The aim of the two-day event is to initiate competitive research project proposals in the field of water management, sanitation and sludge treatment for the upcoming calls of the EU Framework Programme for Research (FP7) in the field of Environment. Following the joint Africa-EU strategy (2007) the European Union launches a cross thematic ‘Africa call’ with 63 million Euros available for funding.
Categories: Africa · Campaigns and Events · Funding · Research
Many water charities have sprung up within the last year that are using the Internet and associated social media to raise funds for projects in developing countries. With their Toilet Twinning campaign, UK-based CORD is one of the first to focus on raising money to build latrines.
Toilet Twinning links toilets around the world with those being built in Burundi by families returning from exile in Tanzania. For £60 (US$ 98 or € 70) people, schools or organisations can “twin” their toilets with one in a Rutana Province village – and track it down to its exact location via Google Earth. “Twinners” receive a special one off certificate to display in their toilets picturing their twin, its exact location and Google map reference.
Improving water and sanitation is key to CORD’s programme in remote Giharo Commune. Over the past 18 months CORD helped local returnees to build 870 pit latrines, each benefiting a family of six. With their campaign CORD plans to double that number. Blocks of toilets have also been built at 3 primary schools and alongside water points.
The first 500 Twinnings are on sale now via a special CORD website: www.toilettwinning.org. English singer Corinne Bailey Rae and the Bishop of Coventry are two famous toilet twinners featured on the web site.
Bishop of Coventry Rt. Reverend Christopher Cocksworth. Photo: CORD
The site has a range a fun and serious stuff abouts toilets and sanitation, including a link to another fundraising campaign led by former Las Vegas singer Gino Federici who now “sings for toilets”.
And for those would love to gift a toilet but find CORD’s £ 60 a bit too expensive, they can go to Oxfam who will “build a bog” for £50 (US$ 82 or € 59) and cheaper still, sister organisation Oxfam Novib in the Netherlands, will build the same “bog” for only € 45 (£ 38 = US$ 63)!
Source: CORD, 09 Jun 2009
Categories: Africa · Campaigns and Events · Funding · Sanitary Facilities · Web sites
Tagged: Burundi, CORD, Toilet Twinning
Two major aid agency reports published this week say millions of children’s lives are being put at risk because governments and the international aid community are not responding appropriately to diseases such as diarrhoea.
“Diarrhoea kills more children than HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB combined, yet compared to these diseases receives little financing and is not prioritised by governments in donor and developing country governments alike,” said Oliver Cumming, co-author of a report by Water Aid, “Fatal neglect: How health systems are failing to comprehensively address child mortality” [Read the WaterAid press release , 12 May 2009, here]‘.
The report shows that between 2004 and 2006 only $1.5 billion was spent globally on improving sanitation. In the same period, $10.8 billion was spent on interventions for HIV/AIDS – responsible for 315,000 child deaths in that period, and $3.5 billion on interventions for malaria – responsible for 840,000 child deaths.
A health worker in the only government-run clinic in Kibera said diarrhoea was a major problem in the slum, which is home to over one million of Kenya’s poor. [...] “There are a lot of cases of children dying of diarrhoea because the health service in a slum setting such as this is not so well distributed,” added the health worker who asked to remain anonymous.
[...] Another report “Diarrheal Disease: Solutions to Defeat a Global Killer” by health advocacy group PATH, speculates that in the 1970s and 1980s awareness-raising and fund-raising for tackling the problem were so successful that the mortality rate fell by almost 50 percent. It says many donors, governments and aid agencies may have considered the problem solved.
But the issue is far from solved. Water Aid says that when taking into account adult deaths, funding for HIV/AIDS is balanced, but when considering child deaths, the large resources for fighting the disease are disproportionate.
Both reports highlight that relatively cheap fixes can be effective – for example educating people to wash their hands, using water purifiers and disinfectants and taking rehydration salts for diarrhoea. But the aid community is not devoting sufficient funds or attention to the problem, the reports say.
