Hi Leonie,

Thanks for the subject and factsheets, very interesting.
I had this discussion on the ecosanres form a few years ago and I'm always greatful to see new examples of sustainable business worldwide.
However I see you speaking about sanitation marketing in a bit of a shy way, I mean I feel in your publication that if there's no proper re-use of the treated excreta then it can't be mentioned, I think it's a bit sad. Maybe it is because you talk only about projects from members of Susana, in which case I would be totally wrong.

Anyway, I beleive it would be interesting to mention one of the Cambodian sanitation marketing projects which together represent more than 25 000 latrine sold sustainibly last year.
From IDE :
www.makingsanitationeasy.com/index.php?o...icle&id=20&Itemid=34
From Watershed/lienaid :
www.watershedasia.org/sanitation-marketing/

and the great compilation of documents from washplusweekly on the subject :
us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ed50820bda8...5f0b49f&e=03a7c6b499

I agree on the fact that probably very few people in these programs will purchase a second pit and use them alternatvely to reuse safely the sanitized sludge but double pit pour flush latrines should still be considered as eco-san if well used.

I hope I wasn't too critical when I actually really enjoyed reading your factsheet Leonie, thanks again for sharing.

Best Regards,

Ben

Hi Trevor,

I agree that a new thread would be useful. I would however suggest discussing not only donor vs. business effectiveness but also the role of governments in this context. For example:
Who is able to carry out effective marketing campaigns? Are private businesses able to carry out marketing campaigns that trigger a behavior change or is it only realistic to expect that they can advertise a certain product/technology but need to be supported by parallel governmental campaigns?

Are businesses able to create markets for sanitation products or would it be more effective that the government regulates a certain standard of sanitation?

What do you think - are these aspects somehow similar to what you had in mind?

Regards
Leonie

Hi Leonie and working group 9

The factsheet brings up the discussion about donor versus business effectiveness.
Before adding further fuel to this discussion, I was wondering whether it may be better to start a different thread in this regard. As a really constructive debate could arise out of this, and although that would be great, it may distract the required attention that is needed to resolve the open questions and issues still in the factsheet 9 on Sanitation as a business!

Let me know ASAP.
Regards
Trevor

Hi Trevor,
That’s a very valid point. Unfortunately, there seem to be very few well documented experiences of sanitation entrepreneurs. I don’t have an example of an individual entrepreneur but UNICEF had a Rural Sanitation Marts (RSM) programme starting in 1990 in India (state of Uttar Pradesh). However, the evaluation of the programme indicated that the RSM concept has not been as successful as initially hoped as many of the RSMs turned out to be not economically viable. You can find a description of the programme in:

Kolsky, P. et al., 2000. Learning from Experience: evaluation of UNICEF's Water and Environmental Sanitation Programme in India,1966-1998. New York: UNICEF. www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/files/IND_2000_800.pdf (p.48)

Best regards

Leonie

Hi all

Whilst reviewing the WG 9a factsheet, I will be raising some interesting questions as I come across them in a number of posts. In addition I shall be adding a few opinions here and there too.

In my first post I was wanting to ask if anyone had further examples of social entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs in general that launched businesses in the 1990's in the sanitation area in developing countries?

As in the factsheet this paragraph appears in the introduction on page 1 and is still rather vague:
"Applying the market based approach in developing countries began to take root in the late 1990's, when a diverse group of social entrepreneurs started launching projects by exploring creative and income generating solutions to inadequate waste management, and addressing water and sanitation deficiencies through social enterprise business models."

There is only one example in the factsheet, namely "The Clean Shop" started almost sixteen years ago by Trevor Mulaudzi, that supports the above paragraph.

Please post some more examples here in the forum.
Looking forward to your posts!
Trevor

Dear working group members,

I am happy to inform you that we have received further contributions for the factsheet.

Dorothee contributed some information about the activities of international centre for water management services - cewas as an exciting example for the support for business start-ups in the field of sustainable sanitation and water resource management. I think this information broadens the perspective of the factsheet, since it adds an example for capacity development and knowledge transfer for sanitation businesses. Please read the new paragraph in the attached new version of the factsheet.

Still, there are a lot of comments open for discussion. Please make further comments and/or post suggestions, so that we can finalise the factsheet soon.

Thank you all for your contributions so far.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards

Leonie

Dear working group members,

I am happy to inform you that we have received further contribution for the factsheet. I have taken the liberty to incorporate some of the obvious comments. I have, however, left those which require further discussion and debate amongst the working group members.

Please feel free to make comments and post suggestions.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards

Leonie

(Intern at GIZ "Sustainable sanitation - ecosan" program)

Dear members of working group 9a,
As you may know we are currently in the process of finalizing the factsheet book. We are preparing a factsheet book that will comprise of 13 thematic factsheets. Therefore we would like to invite you to discuss and give further input to factsheet 9a.

We would be delighted if we could receive some further input for the factsheet as soon as possible so that we could have a final version and print the book.

We would like to print the final version preferably end October, early November.


Within factsheet 9a "Ikotoilets" is featured as a successful example of Sanitation as a business, we had the pleasure to receive further details on this project by its founder David Kuria. We incorporated all the new details into the factsheet and adapted some information which was formerly unclear. We are aware that some of the information is very detailed and it is therefore open to discussion which details are relevant. However, we saw the opportunity to incorporate detailed information of a successful sanitation business into the factsheet as a means to increase transparency and share knowledge for future projects - please tell us what you think. Thanks to Trevor for following up with David Kuria from EcoTact.

Other open points for discussion are as follows:
We have included a footnote to the Grameen Bank in order to take into account the current controversial media reports, which have discredited the Grameen Bank.
We are looking for a reference for the first sentence of example 2 of business approaches: "On-site sanitation (septic tanks and pit latrines) in cities of developing countries is used by about one-third of the world’s population" if you are aware where we could find a source for the cited proportion please let us know.
There are some unclear points in example 4: Mobile UDDT business in the Cuddalore inner-city in India. Please check the comments.

In the conclusion household toilets currently fall into the responsibility of individuals; however we might want to discuss the importance of public regulation and involvement of governments.

I look forward to your feedback - please find the factsheet draft attached.
If you would like to send me your feedback directly please email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Best regards
Leonie

(intern at GIZ "Sustainable sanitation - ecosan" program)