posted on 2018-02-12, 15:11authored byGreg Lestikow, Jess MacArthur, Raisa Chowdhury, J. Davis, Yi Wei
This paper outlines principles for integrating market-based approaches for improving WASH and
nutrition. It draws on iDE’s experience implementing such programs, and specifically highlights
learnings from iDE Bangladesh’s program Profitable Opportunities for Food Security (PROOFS),
implemented in partnership with ICCO Cooperation, BoP Inc., and Edukans. PROOFS leverages market
forces to increase food security, nutrition, and water and sanitation for smallholder farmers and base-ofpyramid
consumers. The program recently concluded a pilot in which Nutrition Sales Agents added a set
of WASH products to their existing “basket” of nutrition-related goods. The paper highlights principles
for leveraging markets to achieve outcomes in WASH and nutrition. Specific insights involve aligning
sales cycles, managing different sales and distribution channels, and ensuring that product margins
provide profit opportunity for businesses and sales agents. These principles are underscored by
observations from the WASH-Nutrition pilot, the final results of which will be available for the WEDC
Conference.
History
School
Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Research Unit
Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)
Published in
WEDC Conference
Citation
LESTIKOW, G. ... et al, 2017. Integrating WASH and nutrition in market-based interventions: principles and results from the field. IN: Shaw, R.J. (ed). Local action with international cooperation to improve and sustain water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services: Proceedings of the 40th WEDC International Conference, Loughborough, UK, 24-28 July 2017, Paper 2719, 6pp.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/