South Asian people’s perspective on sanitation: synthesis review
This review of people's perspectives on sanitation from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka consists of reflections on why interventions and projects in their settlements had succeeded or failed.
The first South Asia Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) in Dhaka in 2003 gave a call for ‘people-centred, community-led, gender-sensitive and demand-driven sanitation’, firmly locating the people at the centre of action. Understanding and creating demand and encouraging wider and sustained community participation were clearly identified as the critical route to success. Seven years and three SACOSANs later, where do the people of South Asia – especially its poor and marginalised one billion without access to sanitation – stand? In particular, what are the people’s perspectives regarding sanitation and hygiene? What is their understanding of the concept, the urgency of their needs, their ability and capacity to access facilities, and most of all their observations about the extent and nature of the support they receive from the state and civil society? This synthesis review draws its thematic messages from separate studies on people’s perspectives from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
See Also
Report: Enhanced quality of life through sustained sanitation.
Report: Compendium of best practices in rural sanitation in India.
Report: Progress on sanitation and drinking-water.
Report: Sanitation in India - progress, differentials, correlates, and challenges.
Report: Progress on drinking water and sanitation.
Report: Counting the cost.
Opinion: People do pay for latrines.
Feature: Toilet talk.