Dear Pebbles

Thank you for the informative and educative links you provided.I have learnt that there is a big Market in the BOP and businesses and NGOs can collaborate to develop this market into one which is viable and can end up in the formal economy.

Interesting facts gathered are that , where ever one goes, there is trade. Even in the poor of the poorest, one is able to see a tuckshop or a small shop of FMCGs trading there. Now its also normal to see phone shops and internet service providers operating anywhere.The competitiveness of these industries is on price and strong marketing drives to make the product available and accessible.

In the water and sanitation industry, there is a lot of technological innovations and the products without doubts are very essential for basic survival. There is need for a paradygm shift in trating the BOP as a charity case in Water and Sanitation while other industries are making inroads and improving lives and the economy at large.

I think the BOP market can be tapped as a growth strategy by Businesses with a strategic vision. There is surely a lot of informal trade that is off record in the BOP. Consider an African set up where there is almost no one without a rural background, which therefore means that in one way or the other they support their families at home or in rural areas.

I am interested in knowing which businesses in oue water and sanitation sector are making in roads into these market. I would also love know how or which NGOs are supporting businesses which want to uplift the living standards of the BOP by offering sustainable competitive water and sanitation products at the door step of the BOP market.

Regards

Aaron

Hi, great that you are interested and asking questions about private sector involvement in water and sanitation. You are completely right in your observation that in order for water and sanitation services to be sustainable they cannot simply be subsidised by NGOs. It is critical that the private sector is supported in the development of a water and sanitation market that can provide products and services that are affordable and meet the needs of lower income consumers. This is already beginning to happen and there are some great resources out there that can help with this. Some really great resources are:

www.wsp.org/wsp/toolkit/toolkit-home

www.wri.org/publication/the-next-4-billion

www.enterprise-development.org/page/maki...ts-work-for-the-poor

Many water and sanitation projects are now being designed and run jointly by people with a WASH background and people with a business background. The links above will lead you to lots of different publications with more details on projects that have employed a market based approach.

I hope this helps!

hi 181976,
strange name... seems to come from the future. Well, I would apreciate to learn from you, if you could give us some ideas from your perspective would be very intersting. Maybe some coments on some of the ideas discussed or issues you are missing etc.
Thanks
Christoph

I am new on the platform but have been following discussions very closely. I am a marketer by profession. I have seen discovered that most of the work that is being done to the marginalised is through NGOs or Governments. But the challange with this is, the life after the NGO pulls out is not certain.

Private companies persue profits and would earnestly want to improve the bottomline in anywhere. But in the water and sanitation sector , the most affected live on a dollar or less a day.Hence the biggest market for sanitation products is the bottom of the pyramid.

The following link is a sad story of whats happening in Zimbabwe www.zimeye.org/?p=45444&cpage=1.

Everytime there are such outbreaks, the NGOs get in first and help.Private companies can certainly corporate with NGOs and Governments to curb this. But we all know businesses need money, how can these three parties coorparate not to manage an outbreak, but to manage and avoid such emergencies?

I have seen that there is too much to learn on this platform and i know i will learn a lot from this platform.

In as much as there are many scientific research being done, i think there is also need to look at how sustainable and for how long eg if there is no funding can one continue with the research.

Another observation is a lot of the sanitation programmes are implemented by engineers and the involvement of business and marketing experts is ellusive in all the literature i have come across.

I have so much interest in the sector but my approach is not from an engineering backgroud but a business and marketing persipective and considering the nature of the big market which is the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Can someone help educate me?

Golden Aaron