Everything H2E does grows out of years of hands-on field work on two products: a complete modular toilet sold through local markets, and nature-based wetlands that treat wastewater for whole neighbourhoods. Both show the same principle: identify the real problem first, then build the product and the local system around it.
From a field question about why families lacked decent toilets to a modular product built by local enterprises across two regions.
It would be wrong to assume people don't want one. Every family wants a clean, private, safe and dignified toilet. So we went to the field to find out what was really getting in the way.
Our scoping looked at the whole system around a toilet:
Almost every product on the market was just a toilet slab. The household still had to dig and line the pit, find a mason and build a shelter, often getting the measurements wrong. The result was the dignity deficit: dark, smelly, unsafe latrines that collapse in the rains, especially dangerous for women and children.
No one offered a complete service. Each family had to act as its own contractor: pit diggers, stone suppliers, cement shops, transport and masons, all arranged separately. That meant high costs, long delays, and partial toilets or none at all.
Can we make a cheaper, better and complete on-site toilet, for both wet and dry systems, and a supply chain that can deliver it?
The first concept was drawn with pencil and paper: interlocking panels and joints that make up the pit lining, the slab and the walls, so rooms and pits can simply continue. Each piece had to be light enough for one artisan to handle on site.
We didn't want to become a factory. We wanted local businesses to own production and installation, so the product could outlive any project.
Production and delivery
Running in parallel: demand and finance
Each town where we worked had its own messaging group. Artisans and supervisors posted photos of every toilet at every stage, from marking out and digging to the last panel and the door.
A first pilot in Adama proved the product, the delivery model and loan repayment. It then expanded to four to five zones of the Oromia region and on to the Amhara region, with consistent quality across many independent enterprises.
Nature-based treatment that turns neighbourhood wastewater into water people can reuse, owned and run by the community.
Growing towns are building condominium blocks faster than sewers and treatment plants. Their wastewater often reaches drains, streets and rivers untreated, and conventional treatment plants are too costly and energy-hungry for many towns to build and run.
We asked a different question: what is the simplest system a community and its water utility can build, afford and operate themselves?
A constructed wetland passes wastewater slowly through a lined bed of gravel planted with wetland plants. Bacteria living on the roots and gravel break down the pollution. There are no pumps to power and no chemicals to buy.
After a pilot phase in 2022 with wetlands in Adama and Shashemene, a third wetland opened in the Dembela neighbourhood of Adama on 9 October 2024. It treats wastewater from three condominium blocks for about 700 residents, who manage it together with the Adama Water Utility.
“It has so many benefits and the place looks beautiful.”
Fikerte, resident of Shashemene (quoted by WASTE)
The Adama wetland was inaugurated with community elders, the State Minister for Water Supply and Sanitation and Dutch partners, and is now a reference for nature-based sanitation in Ethiopian towns.
Families hesitate when they must organise many trades. They invest readily in a complete, standard product.
If one mason can lift and fit every piece without machinery, the system works in any village or alley.
Training fabricators, yard owners and masons builds a market that keeps running when a programme ends.
Field staff and entrepreneurs willing to experiment, fix mix designs and challenge old habits decide success.
Photo-based monitoring on everyday phones gives real-time quality control and builds trust.
Producer, artisan, lender and household must all benefit. Hardware alone is not enough.
Treatment only works if the community and utility can run it in every season. Low energy and simple upkeep beat sophistication, and keep working through power cuts and droughts.
When residents help plan, build and maintain a system, they protect it long after the opening day.
Selected as the leading best-practice example of market-based sanitation in Ethiopia. We demonstrated the product and business model to high-level delegations, sector ministries and national development planners, including a visit from the Minister of Health.
Runner-up among development and humanitarian projects nationwide, awarded by the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Associations, the largest umbrella of civil society organisations in Ethiopia.
We run as a business so the impact lasts. Revenue from products, engineering and training funds the work; the social return is built into how the model works.
Resource recovery, circular solutions and lower emissions.
Local jobs and skills, with safety for women and children.
Keeps working through floods, drought and heat.
From pilot to region, with consistent quality.
Development programmes end, but needs and markets remain. Too often the knowledge, molds and trained people scatter when funding stops, and the next programme starts again from zero.
H2E Enterprise was founded in Addis Ababa by Henock Belete Asfaw to carry this work forward as an independent social enterprise: finding products with real market potential, designing them for a changing climate, building the ecosystem around them, and helping organisations across Africa and Asia use proven solutions instead of reinventing the wheel.