USAID Global Development Alliance. (2010). Safe Drinking Water Alliance – Experiences in Haiti, Ethiopia, and Pakistan: Lessons for future water treatment programs.
Full-text: http://www.ehproject.org/PDF/ehkm/gda2010.pdf
To address some of the challenges created by lack of access to safe water, in 2004, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Global Development Alliance (GDA) brought together Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP), Population Services International (PSI), CARE USA, and Procter & Gamble (P&G) to create the Safe Drinking Water Alliance (SDWA). The general goal of the Alliance was to test three marketing models to increase demand for water treatment and to identify the potential of P&G’s PUR in each model as an alternative POU technology. PUR is a household-based water treatment product that combines disinfection with removal of dirt and other pollutants and transforms turbid contaminated water into clear, potable water. The three models tested by the SWDA included:
(1) a commercial marketing model with full cost recovery in Pakistan;
(2) a social marketing model where some promotional costs were subsidized in Haiti; and
(3) an emergency relief model in Ethiopia.
In Pakistan and Haiti a combination of behavior change communication activities and PUR-branded messages and materials were disseminated to increase the demand for water treatment and to introduce PUR. In both countries, CCP led the behavior change campaigns, while in Haiti PSI handled the specific promotion and distribution of PUR. In Pakistan, P&G focused on creating demand for PUR. In Ethiopia, CARE staff working in the Community-Based Therapeutic program were fully in charge of introducing PUR and providing the motivation and information for its use.
In all three contexts SDWA partners also studied barriers and facilitators to sustained water treatment behaviors, as well as reactions to and use of PUR specifically. Findings have clear programmatic relevance, and add to the emerging literature on water treatment behavior and the adoption of new technologies, and particularly provide insights about feasible directions for PUR.
