Giving Compass' Take:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review highlights effective, culturally appropriate methods of encouraging latrine possession and use. 

• How can funders use local knowledge to build effective programs? How can these methods translate to other areas in need of sanitation changes? 

• Ready to donate? Check out Bright Funds' Clean Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Fund.

What will it take for people to actually use government-subsidized latrines in India?

Answering this question means looking at the latrine infrastructure—they’re often pretty shabby, small, and largely without a stable water source. But it also means examining the behavioral norms that deter people from the very concept of at-home latrines.

Rural societies in some parts of India—out of dire need and desperation—have begun crafting social campaigns to transform these kinds of behavioral norms.

A “No Toilet, No Bride” campaign in Haryana and Punjab states is one example. Launched in 2005 by the state governments, the campaign made great use of social and public media to prompt families with marriage-age girls to demand that potential suitors’ families install an at-home latrine as a pre-requisite to marriage.

As of August 2017, the effort had led to a 15 percent rise in family investment in at-home latrines and has had four times the impact in areas where there are fewer potential brides. Private sanitation coverage in Haryana has risen by as much as 21 percent for households having marriage-age boys, according to a report in the Journal of Development Economics.

Read the full article about sanitation in rural India by Sriroop Chaudhuri and Mimi Roy at Stanford Social Innovation Review.