Exploring the\nBarriers to Scaling Up Sanitation Enterprises\nUsing Q‑Methodology

Despite decades of effort, progress in safely managed\nsanitationa\npublic sector mandateis stalling due to limited public funding\nand poor governance, among other reasons. As a result, public health\nhas suffered and environmental degradation has continued. Social enterprises\nthat use innovative business models to provide on-site sanitation\nservices, also known as sanitation enterprises, are considered an\nemerging solution. However, sanitation enterprises have not yet successfully\nreplaced public provision at scale. This work explores the barriers\nthat sanitation enterprises encounter in lower- and middle-income\ncountries. Q-Method, a mixed-methods approach that assesses social\nperspectives on an issue, is used to evaluate major barriers and groups\nof dominant perception for 19 sanitation enterprises operating across\n20 countries. A total of 25 mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive\nbarriers are identified, ranging from affording capital expenses to\nnavigating political corruption. The results show that most of the\nidentified barriers fall into the financial barrier category, with\nreaching economies of scale being the greatest obstacle for sanitation\nenterprises. On the basis of these results, the premise of independent\nprofitability underlying the sanitation enterprise value proposition\nshould be reevaluated. Four enterprise types are proposed and can explain half of\nthe variance among the sanitation enterprises studied. The context\nof a sanitation enterprise, including its countries of operation,\nsize, customer base, sources of revenue, and section of the sanitation\nvalue chain, influences the barriers that the enterprise encounters.\nThis research underscores the crucial role of context in influencing\nbarriers for sanitation enterprises, emphasizing the need for investment\nand for policy makers to take these contextual dimensions into account.