WASH For India Innovation Consulting

SOCIAL INNOVATORS FOR

WATER, SANITATION, & HYGIENEIN INDIA

INNOVATION CONSULTING

CONTENTS

ABOUTWFI

WFI CONSULTING

THE SANITATION

CRISIS

NEED FOR INNOVATION

1 2 3 4

THE SANITATION CRISIS

ABOUTWASH FOR INDIA

WASH FOR INDIA

OVERVIEW

Across India, a handful of individuals and organizations harbor impossible dreams of ending India’s water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) crisis. Working on issues most others consider “taboo”, these innovators fight a constant battle to get resources for their ventures and programs. Their strong & creative visions often die diluted & withered deaths in the absence of adequate support for innovation in the WASH sector in India even though its clear that without strategic innovation, the needle isn’t really moving.

WFI is launching Innovation Consulting services to enable other organizations & individuals to address and the WASH crisis in India in innovative & effective ways.

WASH For India (WFI) is a unique social innovation catalyst that seeks to greatly accelerate the pace of WASH innovation in India.

WASH For India exists to make audacious dreams of ending India’s water & sanitation crisis come true.

WFI’s mission is to push the boundaries of what is possible in sanitation & hygiene by supporting creative approaches that would not find takers otherwise.

Our vision is to make water, sanitation, & hygiene in India a hotbed for innovation by supporting incredibly talented individuals & organizations working on these issues.

We want to become the single most important catalyst for high impact WASH innovation in India by 2016, working closely with rigorously selected nonprofits and social enterprises and supporting them in BIG ways. From the programs incubated within WFI, we will also spin off several social enterprises with sustainable business models.

MISSION+

VISION

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

HARSH SHRIVASTAVA

Harsh is an experienced social innovator solving complex problems at the

intersection of business, governments, non-profits, media, and politics. He was last the Chief Operations Officer of the Centre for Civil Society, India’s top rated think-tank. Harsh was previously in India’s Planning

Commission. He was Prime Minister Vajpayee’s deputy speechwriter. He

headed marketing and business development for Feedback Infrastructure, and was the first director for agribusiness for the Confederation of Indian Industry. 

Harsh is on the board of the Meghalaya Institute of Governance and has been an Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Australia India Institute.  He has an MBA from IIM-

Ahmedabad, India’s top B-School. 

NIRAT BHATNAGAR

Nirat is the Founder & CEO of WASH For India.

A serial social innovator with deep experience in WASH innovation, Nirat has

conceptualized and led several pathbreaking projects in sanitation such as Project Sammaan & the Nirmal Bharat Yatra

along with partners such as the Gates Foundation, Poverty Action Lab, & WASH

United.

Nirat has been a strategy consultant, an online entrepreneur, & has lead the social impact practice at a design-led innovation

firm.

Nirat has a BS in Physics from IIT Kharagpur. & an MBA from IIM Bangalore.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ANAND SHAH

Anand works with BMW Impact Ventures identifying opportunities for partnership &

incubation to improve the built environment & efficiency of urban areas.

A serial entrepreneur, Anand previously was the CEO of Piramal Foundation where he

founded and led Sarvajal, a social enterprise to deliver clean water to Indian

villages using a kiosk based micro-franchising model .

Anand also founded Indicorps - a hugely respected long term service program that got passionate individuals to volunteer in

Indian social impact organizations.

Anand was also a Co-Founder of Teach For India a large education program in India.

Anand graduated from Harvard College.

LOUIS BOORSTIN

Louis Boorstin is an experienced leader and innovator in the international

development and social impact sectors.

Louis founded and served as deputy director of the water, sanitation and

hygiene program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2005 to 2013.

Prior to that, he worked at the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, whackere he held a number of positions including manager of environmental finance from 1997 to 2004.

Louis holds a BA in Economics from Yale University and an MBA and MA

(Development Economics) from Stanford University.

