Sanitation policy in India – designed to fail?

Abstract After three decades of disappointing experience with sanitation promotion, the Indian government launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in 2014, with great fanfare and optimism. Yet SBM failed to live up to the expectations. This article argues that the dull outcomes are the result of design flaws in the program. The study finds that the goals of SBM are poorly chosen, with private sanitation services being prioritized over those which create public value in Indian context. Furthermore, SBM emphasizes financial and information tools while overlooking the regulatory and organizational tools and their synergies, which makes it nothing more than a poorly designed conditional cash transfer scheme. The design approach employed in the article not only opens the black box of sanitation policy tools but also generates valuable recommendations to guide sanitation policy in developing countries.