Global Best Practices in Sanitation and Their Applicability in India

Sanitation is a key component of not just human health and well-being, but also environmental sustainability. In the strictest sense, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines sanitation as “the provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human urine and faeces”. However, in practice, sanitation also encompasses the management of wastewater, stormwater, solid waste and excreta from animals and humans.

The lack of adequate sanitation infrastructure can create contamination in the environment and increase the disease burden on societies, leading to loss of economic activity and overall development potential. Each year, the global economy loses $260 billion annually in lost productivity alone. In contrast, for every penny invested in sanitation, societies get a four-fold return. This is particularly relevant for developing countries, where sanitation continues to be a challenge.

India is one of the countries that faced significant sanitation challenges, especially in urban areas. However, with the advent of the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014, India’s sanitation infrastructure has seen a sea change. That doesn’t mean the work of sanitation is done, however. India still has a large population of people for whom toilet use is new and unfamiliar, and the behavioural changes needed to make Swachh Bharat Mission a success, will take time.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for sanitation, there are several best practices that India’s sanitation programmes can (and have) applied to the Indian context, to great effect.

Global Best Practices and Principles

Embracing a Human Rights-Based Approach: Recognizing sanitation as a fundamental human right and ensuring universal access to safe, acceptable, affordable, and accessible sanitation services without discrimination.

Engaging a Systems Approach: Sanitation is complex, involving several steps from user interface to the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal or reuse of excreta, solid waste, and wastewater. A holistic systems approach that serves the entire chain and interconnections is vital.

Fostering a Demand-Driven Mindset: Understanding the unique needs, preferences, and willingness of communities is key. A demand-driven approach involves engaging with people directly, using tools like social marketing, communication, and education to stimulate behaviour change.

Championing Participatory Practices: Government agencies, service providers, civil society organisations, private sector actors, donors, and users must collaborate at every stage and own the solution from start to finish.

Upholding a Pro-Poor Perspective: Targeting the most vulnerable and marginalised groups, such as women, children, the elderly, disabled individuals, and slum dwellers, reaffirms commitment to equity and social justice.

Innovative Sanitation Solutions

Since sanitation isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution anywhere in the world, there are a plethora of innovative solutions and practices that have worked well in various parts of the world. Starting with Community Led Total Sanitation or CLTS, which has been adopted as a part of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission. CLTS is an approach that aims to mobilise communities by triggering collective behaviour change. It involves everyone in analysing the current sanitation situation, stimulating a sense of disgust amongst the participants, which powers a willingness to make change. These programs result in toilet and sanitation solutions that are tailored to fit the needs of the community, and often have higher adoption rates. CLTS has so far been successfully implemented in 69 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Another interesting solution is Container-based sanitation or CBS which involves using sealable containers to collect human excreta from toilets and transports them to a central treatment facility. It has worked very well in dense urban areas where conventional sewerage systems aren’t feasible or cost effective – urban slums, for instance, are a great use case. It offers several advantages including reducing water consumption, preventing groundwater contamination, facilitating resource recovery and providing dignified and hygienic sanitation services. CBS has been implemented in several countries, such as Haiti, Kenya, Peru and Ghana. In India, CBS has been piloted in Puducherry by a non-governmental organisation called Sanitation First, which provides slum dwellers with portable toilets that are serviced weekly.

Ecological sanitation or EcoSan is an approach which aims to safely reuse excreta in agriculture, thereby “closing the loop”, by returning nutrients and organic matter to agriculture in a safe manner. EcoSan systems can be designed to suit different contexts and preferences, such as urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs), composting toilets or biogas toilets. EcoSan has been promoted in several countries, such as China, Ethiopia, Nepal and South Africa, as a way to improve soil fertility, food security and environmental sustainability. Ecosan projects are also underway in several locations across India.

Creating Behavioural Change

As the Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Swachh Bharat Mission found, constructing toilets is just half the solution. We need to bring about behavioural changes en masse, at a societal level, to change our attitudes about sanitation.

This is where the GoI needs active, vocal partners like Harpic. Harpic has, as India’s leading brand in the lavatory care segment, vocally championed the cause of toilet hygiene through innovative and thought provoking campaigns and outreach programs. Harpic, together with News18, also created the Mission Swachhta aur Paani initiative 3 years ago. It is a movement that upholds the cause of inclusive sanitation where everyone has access to clean toilets. Mission Swachhta aur Paani advocates equality for all genders, abilities, castes and classes and strongly believes that clean toilets are a shared responsibility.

Under the aegis of Mission Swachhta aur Paani, Harpic has reached out 17.5 million children across the nation via their partnership with Sesame Workshop India to promote positive sanitation, hygiene knowledge and toilet behaviours among children and families through schools and communities.

Through Harpic World Toilet Colleges, Harpic is also changing the way sanitation work is viewed, uplifting the entire profession, and creating dignity and safety for sanitation workers. These empowered sanitation workers make exceptional ambassadors of change in their own communities, and in the communities they serve; often helping users who may be too embarrassed to ask questions elsewhere.

Moreover, through Mission Swachhta aur Paani, Harpic is creating a platform for the right stakeholders to come together to ideate and explore creative solutions to our problems today. It is going to take many conversations like these, and the actions that follow to usher India to a brighter, safer, and healthier future.

Join us here to learn how you too, can be a part of the solution and help India march towards a more Swasth and Swachh Bharat.