MUSHFIQ MOBARAQ

Mushfiq is an associate professor at the Yale School of Management. He is a development economist

with interests in environmental issues. Has several ongoing research projects in Bangladesh, India,

Malawi and Brazil exploring ways to induce people in developing countries to adopt technologies or

behaviors that are likely to be welfare improving. His research has been covered by the New York Times,

The Economist, Science, NPR, Wired.com.

He co-chairs the Urban Services Initiative at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT. He has

previously worked as an economist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the World Bank, and at the

International Monetary Fund.

He also leads Yale SOM 'international experience' trips to developing countries.

BOARD OF ADVISORS

ADRIEN COUTON

Adrien is an Associate Partner and the lead of the Water and sanitation practice at Dalberg, a

development consulting firm.

Before joining Dalberg, Adrien was the CEO of Naandi Water, one of the largest BoP water utility in India. He previously worked as an investor in water ventures as manager of the water and sanitation

portfolio at Acumen Fund, and at the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program.

Adrien holds a Masters in Management from HEC, Paris, a Masters in Political Science from La

SorbonneUniversity, Paris, and a Masters in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of

Government at Harvard University.

He is an Acumen Fund Fellow, a Yale World Fellow and an Asia Society’s Asia 21 Delegate.

THE SANITATION CRISIS

WFIINNOVATIONCONSULTING

SERVICES

WASH For India seeks to be your partner across the entire innovation lifecycle for WASH Projects & Programs.

Primary & Secondary research as independent deliverables or as inputs to Strategy creation.

Can include User Research through ethnographic methods.

Developing Program Strategy, Innovation Strategy, or Investment Strategy as per assignment.

Designing different aspects of the Program or Intervention.

Can include Service Design, Product Design, Technology Design, Communication Design, Behavior Change Campaign Design, Game Design, & several others.

Assembling teams & implementing program management structures to manage complex WASH programs & projects.

We can also help you set up new entities: for-profit / nonprofit in India.

RESEARCH STRATEGY DESIGN MANAGEMENT

RESEARCH

Successful innovation is based on a nuanced understanding of the context and of the people the innovation ultimately targets. WFI offers

three kinds of innovation research services.

USER RESEARCHHow do caste & religion determine

whether people a toilet or not ?

EXPERT RESEARCHAre there people who deeply understand the economics of

waste ?

SECONDARY RESEARCHDoes clean water matter more or

access to toilets for better health?

Without a nuanced understanding of the end users we are seeking to

help, we can easily design programs that are grossly

ineffective, unused, or worst harmful. WFI’s User-Research services can help you develop

detailed personas for the stakeholders you are trying to help.

A phenomenal amount of work has happened in different spheres of WASH. We can help you uncover insights by engaging with leading experts and can design interesting

formats of engagement ranging from interviews to conferences to offsites to co-creation sessions.

There is a wealth of rigorous research that can inform good

program design & development. We can frame a customized research deep dive for your

purposes and return with valuable insights you can use to shape your

strategy or programs.

STRATEGY

Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene in India is an extremely diverse canvas with multiple stakeholders and a complex political-economy. While there are several opportunities to

make a leveraged impact, without a sound strategy, its very easy to burn millions of dollars without any impact at all. WFI offers the following strategy services.

INDIA STRATEGY

What should I do ?

The WASH crisis in India is truly vast. The seven blind men & the

elephant analogy is perhaps most accurate to describe it. WFI has

engaged with this crisis from multiple vantage points and can

help you frame your India strategy for WASH: given your goals &

constrains, what are the opportunities for you to maximize

impact.

PROGRAM STRATEGY

How should I do it ?

If you know what your goals for India are, we can help develop you the MOST exciting & high impact

WASH program given your situational constraints. We will look across disciplinary boundaries and

mix and match ingredients to create a Program Strategy for you

that’s truly unique and makes a genuine difference.

INVESTMENT STRATEGY

Who should I support ?

