Demand Creation - General

Improving sanitation and water conditions of an area cannot be done only by implementing hardware such as constructing toilets or wastewater treatment plants. Many water and sanitation programmes have failed in the past because they were supply driven (organisations wanted something, not the people!). Even when there is impetus for sanitation and water improvement among the municipal authorities, the level of demand within the general population may be much lower. People will only use systems properly when they really want them themselves (demand driven). Furthermore, people will only accept solutions when they understand them and see their benefits.

Since sanitation and water management improvements require intervention at both household and community levels, raising the demand for such services from individuals is of paramount importance for the project’s success.

Demand for sanitation and water systems is only created when end-users have motivation, opportunity and ability to invest in a sanitation and water system which suits their needs and aspirations.

• Motivation: not by health messages but direct benefits; increased convenience, comfort, privacy, safety, avoidance of sexual harassment, prestige etc.
• Opportunity: access to good product, information, builders and materials, O&M services.
• Ability: resources needed to make use of opportunities, such as money, skill, transportation, control over decisions.

Demand creation is done after the exploring stage within a participatory planning when there is a lack of demand amongst the local people. Only if you have created demand for the sanitation and water system, you can move to the decision making step (see PPT).

Each of the participatory planning steps is supported by specific participatory planning tools.

Often, the hardware of supply-driven projects is poorly used and maintained and financially unsustainable, because the needs and desires of the local people were not considered sufficiently. In order to create demand for sustainable sanitation and water systems, it is necessary to identify what the community members actually desire, as well as to identify what aspects of sustainable sanitation and water management will be of most interest to them. When these drivers are identified, they will be used to convince the community to demand the adoption of sustainable sanitation and water systems.

An example: In a project in Mongolia, an NGO tried to make people interested in sanitation by telling them that this would improve their health. People were not very interested about this. Only when they learnt that the new toilets that were propagated were much more comfortable to use and – most importantly – did not smell bad, people got interested. The demand driver in this case is increased user comfort. 

For the identification of these drivers, the planning team, together with the key stakeholders will have to organise consultations with selected members of the community in order to identify what they expect from the project. This consultation could be in the form of:

• Workshops: selected members of the community should be invited to workshops where they will be required to answer questions about what they want regarding sustainable sanitation and water systems (see e.g. focus groups).
• School essays: school children could be told to write short essays about what they and their parents could benefit from proper sanitation and water conditions as well as a clean environment (learn more about school campaigns).
• House-to-house visits: conducting visits to homes within the community could prove helpful as families could be asked about what they expect from sanitation and water systems.
• Community meetings: to discuss sanitation and water conditions , problems, solutions, etc.
• Other tools: in order to gain a better understanding of the existing sanitation and water condition in the area and its related problems, you can also use other exploring tools, such as problem tree analysis, transect walk, focus groups and description of settlement conditions, etc. Get an overview about exploring here.

By applying awareness raising (see PPT) tools you can support developing drivers for sustainable sanitation and water management within a community. Awareness raising tools aim on the one hand at making people aware of a certain problem or issue (or solution!), and at the other hand, it aims at integrating different stakeholders in improving water management and sanitation. Awareness raising, e.g. with different media campaigns, also helps to reach those stakeholders that are often forgotten (see e.g. radio campaigns, videos, posters and flyers, or internet and email).

To raise awareness for sustainable sanitation and water system it is important to promote its visibility and credibility of the organisation within a community or society. It is also of prime importance to inform and educate people in order to “elevate their level of knowledge” about the different options regarding sanitation and water. The intention is to influence their attitudes, behaviours and beliefs towards the achievement of sustainable sanitation and water solutions in their community. The ultimate goal of a sanitation and water awareness raising programme is to achieve such a degree of understanding and motivation that the members of the community can participate in the decision making process at a more informed level and that they participate in the realisation of the decisions taken.

Effective awareness raising will employ a variety of different communication approaches, techniques and tools to ensure that the central message is received and understood by a heterogeneous audience. Awareness raising demand time and financing and therefore require adequate support in planning, promoting and performing these activities. Such support will include fund raising, monitoring and networking. Once the support has been acquired, an effort should be made to promote the sustainable sanitation and water approach to all stakeholders.

Stimulating and supporting the demand for sustainable sanitation and water systems will put a high pressure on the supply side of hardware components, such as toilets, water pipes, wastewater plants, as well as qualified server providers. Thus, there is a need to organise a suitable supply chain, identifying companies and suppliers that could meet the demand. Local authorities, NGOs or CBOs working in the field should be capable of providing information about who offers the needed services, materials and equipment. It is of course also necessary to be in contact with the suppliers, otherwise any promotional effort will be useless.

Particularly for community-managed projects, i.e. where the members of the community will implement solutions themselves, it might be necessary to conduct training activities, e.g. in construction, but also in hygiene behaviour or maintenance. Furthermore, training workshops for micro enterprise formation could be offered in order to ensure that the demand for operation and maintenance, logistics for reuse, large scale construction of units, etc. will be covered (see also planning a training).

Depending on the type of project, demand creation takes place at different stages: If we are talking about a project that targets hygiene behaviour change, it is important to start to create demand right from the very beginning (see e.g.  community let total sanitation (CLTS) and child hygiene and sanitation training (CHAST). Yet, if the project also contains technical importance, the appliances that are targeted must of course be available – e.g. if you promote composting toilets, the material needed to construct those, as well as the areas and projects where compost can be reused must be ready before you start raising demand – otherwise people will be turned down and their interest in the project will vanish.

Get an overview awareness raising tools for demand creation (see PPT) within SSWM.