Sanitation dynamics: toilet acquisition and its economic and social implications

Abstract

Poor sanitation is an important policy issue facing India, which accounts for over half of the 1.1 billion people worldwide that defecate in the open. Achieving global sanitation targets, and reducing the social and economic costs of open defecation, therefore requires effectively extending sanitation services to India’s citizens. The Indian Government has shown strong commitment to improving sanitation. However, uptake and usage of safe sanitation remains low: almost 50% of Indian households do not have access to a private or public latrine. This highlights the need for novel approaches to foster the uptake and sustained usage of safe sanitation in this context. This study contributes to addressing this need in 2 ways: First, we use primary data collected in both rural and urban contexts in 2 states of India, to understand determinants of toilet ownership and acquisition. This is part of the ‘Improving productivity in developing countries: Identifying bottlenecks and obstacles to investments and technology adoption’ project