Business Analysis of Fecal Sludge Management: Emptying and Transportation Services in Africa and Asia

Draft final report

This study was initiated and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to map the urban sanitation situation and assess business and operating models for fecal sludge management in 30 cities across 10 countries in Africa and Asia, specifically focussing on the extraction and transportation market segments. The available information about fecal sludge emptying and transportation service delivery is both limited and weak. In a majority of cities, fecal sludge management (FSM), as a service to households, is largely ignored by local and national governments. Decision makers, entrepreneurs and investors in social businesses lack the necessary information – on market size, business opportunities, and profitability – to make FSM a functional component of the sanitation value chain. In many cases the entrepreneurs also lack recognition from the public utilities that they are providing these services to households that are not connected to the centralized sewers – which is the case for the majority of households in the surveyed cities.