Selling latrines at scale

Since the beginning of iDE Cambodia’s sanitation marketing effort, we have facilitated the sale of 303,346 latrines (as of August 2018), reaching 8.7 % of the population. The number of latrines sold per month saw a peak of 7,485 (March 2016), but has decreased to around 1,000 per month as the market continues to saturate. Today, many of the remaining households without latrines are either very poor or live in extremely challenging environments where the current design may not be appropriate, necessitating new innovations in financing and product design.

Our cost-effectiveness analysis (a running average of program cost per latrine sold), reflects how programmatic decisions and market trends impact cost-effectiveness. The program cost per latrine peaked around 2011-12 as we iterated and tested designs, then dropped precipitously as we began scaling up sales starting at the end of 2012. However, cost per latrine sold started to increase again as the market became more saturated and iDE has directed more of its focus on influencing laggards to buy (see “A sweeping sales strategy”).

In addition to sales, we want to know how well we are contributing to the Cambodian government’s goal of achieving full coverage by 2025. Our 2012 baseline survey indicated that 29% of households in our targeted areas had an improved latrine. In just six years, program-wide coverage has increased to 67% (ranging from 48% in Oddar Meanchey to 76% in Kandal).

A recent analysis from Georgetown University study found that between 2010 and 2014, iDE’s program led to increases in latrine coverage by 19.9 percentage points and a 6.5 percentage point reduction in rural diarrhea prevalence in intervention areas.