Camilla Hagen Sørli
Camilla is an active owner and project executive at Canica, one of the largest privately owned investment companies in Norway, with a focus on the retail, fast moving consumer goods, real estate and manufacturing industries. She also manages the Canica Foundation, which holds a strong focus on enhancing the impact of individuals, institutions, and organizations working to improve the lives of people worldwide.
1,039
septic tanks purchased by rural families to build hygienic toilets
3x
families exposed to program communications are three times more likely to have built a toilet in the past year
447
commercial partners across the sanitation market in Vietnam
The Issue
Lack of access to a clean and safe toilet puts women and girls at risk of violence and disease.
Most rural women and girls in Vietnam do not have access to hygienic toilets. Instead, they defecate outside, which poses serious risks to their health, safety, and dignity. Unhygienic toilets are a leading cause of diarrheal disease, a major cause of death for children under five. In addition to health and safety challenges, unsafe sanitation reduces women and girls’ opportunities to complete their education, earn a living, and provide for their families.
Pilot And Learn
This project will demonstrate the feasibility of creating a sustainable commercial market for quality, hygienic toilets in resource-poor and remote areas.
PSI is partnering with a Vietnamese manufacturer to expand the availability and demand for quality toilets that meet standards for hygiene as well as women’s dignity and safety. PSI is enlisting more than 200 local masons and mason assistants, including women, to build quality toilets that have less smell, are more durable and lightweight, and need to be emptied less frequently. At the same time, a communications campaign will promote the benefits of improved sanitation in ways that resonate with both rural women and men. In collaboration with the Vietnamese government and local companies, PSI is working to ensure families that want a toilet can afford to buy and install one.
Leverage And Scale
Building a successful business model for toilets will improve health, empower women entrepreneurs, and inform strategies to improve sanitation access for rural communities in Vietnam and around the world.
There is an urgent need for new approaches to address market failures that limit the availability of high-quality toilets, especially for marginalized women and girls living in remote areas. This pilot will contribute to a growing evidence base about how to use market systems to expand access to sanitation. Evidence and models will inform governments, multilateral donors, companies and other organizations so they can scale-up proven practices.
News
Female entrepreneurs join forces for charity
THE FINANCIAL TIMES It was seeing the effects of poor sanitation in developing countries that gave Camilla Hagen Sørli a focus for her charitable giving. But it was her part-ownership of Canica, one of Norway’s largest private investment companies, that gave her the means. As the number of successful female executives and business owners increases, […]
No Toilet – No Dignity
THE HUFFINGTON POST No woman or child should risk death, disease or rape when having to go to the bathroom. Vietnam´s journey towards reaching the Sustainable Development Goal number 6 (clean water and sanitation) is an important one. Approximately 17 million rural Vietnamese people lack access to proper sanitation facilities. Through building sustainable markets to […]