HappyTap

Area of Focus:

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

Geography:

Bangladesh

Washing hands with soap is the cheapest and easiest way to prevent diarrhoea and infectious disease. However, less than one in five adults globally washes hands consistently after defecating, despite high levels of awareness. Convenient access to a desirable sink is the best predictor of handwashing, yet roughly 40 percent of households globally do not have a handwashing facility at all.  

HappyTap advocates for a new normal in hand hygiene - one in which desirable, functional sinks are located exactly where needed so people don't have to go somewhere else just to wash hands. HappyTap designs and markets robust portable sinks that can be placed anywhere.  

After launching successfully in Vietnam, HappyTap joined forces with TRANSFORM to take its solution to Bangladesh. While HappyTap’s sinks address a critical infrastructure gap, its success - and a significant part of the project - was about encouraging behaviour change; making handwashing more convenient, accessible and desirable. 

Through TRANSFORM, Unilever introduced HappyTap to a local manufacturing partner in Bangladesh. TRANSFORM’s support also enabled HappyTap to recruit key staff, conduct market research, adapt its solution for Bangladesh using human-centred design, deliver a multi-channel marketing campaign, scale-up distribution and investigate further regional expansion. 

More recently, TRANSFORM is providing additional funding to help HappyTap continue scaling the business model and making appropriate handwashing facilities more accessible to low-income households. Building on key learnings and progress from the first project, this next phase is testing a ‘Try & Buy’ sales model in Bangladesh, targeting low-income households by working with NGO and microfinance partners. The aim will be to validate a new sales approach that can be replicated and scaled in other markets.