Time to Get Our Sh*t Together

South Africa toilet. Photo: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“It’s time to get our sh*t together and focus on sanitation”, is the message that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is bringing to the World Water Forum  Marseilles.

The lack of progress on sanitation, which was reconfirmed by the 2012 JMP Update, is what originally fueled the foundation’s call to action to “reinvent the toilet.” To us, reinventing the toilet is not just about science and technology, it’s about a whole new approach to working with poor communities in urban and rural areas of the developing world to create affordable, sustainable, and aspirational sanitation solutions.

The Gates Foundation has turned the usual distribution of funding and advocacy for WASH programmes on its head by committing 90% of its WASH funding to sanitation, write staff members Frank Rijsberman and Sara Rogge.

The Foundation is focussing on the following components to achieve its long term vision of providing sustainable sanitation services for all:

• Explore and Implement Sanitation without Sewers
• End Open Defecation
• Provide Sustainable Services at Scale
• Promote Sanitation as a Business
• Cooperate and Partner

In 2011, the Gates Foundation committed US$ 120 million in new commitments, grants and contracts, 90% of which was focused on sanitation, including:

• US$ 79 million for Sanitation Science and Technology, including grants to 8 universities to develop prototypes of affordable toilets that don’t need to be connected to sewers
• US$ 47 million for Delivery Models at Scale by implementing demand-led sanitation programmes, which aim to end open defecation for 30 million people by 2015
• US$ 18 million for Policy & Advocacy grants that support sanitation policy development and advocacy campaigns

Read the full details of Gates Foundation message for the World Water Forum here

Use the following links to read more about the Gates Foundations’s WASH  strategy and awarded grants

Source: Frank Rijsberman and Sara Rogge, Impatient Optimists, 12 Mar 2012

Right to sanitation – contributions sought for World Water Forum

Contributions are requested for four sessions on the subject of the Right to Water and Sanitation for the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul (Theme 4: Governance, Topic 4.1)

Guidelines on how to contribute for these sessions are available on the Freshwater Action Network (FAN) web site.

Topic 4.1: Implementing the Right to Water and Sanitation for Improved Access

• Session 4.1.1: Best practices of implementation: What measures need to be put in place by governments in sector reform, budgeting and policy formulation?
  Contact: Thorsten Kiefer, COHRE (thorsten@cohre.org)

• Session 4.1.2: Is the right to water and sanitation really making a difference for the poor and marginalised? What steps are needed to improve their ability to use the right as a tool to gain access and to hold governments and other actors to account?
  Contact: Sanderijn van Beek, FAN (wwf5@freshwateraction.net)

• Session 4.1.3: What does the right to sanitation comprise?
  Contact: Oliver Cumming, Water Aid: (olivercumming@wateraid.org)

• Session 4.1.4: What is the added value of a rights-based approach to emergencies, in terms of field and advocacy practices?
  Contact: Julie Aubriot, Action Contre la Faim (rechercheEAH@actioncontrelafaim.org)

Deadline for contributions: 12 January 2009
Notification of acceptance: 9 February 2009

Successful contributions will be included in a book of Good Practices of the Right to Water, as well as a limited number of interested parties being invited to present their cases at the World Water Forum in Istanbul.

For more information go to FAN web site

Through the Financial Aid Programme (PAID), the 5th World Water Forum offers grants for participants from the least developed and developing countries and participants from least-favoured groups, covering registration fees, full board accommodation and travel expenses within Istanbul. Deadline 01 January 2009. For more information click here. (Please do not send requests to this blog).