Giving Compass' Take:

• Where India Goes by Coffey and Spears analyzes the causes and policy implications of poor sanitation practices in rural India. 

• As the authors take a deeper dive into the factors of high defecation rates, they find that not only is it about access to toilets but there is a cultural reason that plays a role in sanitation. What role can you play in advancing sanitation with this perspective in mind? 

• Read about how to effectively encourage sanitation through the use of latrines in rural India.


India accounts for more than half of the world’s open defecation, despite years of significant economic growth and several initiatives by the government to universalize safe sanitation. In Where India Goes, Coffey and Spears look at the causes, consequences, and policy implications of this unsanitary practice, with a focus on rural India, where 89 percent of the country’s open defecation happens.

Policy makers typically attribute the rampancy of open defecation in rural India to poverty, a lack of access to water, and limited governance, among other factors. However, these factors alone are not responsible for the extent of the problem.

In 21 countries, a larger fraction of the population than in India lives below the World Bank poverty line of $1.25 a day.  In more than 90 percent of these countries, a smaller proportion than in India defecates in the open.

So how else can we explain these high open defecation rates? In perhaps the most insightful portion of the book, the authors examine the role of caste identities and notions of ritual purity. These belief systems hold that defecating in the proximity of the household, even in a toilet, is “unclean.”

Read the full review of Where India Goes by Abhay Rao at Stanford Social Innovation Review.