Several CSR funds & institutional & individual donors are looking to adopt WASH as a cause. We can provide guidance on where your resources can make the largest

difference.

DESIGN

The WFI ecosystem has expertise in several disciplines of design for social impact and has applied them successfully to WASH innovation projects in

the past. We can help you with the following.

SERVICE DESIGNHow do we deliver sanitary napkins at

schools so that girls actually use them ?

The delivery of WASH products & services need to be ‘designed’ carefully for optimal adoption by end users. Our

deep experience can help.

BEHAVIOR DESIGNHow does one get children to wash

hands with soap regularly ?

The trickiest challenges in WASH often are around behavior & habits. Our

behavior design expertise can help you with such problems.

BUSINESS MODEL DESIGN How can one run community toilets

in slums sustainably ?

Most WASH services don’t scale because they are not financially viable. Business model innovation can provide a sound financial base for your projects.

TECHNOLOGY DESIGNHow can mobile phones be used to educate health workers in WASH ?

Used smartly, mobile & web technology can make a huge difference in WASH. The Internet Of Things & Big Data can

transform WASH. We can design sophisticated technology solutions.

COMMUNICATION DESIGNHow can millions of urban Indians adopt sanitation as their cause ?

Well design communication programs can advocate for better policies, bigger

budgets, & bring more civil society involvement. We have deep experience in launching mega WASH campaigns.

GAME DESIGNHow can games instill greater WASH

awareness & habits ?

We have deep experience in building games for awareness & behavior change in WASH. We’ve built physical games as well as those cutting edge technology

such as the Microsoft Kinect.

MANAGEMENT

True innovation requires complex coordination across heterogeneous organizations, individuals, disciplines, & contexts. Our management

expertise can help.

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

Delivering complex projects

Nuanced project management, people management, &

communication management systems need to be designed &

implemented to keep large WASH innovation projects on track. We

have program managed two of the largest WASH innovation projects in

India and can help.

LAUNCH

Launching programs & ventures

Several inspired individuals and organizations are looking to make a difference to India’s sanitation. Our experience in entrepreneurship and

social innovation can help them launch their new projects

successfully and efficiently. We can help with incorporation, hiring,

fundraising help, & strategy.

PARTNERSHIPS

Expertise & impact

Partnerships with the government, with WASH sector partners,

corporate partners, institutions can make a huge difference to the scale & impact of WASH programs. We’ve

got deep experience in forging multidisciplinary partners across and spectrum and can help you with that.

RECOMMENDATIONS

JAIRAM RAMESH (Former Union Cabinet Minister Of Rural Development. Government of India. IIT Bombay. Carnegie Mellon University. MIT)I have found Nirat to be a talented & passionate innovator working for improved sanitation in India. He conceptualized and implemented the Nirmal Bharat Yatra (along with WASH United), a mega campaign for sanitation in 2012, that we endorsed and engaged with. I find "Use My Loo" to be a very creative idea that could benefit in particular millions of women who migrate from villages into cities. I wish Nirat & ‘Use My Loo’ the very best for this ambitious and laudable campaign.

ALIX ZWANE (Executive Director - Evidence Action. Executive Director - Deworm The World. PhD - Public Policy. Harvard) "Nirat is a great partner. He works hard, delivers promptly, and is truly creative. I'd work with him again in a heart beat."

ADRIEN COUTON (Partner & Head of Water & Sanitation Practice. Dalberg. Yale World Fellow. Harvard Kennedy School) Nirat is one of the most inspiring innovators I have met in the sanitation space. His work has explored new technologies, new constituencies, new ways to break the mental barriers that have made the sanitation issue so big, of so long, and nowhere more than in India. I hope that this new initiative is an opportunity to bring better sanitation and better health to millions.

KETAN KAPOOR (CEO Mettl. IIT Roorkee. IIM Calcutta)Nirat is a highly talented and focused person who gives his best shot in everything he takes up. I really like his attitude and his willingness to roll up the sleeve and get going with seemingly impossible tasks. I will definitely team up with him in case an opportunity arises in future.

