Social Marketing for Scaling Up Sanitation for the Urban Poor – a case of slum communities in Kawempe Division, Kampala City

The paper presents experiences of using social marketing to improve sanitation in urban slum areas to scale up improved sanitation and hygiene practices. The work is conducted by Sustainable Sanitation and Water Renewal Systems (SSWARS), a local NGO supported by WaterAid Uganda and is implemented in three parishes in Kawempe Division (District) in Kampala City. These parishes like other slum areas in Kampala are characterized by informal settlement patterns and are highly congested. Over 1.5 million people are living in Kampala slums (Population & Housing census, 2002). Improper sanitation and hygiene practices are the manifest features in these communities as most households do not have latrines and hand washing facilities. In a study conducted by ActionAid Int., close to 80% of slum dwellers in Kampala lack access to toilets. The incidence and prevalence of diarrhea, cholera and other infectious diseases accruing from poor sanitation and hygiene practices are the main epidemics in these areas with most risk burden being on children, pregnant women and the elderly people.

SSWARS adopted sanitation social marketing technique which considers sanitation as a social good and to uses commercial marketing principles of product, price, promotion and place to promote sanitation and lure communities to actively engage in improved sanitation and hygiene practices. Informative research studies and needs assessments are conducted in communities from which a variety of latrine options suiting different sites and affordability conditions are developed and piloted, and other Information, Education and Communication materials. An accessible supply chain was established using trained community masons and a community sanitation center (sani-center) where toilet option models, information and other resources on sanitation are accessed.

A community sanitation revolving fund scheme, in which the poor people access funds strictly for constructing latrines, and pay back in monthly installments (over a period of three-six months) to enable access by other community members is used to scale-up sanitation was established. Communities were trained in waste recycling. These are consequently contributing to scaling up sanitation health and poverty alleviation in these areas.

[Paper to be presented at the IRC symposium Sanitation for the Urban Poor, Delft, The Netherlands, 19 - 21 November 2008]