Howard Sharman considers a novel approach to corporate involvement in markets at the bottom of the economic pile across the world

Lets talk about toilets. Thats somewhere where the public and the private meet.
 

And somewhere where the private sector could really make a difference.

Theres nothing more demeaning to a human being than having to defecate in the open.

Nothing more unpleasant to the non-defecator than ducking to avoid a flying toilet or having to watch your step to avoid splitting one of those little baggies left lying on the ground.

(Flying toilets being a popular name for a plastic bag used for public defecation that is then cast aside, sometimes discreetly, sometimes with more force) Any Global Big Society worth its name would surely be able to boast that none of its members had to defecate in public. For women its particularly dangerous. This is aside from the danger of diseases spread by public defecation.

So the lack of toilets and sanitation in villages and slums across the developing world has to be a problem that is worth addressing.

And, interestingly as far as this column is concerned, the favoured development model is very much a private sector one.

Start with the serious problems

A couple of years ago I visited communal toilets in Mumbai and last week I was in Nairobis Kibera allegedly the largest slum in Africa and saw a communal toilet in action there.

The Kibera toilet was right next to one of the most unpleasant, flying-toilet-littered alleyways in this enormous informal settlement. I was glad that we were there in the dry season.

In both cities the business model for the communal toilet is the same. Individuals pay per use, or families can subscribe as many goes as you want within the month for one easy payment. Could almost be a subscription to Sky or Virgin Media. And in both cities there are added communal benefits meeting rooms up above that local groups can use.

The payments made by users allow for the maintenance and repair of the toilets, and the presence of wardens to keep them clean and ensure that users behave properly.

They are neatly divided into male and female sides, and some of the Mumbai ones also have separate entrances (and smaller loos) for children who otherwise can get shoved out of the queue in the morning, or are fearful of using toilets built for adults. The result being that they have to use the public streets and alleyways.

In Mumbai the communal toilets are mainly built by the city or the state and are plumbed into the mains, but in Kibera there was an interesting addition to the product mix (if I can use that phrase).

All of the product of the toilet went into a large cistern beneath the structure and the gases produced were captured and could, potentially, be put to use.

When we were there it was not clear what they were being used for a pipe lay on the ground with a small plume of flame coming out of the end as the gas was burned off. But it could be used for cooking or, I suppose, bottled for sale to local residents.

Business opportunity?

Theres a real, global, social business model here waiting to be exploited.

Every human on the planet needs a facility of this sort. Many of us are lucky enough to have one (or more) of our own for private use and when caught short out of the house can pop into a pub, shopping centre or restaurant and find somewhere clean to use for free.

But millions upon millions of our fellow world citizens have to do it in public or pay to use a communal toilet if they are lucky enough to have one near them.

Paying to poo is just another way in which it is more expensive to be poor than to be rich.

Communal toilets are not that expensive to build. Theres a subscription model already in place and already widely accepted. The demand is, to say the least, consistent.

There would appear to be by-products to diversify the revenue streams. And there are social as well as business bottom lines here, not to mention the public health benefits of taking dangerous waste off the streets.

Surely this is something that a water company, a construction company, even a natural gas company, could launch as a global social business with no requirement for a fully commercial return on investment?

But, once the full inventive and problem-solving power of the private sector was brought to bear, they might be surprised at how well this business could do.

Howard Sharman (howard.sharman@advanceaid.org) is a senior consultant with Advance Aid (http://www.advanceaid.org) The first column in this series can be found here.