FINISH Mondial Webinar Recap: Demand Creation
FINISH Mondial (FM) is based on the Diamond Model – a multi-stakeholder approach to tackle both the supply and demand sides of the sanitation challenge. The Diamond Model includes four main domains: communities, businesses, financiers and governments, who jointly work together towards the (a) development of local sanitation markets and (b) inclusive scale of these markets, leaving no one behind.
In continuation of our series of FINISH Family webinars based on the Diamond Model, we held our latest webinar on October 28. This webinar focused on the Communities domain of the Diamond Model and aimed to explore demand creation and behavioural change in communities through examples from FM focus countries.
The host, Godefroid Nimbona (Amref NL) kicked off the webinar with an introduction to the importance of demand generation and the creation of an enabling environment on all fronts at the same time. To further understand how we go about demand creation within FINISH Mondial’s focus countries, we had two country cases from Uganda and India.
Hajra Mukasa (WASH Program Manager Amref Uganda) presented the case for demand creation in Uganda. In Uganda, the focus is on marketing and promoting improved sanitation facilities and convincing people to invest in sanitation facilities by telling them what’s in it for them. They do this by using a holistic approach with representation from all domains during demand creation campaigns.
To ensure program continuity amidst COVID-19, interpersonal communication strategies and implementation strategies had to be revised. Door-to-door sanitation marketing continued during this period and an interesting observation that arose was that social pressure seems to really work in Uganda. When one household has an improved sanitation facility, the neighbours envy the support that they are receiving from FM and they proceed to implement the same for their household. Following the approach of leaving no one behind, they have recognised the importance of catering to all levels of the pyramid by creating clusters of 10 households and celebrating success only when all 10 households within the cluster have safe sanitation facilities. Some other strategies that help in widening demand creation in Uganda are collaboration with different domains, creating demand-based incentives, youth engagement, advocacy for women, etc. For all these activities, the key ingredient is teamwork. As well said by Hajra, sanitation improvement can only be achieved by the people, for the people and with the people.
Abhishek Chaudhuri (FINISH Society India) was the next speaker and he explained how FINISH Society implements demand creation in India. Like Uganda, FINISH Society India also looks into demand creation for all domains of the Diamond Model. Within communities, people need to become more aware of the need for a toilet and then want a toilet. For financial institutions, we need to create demand by working with them to create sanitation loan products and provide capacity building programmes. With the government, demand creation involves making them aware of the importance of public health and how safe sanitation can impact the health of the entire nation through advocacy and regular meetings. Lastly, with businesses, it is important to show that sanitation is also a profitable business.
In India, government initiatives (Swachh Bharat Campaign) have brought a lot of attention to the importance of sanitation and this helps in creating an enabling environment. Behavioural change is very complex in India as there are different kinds of cultures so different kinds of approaches need to be used based on a specific community and its customs. Working with micro-finance institutions has proven to be beneficial to fund the construction of toilets for households. The government provides incentives, thereby further easing the process. FINISH Society supports businesses in the sanitation sector by providing training in accounting, marketing and masonry at the initial stages. Once this has been established, they also provide entrepreneurial and financial training. To conclude the case, Abhishek mentioned that demand creation for each of the stakeholders is largely driven by context.
The webinar ended with an interesting Q&A session with the speakers. If you missed this webinar on the Diamond Approach Best Practices: Demand Creation, you can still access the recording and slide deck.
You can also read the recaps of our previous webinars by clicking on the following links: