Further co-funding for the SuSanA Discussion Forum

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided co-funding for the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) Discussion Forum for the past 1.5 years via a grant to Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). The Forum has catalyzed knowledge exchange amongst experts and engaged citizens within the sanitation, water and hygiene sector.

On the 3rd anniversary of the SuSanA Discussion Forum, SEI is pleased to announce that the Gates Foundation has provided a follow-up grant for “Extension of the SuSanA Discussion Forum”, supporting online knowledge management, dissemination and peer discussions of the Gates Foundation’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects. The size of the grant is 250,000 US$ and it will span a period of 18 months.

The project leader for this grant is Dr. Arno Rosemarin who also led Phase 1 of the project during November 2012 to April 2014 (grant size of 233,000 US$). The focus of this project is to encourage grantees of the Gates Foundation to share and discuss results from their sanitation grants on the open Discussion Forum of SuSanA – the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance, a network of 231 organisations and 3800 individual members.

Results from Phase 1, which was carried out together with the Swiss consulting firm seecon international gmbh in cooperation with the SuSanA secretariat at Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, can be accessed via the research page of the SuSanA website. Further outputs from Phase 1 were seven webinars recorded with sanitation grantees and SuSanA members, as well as videos of interviews with grantees at the “Reinvent the Toilet Fair” in Delhi, India in March 2014.

Phase 2 of this project is aimed at increasing the level of awareness, knowledge dissemination and sharing of research and implementation results in the areas of sanitation science and technology, urban sanitation businesses, demand creation, policy and advocacy. It will contribute to the knowledge management and dissemination that the Gates Foundation is carrying out for its innovative sanitation and hygiene projects.

The activities of the grant will support the following outputs:

1. Make the SuSanA Discussion Forum into a highly accessible, comprehensive and authoritative workplace for the sanitation, water and hygiene community around the world.
2. Ensure that the kernels of knowledge arising from the many innovative projects funded by the Gates Foundation’s Water, Sanitation & Hygiene strategy are put into the hands of the professional community with the aim to disseminate, implement and scale up.
3. Catalyze communication among professionals within the sanitation community in order to enhance learning and exchange of experience.

We are proud of the fact that the work that SuSanA members and the SuSanA secretariat have collectively put into this network since 2007, and into the Discussion Forum in particular since 2011, is being recognised by an important actor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

For further information please consult the SuSanA Discussion Forum, contact Dr. Arno Rosemarin (arno.rosemarin@sei-international.org) or Dr. Elisabeth von Muench (elisabeth.muench@ostella.de) who will again support the SEI team and act as a community manager. We invite you to involve yourself in this project by expressing your views and sharing your experiences on the Discussion Forum: www.forum.susana.org.