Results-based Financing Drives Growth: SOIL Exceeds Annual Growth Target 4 Months Early!
The SOIL team getting set up for a sales and marketing event in Karakol.
We are excited to report that SOIL’s partnership with IDB Lab’s Outcomes for Change Fund (OCF) in Haiti has been a huge success! Our team in Cap-Haitien exceeded the new household toilet installation target that was set as part of this results-based financing agreement and installed 1,301 toilets since October 1 (the target was 900), growing at three times the rate of the previous year. The political and security situation in Haiti continues to be challenging, and while we are incredibly proud of our dedicated team for their commitment to their communities during this time of uncertainty, we are particularly pleased that 7,800 more people in the country now have access to safe and dignified sanitation.
The favorable outcome of the OCF project is the direct result of the hard work and skillful coordination of our amazing staff who have worked to grow our sanitation service at a faster rate than ever before in SOIL’s history. The Sales and Marketing team organized highly effective and well attended events in the communities of Caracol and Limonade, introducing new neighborhoods to
the EkoLakay service and spreading the word to potential new clients. Our collection and waste treatment teams fine-tuned their operations to adjust to the rapid addition of households and increase in containers and waste to be treated. Members of our research team continued to visit households and speak directly to our clients, collecting important data around customer satisfaction and listening for ways that we can adjust and improve.
And of course none of it would have been possible without the support and guidance of our main project partners: IDB Lab, the Vitol Foundation, Levoca Impact Labs and government stakeholders including the Haitian Government Sanitation Authority (DINEPA) and the Ministry of Public Health. One of the most promising benefits of this collaboration has been aligning stakeholder goals and incentives, ensuring coordination of efforts and creating an atmosphere of collective excitement and support.
In this first phase of the partnership, SOIL has been committed to expanding sanitation access and safe ecological waste management to new households in northern Haiti while carrying out research to demonstrate the broader impact of the work through behavior change and demand, but we’re not going to stop here. We are actively working to set in motion the next phase of the
partnership which will last 3-4 years. SOIL hopes to expand access to safely-managed household sanitation to 10% of the population of Cap Haitien, roughly equivalent to the number of households who currently have no toilet access, while working with other private sector providers and the Haitian government to develop strategies for replication of our service in other cities throughout the country.
We are proud to be part of this innovative shift in the sanitation sector which seeks to develop a strategic financing mechanism to ensure basic service delivery in places where government infrastructure is absent and as we continue with this work, we look forward to transparently sharing lessons learned with practitioners around the globe.