The Kenyan government is working with aid groups to educate the public on good hygiene, improve water chlorination and provide communities with water purifiers and disinfectants. But the financial burden is high, says Kenya’s Health Minister Shahnaaz Sharif. “A lot of donor agencies are not concentrating on diarrhoea and then it is left up to the individual governments to handle those programmes and most governments cannot cope,” Sharif told AlertNet.
The Kibera health worker said she believed some funding for HIV, TB and malaria would do more good if it was diverted to treating diarrhoeal diseases in young children. “If I was offered a wish list, I would say we channel a lot of funds (to) healthcare for children under five with an emphasis on diarrhoea and malnutrition,” she added.
Source: Natasha Elkington, Reuters AlertNet, 14 May 2009
From WaterAid report "Fatal Neglect".
Categories: Africa · Funding · Policy · Publications · Sanitation and Health
Tagged: diarrhoeal diseases, Kenya, PATH, WaterAid
African Urban Poor – Improved Water and Sanitation (AUP-IWS) APS
Creation Date: Mar 09, 2009
Current Closing Date for Applications: Feb 08, 2010
Funding Instrument Type: Grant
Category of Funding Activity: Natural Resources
Award Ceiling: $4,500,000
Award Floor: $1,500,000
CFDA Number(s): 98.001 — USAID Foreign Assistance for Programs Overseas
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: Yes
The purpose of this Annual Program Statement (APS) is to disseminate information about the United States Agency for International Development(USAID) African Urban Poor Improved Water Supply and Sanitation Program (AUP-IWS) APS.
USAID anticipates awarding a maximum of three assistance instruments from applications submitted in response to this APS during the first initial round. It is anticipated that grants will be funded for amounts between $1,500,000 and $4,500,000 for the life of proposed projects.
Categories: Africa · Funding
Tagged: grants, U.S. Agency for International Development, urban poor, urban water and sanitation, USAID
From 16-17 April 2009, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) organised an in-country Sanitation Dialogue in Thanh Hoa, Viet Nam. The session followed-up on Viet Nam’s sanitation actions proposed at the ADB-DMC Sanitation Dialogue held in March 2009, in the Philippines.
The event web page includes presentations on urban wastewater management, technology and financing options.
Categories: Campaigns and Events · East Asia & Pacific · Funding · Technology · Wastewater Management
Tagged: Viet Nam
The Andean Development Corporation (CAF) and Peru’s state water utility Sedapal have signed an agreement to start a pilot project at the Carapongo wastewater treatment plant, in Lima’s Ate Vitarte district. [...] Sedapal has bought equipment to burn the methane gas that is produced at the facility. CAF will assist with studies related to the sale of carbon bonds, generated by the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The entity will also try to identify potential buyers for the carbon bonds [...] under the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism [CDM] or other markets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The sale of carbon bonds would help to finance the project
Source: BNamericas [subscription site], 16 Apr 2009
Categories: Funding · Latin America & Caribbean · Wastewater Management
Tagged: Peru, Clean Development Mechanism, carbon funds
The [Australian] Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Mr Bob McMullan, [...] welcomed a report that highlights the sanitation and water challenges facing developing countries in [the South East Asia & Pacific] region. The report by a coalition of academic and non-government organisations, including the Institute for Sustainable Futures and WaterAid Australia, was released to mark World Water Day [22 March 2009]..
“Meeting the Sanitation and Water Challenge in South East Asia and the Pacific” outlines priorities and actions for tackling the challenge of scaling up access to sanitation. [...] The report was produced following the Sanitation and Water Conference held in Melbourne in October 2008
“The outcomes from this conference have helped develop the [Australian] Government’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Strategy and the related $300 million Access to Clean Water and Effective Sanitation Initiative,” Mr McMullan said. ”This initiative will increase the Government’s focus on meeting the challenges of sanitation [and water supply] in the Asia-Pacific and Africa and [...] will also support water and sanitation infrastructure in schools.
