Dear SuSanA community,

Sanitation as a business is becoming more and more acknowledged. Three fundamental reasons for that might be the following ones stated by the Toilet Board Coalition (TBC):

1. The global crisis cannot be solved with purely philanthropic approaches - this would require tens of billions of grants every year (ref: WHO global costs estimates) - hence it requires sustainable models that will attract investments and motivate other private players to replicate.
2. Large corporations bring distinctive know-how and resources in a range of areas including R&D, marketing, and supply chain management.
3. The TBC expects that by tapping into customers’ aspirations it will be able to drive longer-term adoption, usage, and maintenance behaviors than philanthropic programs, which treat them only as beneficiaries.

However, the TBC also learned that BoP sanitation initiatives cannot be business-as-usual. In most cases, markets do not exist yet, and creating them requires innovation, collaboration, and public authorities’ support.
(above cited from Creating alliances to accelerate commercially viable sanitation, AFD, p. 19)

Read more about commercially viable sanitation and lessons learned from the TBC and it's market based initiatives here in the SuSanA Library www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2538 and discuss with us here in this thread.

Have you learned similar lessons?


Cheers,

Raphaela
(On behalf of the SuSanA Secretariat)