VARAD PANDE (Officer on Special Duty. Ministry of Rural Development. Harvard Kennedy School. Cambridge University)Nirat worked closely with me last year on the Nirmal Bharat Yatra project. I found his ideas & energy refreshing and was particularly impressed by his ability to translate a cool idea into a ground reality! Since then, he's continued to deepen his focus on sanitation coming up with a set of really strategic yet creative initiatives. I really hope Use My Loo succeeds at scale, and I wish Nirat and the campaign all the very best for this exceptionally valuable initiative.

RADHIKA JAIN (Research Manager. Jameel Poverty Action Lab MIT. Harvard Kennedy School)Nirat has a rare combination of incredible energy, creativity, strategic vision, and ability to execute. He has a knack for generating innovative, disruptive ideas, and following through with the meticulous planning and careful implementation required to make them a success.

ASEEM SADANA (Co-Founder Isango!. INSEAD)Nirat is great at coming up with new ideas, and passionate about the cause of fulfilling widespread sanitation needs in India. He has solid experience in rolling out new initiatives. I am sure he'll create great impact with the Use My Loo initiative.

RAJNISH KUMAR (Co-Founder. Ixigo. IIT Kanpur)Nirat is an extremely focused manager and has excellent people management and time management skills. He is an out of the box lateral thinker and an extremely quick learner. It was a professionally enriching experience to work with him at Isango!, as he helped me bring out the best in me.

WASH For India founder Nirat Bhatnagar has conceptualized & implemented some of the most significant innovation projects in sanitation in India over the last 3 years with a combined budget of over USD 8 million.

WASH INNOVATION EXPERIENCE

POTTY PROJECT*

A pathbreaking 12 month long research study that explored sanitation in urban slums from a variety of perspectives.

End-users were studied to understand their behavior, habits, perceptions, & attitudes towards sanitation & hygiene and towards usage of sanitation facilities.

Toilet operators were studied to understand practical constraints, incentive structures, infrastructural barriers to improving sanitation in slums.

WWW.POTTYPROJECT.IN

WITH QUICKSAND

PROJECT SAMMAAN*

A slum sanitation design + research project involves (project still in progress) designing user-centered toilet facilities with innovative features on the one hand and implementing two distinct management models on the other.

The research experiment being managed by JPAL studies features of design + management that can maximize toilet adoption.

1,200 toilet seats are being built in this project.

WWW.PROJECTSAMMAAN.COM

WITH QUICKSAND + JPAL

NIRMAL BHARAT YATRA

A mega campaign to promote sanitation and hygiene in rural India through the use of positive levers.

The NBY was a mega-traveling carnival that traveled from rural Maharashtra to Bihar over a period of 56 days. The carnival featured over 20 games that communicated the need for adopting toilets, handwashing with soap, menstrual hygiene.

NBY reached out to 230 million people through mass media and trained nearly 160,000 people in sanitation and hygiene at the carnival.

WWW.NIRMALBHARATYATRA.ORGWITH QUICKSAND + WASH UNITED

THE SANITATION CRISIS

INDIA’SSANITATIONCRISIS

FOUR PILLARS OF SANITATION

GOOD HYGIENE IS DEFINED AS PEOPLE HAVING ACCESS TO AND USING FOUR ESSENTIAL SERVICES.

CLEAN WATER

TOILETS MENSTRUAL HYGIENE

HANDWASHING WITH SOAP

+ + +

Being aware of the need of and consistently washing hands with soap at critical times - before eating, after defecation, & after handling child feces - to avoid ingesting pathogens.

Having access to clean, pathogen & chemical free water for drinking & cooking.

Centralized, community level, or household water treatment solutions.

Being aware of the need for and consistently using safe menstrual hygiene practices including appropriate products (low cost pads, cloth, cups)and other local solutions.

