Implementation, budget changes needed for Swachh Barat to work

Nearly a year into India’s ambitious plan to end open defecation by 2019 and nongovernmental organizations fear it’s being derailed by an overwhelming focus on building toilets instead of changing behavior. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the $31 billion Swachh Bharat mission in October, which aims to make more than 110 million toilets in five years. “It’s supposed to be a demand-driven program, demand creation followed by toilet construction,” said Nitya Jacob, head of policy at WaterAid. But he said government workers implementing the mission were under immense pressure to hit annual targets, which means, “It’s just toilet construction to meet the target and not the other way round.” Currently home to 60 percent of the world’s population defecating outdoors, India’s been trying to roll out sanitation since 1986, when its first national program launched. Since then, coverage has grown at slightly over 1 percent a year without variation, despite various reforms to the program. The government decided behavior causing open defecation had to be tackled after the 2011 census revealed the country had more mobile phones than toilets, with stories emerging of people using those built under past missions to store grain. Many simply prefer to go outdoors, particularly in rural areas where farmers have been rising early and relieving themselves in the fields for generations. “It’s almost a traditional way,” explained Vaidya Krishnamurthy, head of innovation at social venture philanthropy organization Samhita. When the sanitation mission was restructured last year, the government said behavior change activities would be used to achieve the earlier target of 2019 — brought forward from 2022. At the same time, the education and communication budget, which wasn’t fully spent by state governments in previous years, was halved from 15 to 8 percent of total funding. It’s going mostly to newspaper, television, radio and billboard advertisements. Subsidies: A barrier to lasting behavioral change Officials counted near 5 million toilets built in 2014-15. But “whether they’re being used is another thing, because there’s no communication programming running alongside the construction,” a UNICEF official said. The U.N. agency helped state governments produce plans for communication. “But then of course when it came to the actual doing of it, they don’t,” the official said. “We’ve gone as far as the district, and helped them develop plans, and they’re not implementing them.” Aid workers also fear the subsidy families receive to build toilets is acting as a barrier to lasting behavioral change. The restructured mission hiked the subsidy from 10,000 to 12,000 rupees ($187), which is being used to motivate people to build toilets by nongovernmental organizations and others working on the ground, Jacob said. “They are willing to take a toilet for the money, it’s not necessarily for the toilet itself,” the WaterAid official said. Feedback Foundation Chairman Vinayak Chatterjee said many who aren’t eligible for the subsidy prefer to wait, thinking they might be under a future program. Meanwhile, those who received a subsidy before but are no longer eligible now often have toilets that have since “become defunct.” They fell into disrepair because communities were never properly motivated to want them, he explained. Implementation needs to change Many nonprofits think the sanitation mission doesn’t have a big enough budget for all it aims to achieve. “We are trying to tell the government that you need more money for behavior change and also for human resources,” Jacob said. There are no dedicated front-line sanitation workers employed by districts in most states, with tasks falling to the authorities there. The 2015 union budget cut spending for Swachh Bharat from 42.6 billion rupees in 2014-15 to 26.3 billion rupees. The government said the shortfall would be made up by the states, which got a larger slice of taxes, and extra taxes on services. It’s also being funded by multilaterals like the World Bank, and companies that have to spend a percentage of profits on corporate social responsibility. Change is happening in some districts, like Nadia in West Bengal, which ended open defecation in March — the local magistrate heard neighboring Bangladesh had better sanitation and mobilized the whole community to reverse the situation in about 15 months. But NGOs say such success stories hinge on local authorities taking initiative. For widespread change to happen, the way the mission is implemented needs to change. There’s been a lack of research into why implementation has not been working, with corrections fed back into the mission, according to UNICEF. “That has never happened at [government of India] level or at state level,” a UNICEF official said. The agency is now helping establish a national institute of sanitation, which could help fill the void. One of the key tasks for agencies and NGOs supporting Swachh Bharat is to try and help improve implementation. UNICEF, WaterAid and Feedback Foundation are among those providing technical advice, capacity building and training. But training doesn’t always lead to change, said Chatterjee, whose foundation runs programs funded by the World Bank. “There have been instances where basically we have done capacity building, but it has not led to desired results,” he said. It happens because there is no incentive in the mission for local government workers to complete communication activities, so trainers have to inspire them to act on their own steam. But Chatterjee has seen more motivated workers since Modi launched Swachh Bharat, amid a televised whirlwind of bureaucrats sweeping the streets. “There are 550 districts in India, I see district collectors emerging as champions in 20 percent,” he estimated. ‘No evidence that anything has changed’ NGOs are also implementing sanitation programs for companies, with 33 approved to work on CSR projects by the government. Samhita has helped several companies plan projects and partner with nonprofits. Some were keen to tackle behavior change, according to founder Priya Naik. “But the government also put pressure on them, saying ‘Well you guys committed X amount, when are you going to hand them over?’” Naik said. “They were forced in some sense to quickly at least get the numbers out — so it has been a bit of a mess.” With its anniversary approaching, Swachh Bharat is facing scrutiny in India; much of the focus has been on construction targets set to miss the mark and how the prime minister might break the news. Development workers are hoping the anniversary will see announcements of a more holistic sanitation model, also addressing the lack of running water and electricity in many villages where toilets are being built. But do they think India is on track to hit that 2019 target? “It won’t be met by 2019 because there is no evidence that anything has changed,” one such development worker said. “None of the state governments have ratcheted up implementation sufficiently.” Check out more insights and analysis for global development leaders like you, and sign up as an Executive Member to receive the information you need for your organization to thrive.