Impact Accelerator- Innovation Project

#TalkToilet Campaign

Background
The campaign includes a bus tour inside Kathmandu valley and along the highway
bringing together influencers, policy makers and media to generate more ownership and
create motivation to ensure safety and dignity of women and girls by building and
managing safe, accessible, and female friendly public toilets. This campaign aims in
collaborating with city mayor, policy makers, influencers, media and private sector to
advocate for safe, accessible and female friendly public toilets.

Rational
Going to the toilet is a basic human need. However, many people, in particular women
and girls, often cannot go to the toilet when and where they need or want. In 2010, the
UN recognized water and sanitation as human rights. Human rights criteria specify that
toilets should be sufficient in number, physically accessible, safe, affordable, designed
for use by all, culturally appropriate and suitable for all genders. But, such is not the case
in context to Nepal. In an assessment conducted by WaterAid Nepal in 2019, the findings
showed that there are 242 public toilets in Kathmandu Valley but most of it are in
dilapidated status and lack of WASH amenities which has put public health at risk. Public
toilets in the assessment ranked very low in terms of gender friendliness, Menstrual
Hygiene Management, disabled friendly and meeting the requirements for operator/
caretakers’ health and comfort.
WaterAid Nepal strongly believes that poor access to sanitation disproportionately affects
women and girls. When toilets are not available, evidence have shown that women and
girls often restrict their eating or drinking to delay the need to use a toilet, which increases
their risks of various health problems and affects their quality of life. A lack of suitable
toilets can even further constrain their personal freedom and mobility, access to
employment, health and education, and involvement in political and recreational activities.
Women and girls with disabilities face double the disadvantages because even where
toilets do exist they are rarely designed and constructed to be fully accessible and safe
for them. In addition to this, females need a private and accessible toilet to change their
menstrual products; water and soap to wash their hands, bodies and any reusable
products; and somewhere to dispose of menstrual products in a safe, culturally
appropriate and dignified way.
Scope
Over the past years, WaterAid Nepal has been actively involved in advocating for the
need of female friendly public toilet. This campaign is a step ahead to advocate and
dialogue for the same. The campaign will bring together mayors, policy makers,
influencers, media and private sector to advocate for safe, accessible and female friendly
public toilets.
The campaign aims to promote a genuine transformation of policies and practices and
persuade to ensure safety and dignity of women and girls by building and managing safe,
accessible, and female friendly public toilets. The main objective of the campaign is to
garner support to advocate and influence on importance of gender friendly public toilets.
To draw media attention to escalate this issue for wider coverage to bring about change
in policy and plans.
Approach
The campaign will be designed with three touch points where we will exercise the same
campaign modality time and again to discuss this important issue for sustained dialogues
and actions. The first testing will be completed by March 2023 and consecutively
conducted twice before December 2023. Campaign will also be targeted to coincide with
important day’s such as Menstrual Hygiene Day and World Toilet Day.
• Promoting people-centered initiatives – flash mobs & dramas, dialogue
programmes signing petition,
• Building partnerships across sectors
• Collecting evidence-based information and sharing experiences
• Working with an informed and responsible media
Target Stakeholders
Government officials: The government officials will benefit by the Media coverage, giving
them more popularity which will help them priorities female friendly public toilets.
Influencers: The influencers will also benefit from the Media coverage which will give them
more popularity.
People: The public will benefit from this since they will be able to utilize the facilities once
the government prioritizes the issue. They will also gain more information on the
importance of public toilets.
Private Sector: The private sector could think of enterprising ways/ business opportunities
to engage in the public toilet initiative.
Expected outcomes
To influence the city Mayor and policy makers to carry this campaign to build female
friendly toilets for women and girls. To influence them to implement the existing policies
while building the toilets and provide the citizens with their basic right.
▪ To bring about awareness to the public about the importance of female friendly
toilets by bringing in influencers, who will advocate for this issue more widely for
people.
▪ To bring the media to cover the sanitation crisis more widely, which will influence
other stakeholders and private sector to join in the campaign to build safe female
friendly public toilets to make this city safe for women and liveable.