Having access to & consistently using toilets that are well designed, clean, & disabled friendly.

Sewage management systems that ensure safe disposal of waste generated.

DISEASE PATHWAYS In the absence of adequately functioning toilets, clean water systems,

handwashing practices, & menstrual hygiene management practices, pathogens affect humans with severe consequences, often including death.

FECES

GROUND & SURFACE WATER

FINGERS

FIELDS & FLIES

FOOD

DRINKING WATER

HEALTH STATUS

THE CLEAN WATER CRISISVast sections of the Indian population don’t have access to clean water for drinking and cooking. Water contamination in urban municipal water supply systems is very common

especially during monsoons. People in rural areas collect their water from ponds, or borewells that are contaminated by agricultural residue. A shockingly low percentage of

the population has adopted water treatment technology.

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THE TOILET CRISISIndia faces a toilet crisis of epic proportions. 60% of the Indian population does’t have access to a toilet and goes outside to defecate. Billions of dollars have been spent in

constructing toilets but India continues to be last in the World Diarrhea Rankings. India will not be reaching the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of Sanitation For All.

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THE HANDWASHING CRISISHandwashing with soap is one of the easiest ways to reduce disease and death

caused by pathogens. Yet, 70% of Indians don’t use soap to wash their hands at three critical times: before eating food, after defecating, & after handling infant feces.

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THE MENSTRUAL HYGIENE CRISISMenstruation and menstrual hygiene are “taboo” topics in India. In the absence of education about this issue, many girls, during their first period, feel they’ve been afflicted by a terrible disease and will die soon. 70% of Indian women don’t have access to appropriate menstrual hygiene products - using sand, ash, rags. This leads to severe health complications.

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HEALTH CONSEQUENCES• 1000 children die every day due to diarrhea caused by the WASH crisis. This is more than HIV,

malaria, & TB combined. • Indian children and adults remain stunted losing up to 3-4 inches in height due to open

defecation.• Women develop severe health complications through using unsafe menstrual hygiene

products and through having to “hold it in” till the cover of dark.

HUMAN RIGHTS CONSEQUENCES•25% women have reported violent sexual assault when they go to secluded places to relieve themselves. •50% report being catcalled or verbally abused.•The loss of human dignity is immeasurable when people have to defecate publicly exposing themselves to the eyes of others.

EDUCATION CONSEQUENCES•25% girls drop out of school when they start menstruating.•50 schools days missed by girls every year due to menstruation.•100 Million school days missed due to lack of toilets.

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES•USD 53.4 billion is lost by India due to reduced productivity, reduced tourism, & medical costs.

CONSEQUENCESThe Toilet, Clean Water, Handwashing, & Menstrual Hygiene Crises, together, form India’s WASH crisis. This is perhaps the largest public health problem in the world.

THE NEED FORINNOVATION

ADVOCACYINFRASTRUCTURE & SERVICE DELIVERY

AWARENESS, EDUCATION, & BEHAVIOR CHANGE

WHATInfluencing government, media, corporates, & civil society.

Improving access to sanitation (toilet infrastructure + waste management), clean water supply, menstrual hygiene products, & personal hygiene products in urban low income areas & rural India.

Promoting awareness, demand, & adoption of various WASH products, services, & habits.

SPECIFIC GOALS

GOVERNMENT:Improved policy, improved budgets, better policy implementation & budget utilization.

MEDIA: Enhanced coverage of the WASH crisis in media

CORPORATES: Enhanced participation of corporates in the WASH crisis through CSR + business programs

CIVIL SOCIETY: Getting large sections of society involved in addressing the WASH crisis.

TOILETS: An adequate number of household level or community shared toilets run under appropriate business models along with centralized / de-centralized waste capture and treatment processes

CLEAN DRINKING WATER: An adequate supply of easily accessible and affordable clean drinking water to urban slums and rural villages

MENSTRUAL HYGIENE MANAGEMENT: Easily accessible supply of affordable menstrual hygiene management products such as sanitary napkins.

