The report includes the results of a survey of over 1 000 people from poor rural or peri-urban communities, approximately half of whom have to date benefited from government sanitation projects. Although the new toilets were found in general to be cleaner and freer of flies and odour, it is a concern that there was no difference found between the two groups in the likelihood of a hand washing facility being found near the toilet.

Over the years a number of aids have been produced to assist planners with the decisionmaking process required to choose an appropriate basic sanitation option for a given area. These include the Site Sanitation Planning and Reporting Aid (SSPRA) produced by Howard et al., 2000, the Norad/DWAF Decision Making Framework for Municipalities produced by Holden et al., 2005, and DWAF’s Groundwater Protocol. There is a need for a software tool that works with the user interactively to progressively eliminate unsuitable sanitation options by asking appropriate questions. There is also a need to combine much of the information required for decision making into one instrument (for example, what is a soil percolation test and how is it carried out?). The Which San? programme has been developed under the aegis of this project to go some way towards realising that goal.