The African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) has been awarded a US$ 2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help countries build capacities for sanitation policy development, monitoring and advocacy.
AMCOW will use the 3-year grant for:
- technical guidance and training to four fragile counties to develop and adopt national sanitation and hygiene policies and plans
- organising the 4th AfricaSan conference and awards to boost implementation of the AfricaSan Action Plan and eThekwini ministerial commitments
- country support in using the African mechanism for water and sanitation monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
“Across the globe, about 2.6 billion do not have access to safe sanitation. Africa accounts for almost 40 percent of these figures.” said Bai Mass Taal, AMCOW Executive Secretary.
AMCOW is an initiative of African Ministers responsible for water and a Specialized Technical Committee on water and sanitation for the African Union.
In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched its Reinvent the Toilet initiative at AfricaSan 3 in Kigali, Rwanda.
Source: AMCOW, 18 Dec 2012
Sanitation Updates 
Reblogged this on WASH Finance.
policy orientation and community empowerment through capacity building will shift sanitation trend and status in Africa.More principal stakeholders in each country will identify their obligatory roles and responsibilities and fill the current gap to scale up sanitation.Social benefit factors are more motivating than health impacts for people to act for improving sanitation.
The funding for building national capacities is timely and welcome.