Read the report here .
Source: AusAID, 22 Mar 2009
Categories: Campaigns and Events · East Asia & Pacific · Funding · Policy · Progress on Sanitation · Publications
Tagged: AusAID, WaterAid Australia
The PepsiCo Foundation announced [on 19 February 2009] a three-year, $5 million grant to Save the Children to help ensure the survival and well-being of children living in rural India and Bangladesh, which together are home to 40 percent of the world’s malnourished children.
With support from the PepsiCo Foundation, Save the Children will work towards decreasing newborn and child mortality and child malnutrition in these countries. Save the Children proposes to work with community health educators to provide thousands of families, who are among these countries’ poorest, with important information about health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene. The [project targets] 650,000 children under the age of five, along with mothers and pregnant and lactating women in these two countries.
[...] In India, Save the Children will work through community health groups to decrease newborn and child mortality and malnutrition by increasing use of health services, improving nutrition and hygiene practices and expanding access to safe water and latrines. PepsiCo Foundation has earmarked 2.5 million dollar for India, and would start in [Churu, Tonk and Banswara] districts in Rajasthan. An estimated 50,000 people would be touched through water and sanitation activities across districts in Rajasthan. The programme is likely to cover 65 villages and eight urban wards in the state.
In Bangladesh, local health workers will expand treatment of the most common causes of mortality among children, treat severe malnutrition with ready-to-use food and improve hygiene and sanitation practices. Save the Children also will train families to generate income from local resources, enabling them to provide their children with a more diverse diet.
This grant builds on PepsiCo Foundation’s commitments of more than $4 million for environmental and health programs in India and Bangladesh in 2008.
Categories: Funding · Hygiene Promotion · South Asia
Tagged: Bangladesh, India, Pepsico Foundation, Save the Children
Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kuroda has called for regional governments and the private sector to do more to help the 1.8 billion people in Asia who lack access to adequate sanitation. “There is urgency to this moment,” Mr. Kuroda said in opening remarks at the Sanitation Dialogue at ADB’s Manila Headquarters. He added that the issue of sanitation “poses enormous challenges to Asia’s environment and public health.”
[...] Mr. Kuroda stressed that sanitation, like water supply, cannot be sustained on government budgets alone and that more needs to be done to attract private sector investment. “Key to a change in strategy is the consideration of sanitation as a business,” Mr. Kuroda said. “The economic returns of good sanitation have been demonstrated universally and we must find clever ways of translating them into effective and sustainable solutions for Asia.”
ADB has committed 20% of its Water Financing Partnership Facility to sanitation, which will help provide 200 million people with sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation. Mr. Kuroda cited successful national sanitation initiatives in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. [...] “Our annual average lending pipeline for sanitation has increased [...] to $710 million for 2008-2010,” Mr. Kuroda said, adding that as a proportion of ADB’s overall funding commitments, water and sanitation projects are expected to increase from an average of 8.5% in 2003-07 to about 17% in 2008-10.
Source: ADB,03 Mar 2009
Categories: Campaigns and Events · East Asia & Pacific · Funding · Progress on Sanitation · South Asia
Tagged: Asian Development Bank, private sector participation
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is inviting developing member country (DMC) Ministers of Finance, Health, Water and Sanitation, Environment, and Water Resources or their senior executives and city mayors to the ADB-DMC Sanitation Dialogue to discuss DMC’s sanitation needs, barriers, options, and actions.
Themes:
See also the related background article “Getting Sanitation on Track” by Anand Chiplunkar (Feb 2009, ADB)
Read more on the ADB web site
Categories: Campaigns and Events · Dignity and Social Development · East Asia & Pacific · Economic Benefits · Funding · Policy · South Asia · Technology
Tagged: Asian Development Bank
