Health Poverty Africa by Julie Ray .

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sanitation is the theme for this year's World Water Day, which focuses on the estimated 2.6 billion people who lack access to basic sanitation. Gallup Polls underscore the extent of the problem in sub-Saharan Africa, where many households rely on unimproved toilet facilities.



Using WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) distinctions for distinguishing improved and unimproved sanitation, Gallup asked citizens of 31 sub-Saharan African countries about the main sanitation facility in their household. The most common responses were simple pit (22% regional median) and open pit (16% regional median).

Sanitation Situation

Gallup Polls reveal that substantial numbers of households throughout the region rely on unimproved toilet facilities that are potentially hazardous to health and the environment. At least half of Malians (50%), Togolese (57%), Burkinabes (57%), Beninese (57%), Chadians (58%), Ethiopians (68%), and Ghanaians (69%) report unimproved sanitation facilities as the main facilities in their households.



Respondents in the West Africa sub-region are the most likely to name an unimproved sanitation facility as their households' main sanitation. The regional median is 45% for West Africa, compared with much lower regional medians of 27% in southern Africa and 16% in East Africa.



Just as sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target for access to safe drinking water by 2015, neither is it on track to meet benchmarks for access to improved sanitation. The JMP reports that sanitation coverage improved in sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2004, but the number of people without sanitation increased by more than 30%. Sub-Saharan Africa is not expected to meet its sanitation target until 2076.

Survey Methods Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews conducted throughout 2006 and 2007. Randomly selected sample sizes typically number 1,000 residents, aged 15 and older, in the 31 countries polled. In Angola and Congo, surveys were conducted in urban areas. Surveys in Chad and Sudan did not include Darfur. For results based on samples of this size, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±5 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Helping People 'Do Their Business' Is Big Business for Three African EntrepreneursFrom: Water Advocates

February 26, 2009 (Washington, D.C.)- Human excrement is serious business. Three African social entrepreneurs, David Kuria, Joseph Adelegan and Trevor Mulaudzi, spoke at the National Press Club last week to share this revolutionary approach to solving the global sanitation crisis. The entrepreneurs speak from experience; each has established lucrative and groundbreaking businesses related to people "doing their business." Their business models, once considered distractions in the traditional policy or charity realm, are proving to be successful ventures. Their innovations are successfully shifting social behavior and improving public health, the environment and the economy. Trevor Mulaudzi, a South African entrepreneur, stressed that "no one wants to use a dirty toilet no matter how poor they are."

Entrepreneur David Kuria is making the toilet a hot commodity in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Kenya. To increase demand for and maintenance of toilets in the slums, he founded a venture called Ecotact. "Why just do two quick things in the toilet?" Kuria asks. Ecotact builds "toilet malls" that provide bathroom facilities along with shoe shines, food, phone booths and other commercial services. Each toilet complex is equipped with 8 toilets, a water kiosk, a baby changing station and gender separate showers. 30,000 customers use Ecotact's facilities every day. Corporations now vie for advertising, while the nearby vendors strive to keep the toilets clean. And it is the business model, not charity or education alone, that drives this success.

Lately the toilet malls have been attracting unlikely champions - a popular comedian who does a stand-up sketch about toilets, the country's beauty queen, Miss Kenya, and the nation's Vice President himself, who recently stopped in to use the facilities and pose for photos. In a continent where more than six out of every ten people do not have a sanitary toilet, this new service is removing the taboo around human waste, creating jobs, improving self esteem and making communities enthusiastic about hygiene.

Kuria has recently won several international awards for his work. He is collaborating with Ashoka, Rotary, the Global Water Challenge, the Acumen Fund and other social entrepreneurs internationally to scale up his model and combine it with similar innovations. There is promise for it to extend throughout Kenya and the rest of Africa.

For Nigerian entrepreneur Dr. Joseph Adelegan, a civil engineer by training, human and animal waste was not waste but an opportunity that should not be wasted. A nearby slaughterhouse had been disposing daily the waste of 1,000 slaughtered cows directly into a local river. Joseph designed a bioreactor that digests the waste into biogas that generates electricity and is used for cooking fuel. Local women's organizations sell the fuel at affordable prices for urban poor. The solid waste left over is a cheap and effective fertilizer. His models, named "Cows to Kilowatts" and "Power to the Poor," also reduce emission of methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas. His initiative has also improved the quality of the water that the local community uses for cleaning and bathing.

Adelegan's successful business model not only tackles the technological aspects of this problem, but - even more powerfully - it has mobilized the community. It has even stirred the Nigerian government, which used to block such initiatives, into action. In 2008, his model was accepted into national policy and will be replicated within other slaughterhouses in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Dr. Adelegan, has also been featured on CNN, awarded prizes from the World Economic Forum and covered recently in Fortune magazine. He is now working with other social entrepreneurs to extend the approach to other African countries.


Trevor Mulaudzi, a South African entrepreneur, applies many of these same principles in his business, The Clean Shop. A clean toilet is good business for The Clean Shop. It offers schools and large organizations sanitation services, such as cleaning toilets and repairing plumbing in schools, teaching students hygiene lessons.


A mining geologist by training, Mulaudzi recalled how he set out on this career path the very day he found children skipping class and defecating in the open because their school's toilet was piled with feces. Now, The Clean Shop employees three hundred people who move in and clean up unusable toilet facilities. They turn them into attractive and dignified places, sometimes with no initial payment or contract.


Mulaudzi approaches the sanitation problem from the perspective of an educator rather than a cleaning contractor. He has used such motivational techniques as requiring that each student bring his or her own roll of toilet paper as the "admission ticket" to the shiny new restroom. In doing so, he builds a sense of pride, dignity and responsibility. It usually evolves into toilet-user demand for clean toilets, which ripples up to change administrative and even government policy. Students in one location even held a protest when Mulaudzi's contract was not renewed; it prompted the administration to reverse their decision.


Trevor Mulaudzi is a finalist in the Ashoka Changemaker's recent global competition for innovative solutions to water and sanitation problems. In addition, Trevor has recently been hosted by the government of Malaysia to discuss transferring the lessons of this model.

These three leading entrepreneurs have been working with other entrepreneurs in Africa to establish a new vision of water and waste management where clean water and facilities inspire public pride which translates to political influence, and where waste management and sanitation deliver public health and environmental benefits through an economically profitable business model.

"It can't be business as usual-real impact needs a new approach that integrates together different approaches to resolving the water and sanitation crisis," concludes Joseph Adelegan.