Household Motivations for Adopting Improved Sanitation

Households have their own reasons for building and using latrines., usually relating to a combination of the following:

• increased comfort
• increased privacy
• increased convenience
• increased safety for women and children, especially at night
• dignity and social status
• being modern or more urbanized
• cleanliness
• lack of smells and flies
• less embarrassment with visitors
• reduced illness and accidents
• reduced conflict with neighbours
• good health in a very broad cultural sense, often linked to disgust and avoidance of faeces
• increased property value
• increased rental income
• eased restricted mobility due to illness and/or old age
• reduced fertilizer costs (ecological sanitation)
• manure for crop production (ecological sanitation)

A key driver for latrine adoption in a study undertaken in Benin was the increasing dissatisfaction with traditional open defecation, created by a combination of awareness of sanitation alternatives, exposure to urban life, and the decreasing availability of ‘good’ defecation sites within reasonable distance of home. Good meant clean, visually private, safe and socially appropriate.

In different settings and in different households, the most important reasons for latrine adoption will vary. Careful attention needs to be given to understanding the reasons for sanitation change.
Important differences have been found between the motivations of men and women (Jenkins and Curtis 2005; Jackson 2004; Mukherjee 2001; Frias and Mukerjee 2005). Women consistently value sanitation more than men, in many cases for the increased convenience, privacy, dignity and safety it provides them. Men are often more concerned about sanitation to improve the comfort and modernity of their homes and to provide for the well-being of their family members. A key force behind each one of these private reasons for seeking sanitation improvements is dissatisfaction with existing defecation practices or facilities in one way or another (Jenkins and Curtis 2005). Generally there is already a high level of dissatisfaction in urban areas and there may also be an awareness of alternatives, so motivation can be rapidly mobilized. This contrasts with rural areas where exposure to the private benefits of improved sanitation is low, dissatisfaction has not been stimulated, and there is very little awareness or experience of good alternatives to traditional practices.
It is important to investigate locally what different groups want from sanitation and use this information to develop messages and promotional material to reflect the real felt needs for improvement of different groups.