The second paper in the series: Financing sanitation

In the paper we argue that sanitation awareness creation, capacity building and sanitation demand generation is treated AND financed as a public good. The actual construction of sanitation systems can be financed differently taking into account the capacity to pay of the different segments of the population.

Based on more than only the experience in FINISH, Valentin Post and Vijay Athreye, write about themes that are new in the context of sanitation financing. We focus on the first part of the entire sanitation chain, i.e. awareness creation of the need for a toilet, demand generation, capacity building of stakeholders and (leading to the) construction of safe toilets. In the sanitation chain these are followed by collection and transport of faecal matter, safe disposal and or treatment for reuse of excreta.

When WASTE first started our FINISH programme in India in 2009, it was to be operated mainly through one financial instrument: micro credit. However, over the years we noticed that we needed to diversify and capture many more financial instruments in sync with the diversity of the people, existing financial infrastructure, new developments including government policies, financing and sanitation supply side interventions, financial and sanitation requirements, needs and opportunities. Consequently, one financial instrument expanded into the use of many more financial instruments. And finally, FINISH became a testing ground for financial engineering for sanitation.

In our series on 6 papers on Financing Sanitation the first paper Valentin Post and Vijay Athreye offer an overview of the financial instruments for sanitation used in the FINISH Programme in India and Kenya.