Billions of people lack access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). Many lack running water and toilets. Research from the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, led by CCP’s Kuor Kumoji in collaboration with the TRANSFORM initiative, found that local businesses play a critical role in filling this gap. The TRANSFORM Initiative is led by Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and EY.
In this op-ed, published last week in Business Fights Poverty, a website devoted to business and social impact, Kumoji and Hilde Hendrickx from Unilever maintain that these enterprises could do more for their communities by routinely employing behavior change strategies.
More than two billion people around the world still lack access to safe water and sanitation facilities. When these services are unavailable, people rely on unsafe sources of water such as rivers, ponds, and water bodies shared with animals for drinking, cleaning, and other daily tasks.
With no available toilets, many must practice open defecation, which increases the risk of contaminated water. Drinking unsafe or contaminated water can contribute to outbreaks of infectious diseases like cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid, and more intangible challenges including negative effects of stigma and fatigue on individual self-esteem, dignity and productivity.
Water and sanitation focused small and medium enterprises (SMEs)—local private businesses that usually supplement government public services in rural and hard-to-reach areas—are already helping to fill a critical gap by providing infrastructure like pipes and toilets, products such as soap and chlorination tablets and services such as repair and maintenance, water distribution, and waste disposal in underserved areas. This is essential, but the impact of improved infrastructure can be accelerated.
By reinforcing behaviors related to the need, approval, correct use, and maintenance of the hygiene products and services that they offer, SMEs can play a key role to enable healthy water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) behaviors.
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