Rural excreta management poses it own problems. Open defecation in a quiet secluded spot in a low density rural area can be a pleasant experience and has advantages over building and using a smelly latrine. The user-perceived disadvantages associated with open defecation relate to getting the bottom of your trousers wet in the wet season, being attacked by dangerous creatures, embarrassment caused by stumbling across your father-in-law when searching for a good site, etc., rather than being an un-healthy practice. The user-perceived advantages of a latrine become apparent as the housing density starts to increase when the need for privacy, convenience and maintaining dignity begins to increase. As a man in a rural village in Singida, Tanzania replied when asked why his village had latrines and their neighbours had none; "because there are no bushes…".

The general problem is that a population’s defecation behaviour does not change at the same rate as the population grows. Communities become stuck in the routine of open defecation and sometimes require outside help to highlight the problem and find new solutions. This approach has been effectively identified and built upon by VERC in Bangladesh with their ‘Total Sanitation’ approach. They found that after open defecation had been identified and vocalised as a problem, the private sector, local pride and peer pressure were excellent factors for helping to achieve 100% coverage (Kar 2003).
The following are some generalisations about rural excreta management

• Demand for latrines may be low (or non-existent) and needs to be built
• Community structures are stronger than in urban areas making peer pressure and complying with the social norm a more powerful motivating factor
• Locally grown, free construction materials are usually utilised in latrine construction (which is fortunate due to the cashless nature of many rural economies)
• Self-build is likely to be more common than in urban areas
• The space for initial building or replacement is not usually a problem

Given these generalisations the key questions that need to be addressed are:

• how to generate demand and increase uptake?
• given the low density and larger distances between households how can:
• communication channels be best utilised?
• selling latrine components become a viable business?
• transport costs be reduced?
• how can loan and credit systems be effectively developed and operate, or the designs made more affordable?

These questions move the designer into developing marketing based approaches using the 4Ps Jargon buster.doc (JB). This can be a difficult process, as demand may be low and the costs of supplying the right product at the right price in the right place neither high enough to be commercially viable or low enough to meet user expectations and cash flow.