AWARENESS: Ensuring millions of people are reached and are aware of the need and mechanisms for adopting improved hygiene

EDUCATION: Ensuring millions of people are trained in-depth around sanitation and hygiene habits

BEHAVIOR CHANGE: Ensuring adoption of the four key health behaviors - adoption of toilets, handwashing with soap, consuming clean water, & appropriate menstrual hygiene - through a seamless transition from awareness to behavior.

WASH LANDSCAPE OVERVIEW

Activities to improve India’s WASH crisis can be classified into three distinct buckets.

Toilets, Clean Water, & Handwashing have suffered from being framed as purely “supply side” problems where the solution is perceived to be building more toilets or laying more pipelines. The issue of Menstrual Hygiene has received almost no attention.

The results of this inadequate framing and gross neglect are not surprising: In spite of pouring tens of billions of dollars to improve sanitation, India has seen relatively little success. It is placed at the bottom of the World Diarrhea Rankings and will not even come close to meeting the Millenium Development Goals for sanitation coverage by 2015.

There has been very little effort in identifying high leverage points where breakthrough innovation is needed because current approaches aren’t yielding results. This blind spot is the single largest impediment to improving WASH in India.

Only a few players have invested in strategic innovation projects that have huge upsides and the potential to dramatically improve the WASH crisis.

But a lot more is needed: A comprehensive set of innovation programs designed on the basis of clear hypotheses.

THE NEED FOR INNOVATION

INNOVATION TYPE ADVOCACYINFRASTRUCTURE & SERVICE DELIVERY

AWARENESS, EDUCATION, &

BEHAVIOR CHANGE

SCIENCE & TECH X X

PRODUCT & SERVICE DESIGN X X

PROCESS X X X

MARKETING & COMMUNICATION X X

BUSINESS MODEL X X X

POLICY X X X

INNOVATION NEEDS IN WASH

Six types of innovation are desperately needed across A) Advocacy, B) Infrastructure & Service Delivery, and C) Awareness, Education, & Behavior Change. The table below illustrates how broad the need for innovation is.

MORE and BETTER infrastructure / service delivery, improved adoption of toilets, waste treatment, clean drinking water supply, and usage of

menstrual hygiene products. Innovation is needed across the board: from basic technology to design to business model innovation.

INNOVATION NEEDSINFRASTRUCTURE | SERVICE DELIVERY

INNOVATION TYPE ILLUSTRATIVE TARGETS FOR INNOVATION

SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY

• The need to efficiently extract economic value out of human waste so that waste management has positive economic value

• The need to cost effectively treat water and make it safe to drink• Improved fabrics to create longer-lasting menstrual hygiene management products

PRODUCT +

SERVICE

• Designing toilet facilities that are user friendly and increase adoption while minimizing maintenance requirements

• Cost effective hand cleaning products that don’t require water and are in a form-factor that maximizes usage

• Low cost machines that can enable micro-entrepreneurs to make menstrual hygiene products

PROCESS

• Supply chain designs that enable efficient capture and disposal of human waste from decentralized toilet facilities through waste collection tankers

• Creating alternative distribution systems for ensuring access to menstrual hygiene products to rural girls

BUSINESS MODEL

• Pay as you go water filtration services aligned to the cash constraints of low income households• Community sanitation facilities that are funded by productivity gains achieved through improved

sanitation such as reduced absence from work for people working as domestic help.

POLICY

• Creating frameworks that enable bureaucrats and planners to submit reliable city level sanitation plans to the Central Government programs for funding

• Policy innovation to address menstrual hygiene as a core focus area within the Government’s sanitation agenda

INNOVATION TYPE ILLUSTRATIVE TARGETS FOR INNOVATION

SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY

• The need to create WASH awareness, advocacy & behavior change content based on leading edge research and understanding of behavior change through disciplines such as behavioral economics + cognitive neuroscience.

