Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"

Promoting Ecosan in Developing Countries – A Case Study in Tamil Nadu, India – Based on the Capability Approach

Today, 2.4 billion people in developing urban and rural areas do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. 90% of developing countries´ sewage is still disposed untreated into water bodies. Ecological sanitation system (ecosan), as introduced in this thesis, is an alternative and sustainable way to counteract both, the sanitation gap and environmental hazards from shortcomings of conventional sanitation sys- tems. Increasing demand is a definite prerequisite to disseminating this alternative solution. One way to effectively stimulate demand for a certain technology is the im- provement of social marketing strategies. It is therefore the overall objective of the thesis to demonstrate how social marketing strategies can be improved to increase demand for ecosan toilets in developing countries. The application of the Capability Approach on a micro-level development intervention serves as a tool to identify drives and constraints for implementing an ecosan toilet. These findings are later used to improve social marketing strategies.

During a fieldwork phase in Tamil Nadu, several motivating drives and constraints were discovered, using empirical qualitative research methods. Based on the results, an “ecosan drive and capability list” was generated reflecting the enlarged scope of action of ecosan users due to the toilet implementation. Specific drives were filtered out as being crucial for implementing ecosan instead of other toilet models, those namely being infrastructurally independent from others, having financial indepen- dence and having hygienic sanitation conditions (with an emphasis on the “smell-free toilet” aspect).

Implications of the findings reveal the need to adjust social marketing strategies to (at least) three crucial target groups such as low-income households, high-income households, and stakeholder groups at grassroot level. Among others, social market- ing improvements should focus on the development of incentive and training me- chanisms for masons constructing toilets, the development of monitoring and evalua- tion instruments to assure proper use and construction as well as financially feasible options, such as an earmarked microcredit scheme, enabling a household to realize the implementation of the toilet. Providing an upmarket ecosan technology could in- crease the high-income group's demand for an ecosan toilet. A last improvement tar- gets stakeholder groups at grassroot level, which should be advertized to strengthen the “visibility” of the ecosan existence as a sustainable alternative to conventional models.

Partner Institution in the South and in the North
SCOPE:
Dr. M. Subburaman, scopeagency1986@rediffmail.com, 44P/17, 6th Cross, Ahmed Colony, Ramalinga Nagar, Woraiyur, Tiruchy – 620 003, India, www.scopetrichy.com

Seecon international GmbH:
Dr. J. Heeb, Johannes.heeb@seecon.ch, Bahnhofs- trasse 2. CH-6110 Wolhusen, www.seecon.ch

 

Ecosan-toilet in Musiri, Tamil Nadu, India

Ecosan-toilet inside (with wash-water and ash)