Supporting the poor to access sanitation: key lessons from targeted household consumer subsidies in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the experiences of two household sanitation subsidy initiatives piloted by SNV and WaterSHED targeting poor households in rural Cambodia. Each initiative offered eligible households a subsidy to help manage the upfront costs of constructing new pour-flush latrines. Subsidy uptake by households was limited by affordability of the required household contribution, insufficient time for households to mobilise funds, and unavailability of land. However, when taken up, the subsidies also often mobilised significant household investment. Overall, these experiences point to the need to understand how poor households respond to subsidy opportunities and to adapt subsidy mechanisms accordingly.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Janina Murta for her roles in evaluating the SNV household sanitation subsidy initiative and contributing to earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Disclaimer

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the organisations they represent.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Kohlitz

Jeremy Kohlitz is a WASH researcher with special interest in the Asia-Pacific region. His areas of expertise include interdisciplinary and applied research on sustainability of rural water, rural sanitation, and urban sanitation services, and climate change impacts on WASH services.

Sunetra Lala

Sunetra Lala serves as the WASH Sector Leader for SNV Nepal and brings 20 years of leadership and experience in project management, applied research, capacity building, and knowledge management in the development sector, of which 12 is in WASH. Her areas of expertise include WASH, faecal sludge management, SBCC, gender, and knowledge management.

Janita Bartell

Janita Bartell is a sociologist who leads monitoring, evaluation, and operational research to support development practitioners to understand the reality which they are working in and which they are sharing through their work.

Gabrielle Halcrow

Gabrielle Halcrow is SNV Programme Coordinator for the Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All (rural) Programme in Asia. She has a technical background in international and environmental health, with 20 years of experience working with WASH, gender equality, and public health programmes with local and state governments and international development organisations.

Tim Foster

Tim Foster is a Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures. His research focuses on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in low- and middle-income countries. His areas of expertise include rural water supply, water quality, and public health. Tim has more than 10 years’ experience as a WASH practitioner and researcher, and has worked on WASH issues in 14 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.

Juliet Willetts

Juliet Willets leads applied research to improve development policy and practice and to address social justice and sustainable development. She is a recognised expert in water and sanitation in developing country contexts, and also works on issues related to gender equality, civil society’s role in development, governance and accountability, climate change, urban development, monitoring, evaluation, and development effectiveness more broadly.