The Role of Mobile in Delivering Sanitation Services

Abstract

Lack of access to adequate sanitation has a considerable impact on public health, leading to mortality from diarrhea to stunting and malnutrition for children, directly affecting their school attendance. Open defecation, in addition to highly impacting privacy and dignity of individuals, is unsafe, especially for women, who are far more vulnerable to the risk of physical and sexual assault. Governments have the responsibility to improve sanitation capacity, but have often failed to provide service supply chain for operation and maintenance. Most practitioners also recognize that building a toilet cannot ensure that it will be used. In rural locations, sustainable access to sanitation is challenged by poor distribution networks, low availability to local sanitation solutions and open defecation behaviors. Growing mobile and data connectivity and use of mobile monitoring tools (SMS or applications), can improve understanding of community sanitation behaviors, while allowing service providers to develop more efficient supply chain and customer relationship management.

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