Sanitation Marketing for Managers: Guidance and Tools for Program Development

The USAID Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) was a six-year (2004-2010) project funded by the USAID Bureau for Global Health, Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition, led by the Academy for Educational Development (contract # GHS-I-00-04-00024-00) in partnership with ARD Inc., the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, and the Manoff Group. HIP aimed to reduce diarrheal disease prevalence through the promotion of key hygiene improvement practices, such as hand washing with soap, safe disposal of feces, and safe storage and treatment of drinking water at the household level.

This manual provides guidance and tools for designing a sanitation marketing program. It guides professionals in the fields of sanitation and marketing to complete two important and necessary steps: (1) to comprehensively assess the current market for sanitation products and services and (2) to use the results of this assessment to design a multi-pronged strategy to:

• Build the capacity of appropriate market actors to provide necessary sanitation market functions;
• Create and strengthen the incentives for these actors to participate in the market and to collaborate with one another;
• Permit actors to proactively take on functions from which they will benefit, e.g., financially, politically;
• Develop appropriate products and services that respond to consumer preferences; and
• Create appropriate marketing messages and plans for promotion and communication to market the products and services to consumers.