PRODUCT + SERVICE

• The need to create WASH behavior change content not on negative messaging (fear, shame, disgust) and but on positive messaging.

• The need to have processes to constantly create new, relevant content for WASH awareness & behavior change campaigns.

PROCESS• The need to enable processes within the government that make it convenient for bureaucrats &

government officials to plan & execute awareness & behavior change campaigns.

MARKETING & COMMUNICATION

• Awareness & behavior change programs run by the government & nonprofits suffer from suboptimal PR strategy & presence leading to un-amplified messaging

BUSINESS MODEL

• The need to invest in WASH Design Labs that create compelling WASH behavior change content since most nonprofits lack resources to invest in the upfront “invention” costs for content that may be high even though the incremental cost of producing and using that content may be low / zero.

POLICY

• The need to advocate for a portion of the government budgets for IEC & demand generation to be set aside for content creation & invention of new campaigns

• The need to advocate for a portion of the government budgets for IEC & demand generation to be set aside for campaign monitoring & program evaluation - something that is missing right now.

Awareness, education, and behavior change programs based on a nuanced understanding of human behavior and cognitive processes.

Innovation is also needed in how the government and other stakeholders plan & implement these programs. Some examples are given below.

INNOVATION NEEDSAWARENESS | EDUCATION | BEHAVIOR CHANGE

INNOVATION NEEDSWASH ADVOCACY

INNOVATION TYPE ILLUSTRATIVE TARGETS FOR INNOVATION

PRODUCT + SERVICE

• The need to create technology based advocacy platforms that allow constant engagement with the government, the media, the corporate sector, & the “non-at-risk” populations around the WASH crisis.

• Creating WASH advocacy campaigns that harness all forms of media

PROCESS• Creating innovative data based platforms that allow for near real time feedback and reporting

loops into decision making around WASH infrastructure, service delivery, & campaigns

MARKETING & COMMUNICATION

• Sanitation suffers from systemic under-reporting in media because it is considered “unsexy” & “uncool” and as something that people don’t want to know about. The need to create WASH advocacy campaigns that draw on popular elements such as music and engage large sections of the population who would otherwise not be interested.

BUSINESS MODEL

• The need to create advocacy platforms & campaigns that are funded completely or substantially not by grant making organizations but by end beneficiaries (urban middle classes for instance) thus allowing them to scale as more people benefit from better sanitation in India.

POLICY• The need for smart data monitoring platforms to maximize government utilization of WASH

budgets & resources - something that is presently low or completely absent due to lack of advocacy & monitoring.

Innovative advocacy platforms are needed to ensure that government decision making - budget allocations, policy formulation, project monitoring - is based on rigorous data.

Innovations in advocacy are also needed to ensure that the WASH crisis gets the attention it deserves in the media & corporate sectors and engages the middle classes who typically

neglect the crisis even though it affects them.

Three key barriers prevent social entrepreneurs & nonprofit innovators working in WASH from innovating at scale.

FUNDING

There is a very large amount of risk-averse funding to scale up approaches that already work but very little funding exists for risky ventures and programs that have the potential to dramatically improve the situation.

PARTNERSHIPS

Most organizations don’t have access to a rich set of multi-

disciplinary partnerships with global experts. Something

absolutely vital to innovation efforts.

This leads to programs that are sub-optimally designed and that don’t benefit from a diversity of

viewpoints.

INNOVATION KNOWLEDGE

There is close to zero volunteerism in the WASH sector as compared to

the education sector or even the environment.

Given how pervasive the sanitation crisis is, this lack of widespread

engagement leads to unsustainable solutions that are dependent on external interventions and which

don’t last beyond the initial impetus.

BARRIERS TO INNOVATION

SOCIAL INNOVATORS FOR

WATER, SANITATION, & HYGIENEIN INDIA

INNOVATION [email protected]

+91 9899692572