Viet Nam: research-based campaign messaging is critical for sustaining handwashing behaviour change

Using data from formative research to focus messaging on mothers’ aspirations for their children and fine-tuning activities based on feedback from the field and household survey data have been key to developing and implementing a handwashing with soap behavior change program in Vietnam.

A new Learning Note, Vietnam: A Handwashing Behavior Change Journey for the Caretakers’ Program published by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), describes the steps that were taken to design, implement, and monitor the program to aid program managers in developing other handwashing and hygiene promotion efforts.

Working closely with the Woman’s Union, the program’s activities in Vietnam reached 540 communes in 10 provinces. The project also trained more than 15,000 community motivators who reached more than 1.76 million women through interpersonal communications activities. As the Learning Note reports, these activities evolved over time based on information from the monitoring systems.

“As the target audiences move beyond knowledge to intention to handwash with soap, behavior change messages must also be modified,” the report found, adding that as the project progressed, opportunities arose to “fine-tune the interpersonal communications activities based on feedback from the field and from the household monitoring data.”

India, Karnataka: communication campaign helps realise sustainable water supply in small towns

When three small towns in the state of Karnataka, India attempted to provide continuous water supply to their citizens through a public-private partnership, they faced disbelief even ridicule. A sustained and strategic communication campaign over several years finally enabled the Karnataka Urban Water Supply Improvement Project (KUWASIP) to succeed with people’s support. Now, the citizens of these three towns – Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga and Begaum – benefit from 24/7 water supply through the .

This best practice was produced as a short movie titled “Overcoming Resistance and Initiating Change through Communications” by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) in partnership with the Administrative Staff College of India and is part of a training curriculum for city managers and policy-makers.

KUWASIP was jointly funded by the World Bank and the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC). In 2009, KUIDFC received a National Urban Water Award for the project in the category

Related web site: KUIDFC – Karnataka Urban Water Supply Improvement Project (KUWASIP)

Bangladesh – Webinar: Investigating Long-term Sustainability of Rural Sanitation in Bangladesh, 21 July 2011

This webinar presentation is based on findings from a Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) study of 50 local governments that were declared 100% sanitized/open defecation free almost five years ago. Researchers found that almost 90 percent of households in the areas studied have sustained use of a latrine that adequately confines feces, but that hygienic maintenance is relatively poor.

Date: Thursday, July 21, 2011, 8:30-10:00 EST/ 13:30-15:00 GMT
Venue: Virtual, via AdobeConnect, Click ‘Enter as a Guest’, Type your full name and click ‘Enter Room’

To learn about the WSP study,  see the full Technical Report  or Research Brief.

For more information about the seminar read see the full announcement

India: inadequate sanitation costs the equivalent of 6.4 percent of GDP

Inadequate sanitation costs India US$ 53.8 billion, which is equivalent to 6.4 percent of India’s GDP in 2006, according to a new report [1] from the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP).

The study analyzed the evidence on the adverse economic impacts of inadequate sanitation, which include costs associated with death and disease, accessing and treating water, and losses in education, productivity, time, and tourism. The findings are based on 2006 figures, although a similar magnitude of losses is likely in later years.

The report indicates that premature mortality and other health-related impacts of inadequate sanitation, were the most costly at US$ 38.5 billion, 71.6 percent of total impacts, followed by productive time lost to access sanitation facilities or sites for defecation at US$ 10.7 billion, 20 percent, and drinking water-related impacts at US$ 4.2 billion, 7.8 percent.

“The cost is more than I expected,” UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene chief Clarissa Brocklehurst said in an interview with news site Bloomberg. “Yet, if you know the scale of open defecation in India, it’s not all that surprising.”

Viet Nam: sustainability of rural sanitation marketing

Access to sanitary toilets continues to rise in coastal communities in Viet Nam years after a successful pilot project ended.

ADCOM Vietnam, WSP [Water and Sanitation Program] and IRC [International Water and Sanitation Centre] wrote a case study [1] on the sustainability of the rural sanitation marketing (RSM) pilot project in Vietnam. This pilot project was very successful. Between January 2003 and June 2006, over a period of 34 months, households in the 30 pilot communes constructed or upgraded 15,149 toilets, an average of 3,787 toilets per year. This was four times more than during the conventional programme. Of the owners, an average of 16% was below the poverty line, against an average of 19% in the target population. Almost three years after the end of the pilot project, the case study team went back to eight communes to look at the sustainability of the approach and the results. In all study communes, all but one of the promoters had continued the promotion of sanitary toilets and the end of open defecation without incentives, be it at a lower intensity. The local private sector had meanwhile developed further. They now offered a larger range of products with varying prices and also gave various types of credit to customer.

Sanitation Leaflet. Photo: IDE/WSP (fig. 13 in WSP publication)

A number of lessons can be drawn from the case study both for Viet Nam and other countries.

“Long-term sustainability of the sanitation marketing approach in Vietnam—and elsewhere—seems to depend on several factors,” observes report co-author Jacqueline Devine, senior social marketing specialist at WSP. “These factors include providing ongoing budgeting for market research, production of promotional materials, and institutionalized promoter and provider training; adding Community-Led Total Sanitation to eradicate open defecation; and developing a more poor-specific marketing strategy.”

