i.e.,demand has been generated and supplymechanisms have grown to service the demand.Changes in community awareness of improvedsanitation as a more desirable way of life alsorequires substantial population coverage to begenerated – which takes time.142