Rural Sanitation Marketing in Vietnam

Documents on a rural sanitation marketing project in Thanh Hoa and Quang Nam provinces, Vietnam.

Research on the Sustainability of Rural Sanitation Marketing in Vietnam

07 Nov 11

This Research Brief is based on the full report "Case Study on Sustainability of Rural Sanitation Marketing in Vietnam" and looks into sustainability of sanitation marketing as an approach to creating and meeting rural sanitation demands in Vietnam. The report is written by WSP, IRC and ADCOM.

Sustainability of rural sanitation marketing in Vietnam

ADCOM Vietnam, WSP and IRC wrote a case study on the sustainability of the rural sanitation marketing (RSM) pilot project in Vietnam. This pilot project was very successful. Between January 2003 and June 2006, over a period of 34 months, households in the 30 pilot communes constructed or upgraded 15,149 toilets, an average of 3,787 toilets per year. This was four times more than during the conventional programme. Of the owners, an average of 16% was below the poverty line, against an average of 19% in the target population. Almost three years after the end of the pilot project, the case study team went back to eight communes to look at the sustainability of the approach and the results. In all study communes, all but one of the promoters had continued the promotion of sanitary toilets and the end of open defecation without incentives, be it at a lower intensity. The local private sector had meanwhile developed further. They now offered a larger range of products with varying prices and also gave various types of credit to customers.

This paper published here contains some background information on the case study. The full official publication is available on the WSP web site.

Summary findings RSM vietnam.doc (73.5 kB)

Photo story sanitation Vietnam

Together with the WSP, IRC and ADCOM, a Vietnamese consultancy firm, carried out a case study on the sustainability of rural sanitation marketing. Three years after the end of a 2006-2008 pilot study, promoters had continued to promote sanitation, be it with a lower intensity, even though their monitoring incentive had ended. The local private sector had continued to develop their supply services on their own. Growth rates in access to sanitation had been sustained at, or grown to the same high level as during the pilot.