Read the summary of the findings of the RSM study

See also a diagram and two presentations on the RSM pilot project

[1] Sijbesma, C., Truong, T.X. and Devine, J. (2010). Case study on sustainability of rural sanitation marketing in Vietnam. (Global Scaling Up Sanitation Project. Technical paper). Washington, DC, USA, Water and Sanitation Program. xi, 78 p. : 8 boxes, 31 fig., 16 tab. 37 ref. Download full report [PDF, 4.72 MB]

A presentation discussing the case study’s findings and recommendations will be streamed LIVE via the Web on Thursday, May 6, 8 – 10 am (U.S. Eastern Standard Time). The streamed Webcast will be available to the public through the following URL (activated during event only): mms://wbmswebcast1.worldbank.org/live.

Source: IRC – Rural Sanitation Marketing in Vietnam, 03 May 2010 ; WSP, 30 Apr 2010

Bangladesh: microfinance agencies enable entrepreneurs to provide more sanitation technology options

Over the last five years in Bangladesh, more than 90 million people have moved away from open defecation. While 88 percent of the population now have access to, and are using latrines, ensuring the quality and sustainability of these latrines is crucial. Without ready access to micro-credit and in the absence of well marketed technology options, many households are under pressure to move from very low cost to very high cost technology options with a significant debt burden.

In July 2009, the Association for Social Advancement: ASA (a leading Micro-Finance Institute) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Dhaka Ahsania Mission (a national non-governmental organization) to provide loans at low interest to local small entrepreneurs for producing, marketing, and promoting appropriate sanitation technology options.

Dhaka Ahsania Mission will pilot the new financing mechanism in Jamalpur Sadar Upazilla (a sub district) with trained entrepreneurs. The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) facilitated this process of linking local private manufacturers with micro-finance agencies to bring finance and technology together to make available a range of affordable sanitation options for households.

Source: WSP Access, Oct 2009

Pakistan: stopping open defecation through behavioural change

“I remember the time when I’d get up to the chirping of the birds, walk across to a nearby field, relieve myself in the fresh, open air -undisturbed – go to the nearby canal, take a bath and then come home to a hearty breakfast… before going off to work in the fields,” said an old farmer.

“This is the mind-set against which we are working,” said Wasim Aslam, an activist striving to make 564 villages in Pakistan open defecation free (ODF).

Aslam is from Lodhran, one of the implementers of the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) campaign initiated by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP), and one 1,500 activists who have been trained to get the CLTS movement off the ground.

[...] The 1,500 trained activists are mostly men, but their success is in large measure due to the women behind them. Irfanullah, a local counsellor in Peshawar, said that had it not been for his wife, he would not have made any headway.

[...] “We want people to need a toilet. We don’t just give it to them as they may not necessarily use it. We work on their psychology,” said Aslam, adding that CLTS was first introduced in Pakistan in 2004.

[...] According to Javed Ali Khan, director-general of the Ministry of Environment, ODF initiatives have benefited about 1.12 million people. The practice of open defecation in rural areas came down from about 74 percent of the rural population in 1990, to 45 percent by 2006.

According to the Ministry of Environment, 73 percent of the population now has access to a latrine – 96 percent in urban areas, and 62 percent in rural areas.

CLTS is now included in the national sanitation policy, said [World Bank sanitation specialist] Alrai.

Source: IRIN, 12 Dec 2008

Pakistan: Municipality Heralds Water and Sanitation Reforms

The Chitral Municipality in the extreme north of Pakistan announced a reward of half a million Pakistani rupees (US$6,550) for the first Union that attained Open Defecation Free (ODF) status. Previously, sanitation schemes were put on priority and allocated 20 percent of annual development funds of the municipality to benefit 14 unions with a population of nearly 200,000 people. The resolution was passed following a presentation on Community Led Total Sanitation by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) to the municipality.

The municipal administration has also developed plans for the reduction of non-revenue water [...] already bills for water connections have been computerized [and all] domestic water connections [...] are metered. [B]illing at flat rates [will be replaced by] average tariff billing for households where meters were non-functional.

A governance framework is [planned to help] for the Water and Sanitation Unit [carry out] the reforms.

Source: Access, Nov 2008

Bangladesh: Workshop on water supply, sanitation services held

Local Government Division, Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD&C) organised a daylong national dissemination workshop on ‘Horizontal learning for strengthening capacities of local government institutions on improving water supply and sanitation services in Bangladesh’ [...] on Thursday [30 Oct 2008].

The Horizontal Learning is a peer-to-peer learning process that was initialed by the Local Government Institutions (LGIs) in Bangladesh in November 2007 [...] facilitated by the local Government Division of LGRD&C and supported by the Water and Sanitation Program South Asia (WSP-SA).

Other partners include the Development Association for Self-Reliance, Communication and Health (DASCOH) with financial support form the Swiss Agency for Development Co-operation (SDC), Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), WaterAid Bangladesh with assistance from its local NGOs- Shushilon, Green Hill and Mohideb Jubo Samaj Kalyan Samity (MJSKS), Plan Bangladesh, Dhaka Ahsania Mission and the NGO Forum.

Emphasising on people’s participation [...] is a key for replicating good practices [it was said]

The Horizontal learning programme has initiated a platform for scaling up of existing good practices while incorporating them into a broader policy dialogue.

Source: Daily Star, 01 Nov 2008