Gates Foundation Launches Effort to Reinvent the Toilet
By Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, PRNEMonday, July 18, 2011
KIGALI, Rwanda, July 19, 2011 -
New Strategy
Promotes Adoption of Safe, Affordable Sanitation in the Developing
World
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced the
launch of a strategy to help bring safe, clean, sanitation services
to millions of poor people in the developing world.
In a keynote address at the 2011 AfricaSan Conference in Kigali,
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation’s Global
Development Program, called on donors, governments, the private
sector, and NGOs to address the urgent challenge, which affects
nearly 40 percent of the world’s population. Flush toilets are
unavailable to the vast majority in the developing world, and
billions of people lack a safe, reliable toilet or latrine. More
than a billion people defecate in the open.
“No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives
and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by
invention of the toilet,” Burwell said in her speech at AfricaSan,
the third African Conference on Sanitation and Hygiene, organized
by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW). “But it did not
go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need
are new approaches. New ideas. In short, we need to reinvent the
toilet.”
The foundation also announced $42 million in new sanitation
grants that aim to spur innovations in the capture and storage of
waste, as well as its processing into reusable energy, fertilizer,
and fresh water. In addition, the foundation will support work with
local communities to end open defecation and increase access to
affordable, long-term sanitation solutions that people will want to
use.
Improved sanitation can have a significant impact on the lives
of millions of people worldwide. Reducing by half the number of
people who don’t have access to basic sanitation is a key target of
the United Nations’ 2015 Millennium Development Goals. Access to
safe sanitation reduces child diarrhea by 30 percent and
significantly increases school attendance.
Unsafe methods to capture and store waste lead to serious health
problems and death. About 1.5 million children die each year from
diarrheal disease, and most of these deaths could be prevented with
the introduction of proper sanitation, along with safe drinking
water and improved hygiene.
But Burwell emphasized that there are no silver bullets in
reinventing the toilet. Addressing the needs of the 2.6 billion
people who don’t have access to safe sanitation requires hygienic,
affordable, and sustainable ways to capture, treat, and recycle
human waste. Most importantly, it requires close collaboration with
local communities to develop lasting sanitation solutions that meet
their needs.
The foundation and its partners are working to develop new tools
and technologies that address every aspect of sanitation-from the
development of waterless, hygienic toilets that do not rely on
sewer connections to pit emptying to waste processing and
recycling. Many of the solutions being developed involve
cutting-edge technology that could turn human waste into fuel to
power local communities, fertilizer to improve crops, or even safe
drinking water.
One of the foundation’s partners is the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), which is launching WASH for Life
through its Development Innovation Ventures program to fund
projects that identify, test, and help scale up evidence-based
approaches to delivering water, sanitation, and hygiene services to
the poor. Both organizations will contribute $8.5 million to the
four-year venture.
The foundation and its partners are focusing on affordable
solutions. Sanitation services must cost no more than 5 cents per
person per day and be easy to install, use, and maintain. The
foundation’s strategy involves gathering evidence to determine what
people want and measuring what really works. It includes
stimulating demand for improved sanitation in both rural and urban
communities through education and raising awareness. It also
involves advocacy efforts to engage governments and other public
and private partners to prioritize sanitation policies that address
this urgent issue.
“Across Africa, improved sanitation is an essential human need
that we must take action to address,” said Mamadou Dia, President
of the African Water Association. “We welcome efforts to focus new
attention, ideas, and resources on this important issue.”
Sanitation brings substantial economic benefits. According
to the World Health Organization, improved sanitation can produce
up to $9 for every $1 invested by increasing productivity, reducing
health care costs, and preventing illness, disability, and early
death. People with access to clean and convenient sanitation
services also experience greater dignity, privacy, and security.
This is especially true of women and girls, who often miss work or
school when they are menstruating and risk sexual assault when they
are forced to defecate in the open or use public restrooms.
“Disease caused by unsafe sanitation accounts for roughly half
of all hospitalizations in the developing world,” said Prince
Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, chair of the United Nations
Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation. “This
statistic is unacceptable, as is the fact that many decision makers
remain reluctant to talk about sanitation, further stigmatizing the
topic, and perpetuating a crisis whose solutions are within our
reach.”
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene is part of the foundation’s
Global Development Program, which addresses issues such as
agricultural development and financial services-problems that
affect the world’s poorest people but do not receive adequate
attention. With these new grants, the foundation’s commitment to
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene efforts total more than $265
million. While the foundation has been making grants in the sector
for five years, the new strategy represents a shift to an increased
focus on sanitation.
New investments announced today include:
Reinventing the Toilet Challenge
Totaling $3 million, this grant supports eight universities
across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America in the challenge to
reinvent the toilet as a stand-alone unit without piped-in water, a
sewer connection, or outside electricity-all for less than 5 cents
a day. Grantees include California Institute of Technology; Delft
University of Technology; Eidgenossische Anstalt fur
Wasserversorgung, Abwasserreinigung und Gewasserschutz (EAWAG);
National University of Singapore; University of KwaZulu-Natal;
University of Toronto; WEDC at Loughborough University; and
Stanford University for a Hertz Fellows Multi-University Research
Collaboration. Contact: Amandine de Coster /
/ +32-479-811-866
WASH for Life
A collaboration with the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) totaling $17 million, of which USAID and the
foundation are each providing $8.5 million, to use USAID’s
Development Innovation Ventures program to identify, test, and help
scale evidence-based approaches to delivering water, sanitation,
and hygiene services to the poor. For more information, go to
African Development Bank, African
Water Facility
The foundation will provide $12 million in funding for the
development of sanitation pilot projects that may include fecal
sludge management services in sub-Saharan Africa. The goal is to
serve up to 1.5 million urban poor who now lack access to
sanitation services. Contact: Katia Theriault /
+216-71-10-12-79
Water Services Trust Fund and German
Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ)
In a projectco-funded by the German and Kenyan governments, the
foundation is providing $10 million to support efforts to scale up
sustainable sanitation services for up to 800,000 people and water
services for up to 200,000 residents in low-income urban areas in
Kenya. Contact: Felgona A. Ochieng, WSTF /
/ +254-20-272-0696; Roland Werchota, GIZ /
+254-20-2719987; Dr. Charis Pothig, KfW /
+49-69-7431-4683
UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water
Education
This $8 million grant supports efforts to transform the
postgraduate water and sanitation education system through an
increased focus on solutions that work for the poor and a robust
online curriculum to reduce costs and increase accessibility to
higher education. Contact: Alida Pham /
+31-15-2151722
Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead
healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on
improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift
themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States,
it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest
resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in
school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is
led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the
direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Learn more
at
or join the conversation at
Twitter, and
Flickr.
Editors’ Notes
Strategy Overview
Grand Challenges Exploration Fact Sheet
Reinvent the Toilet Challenge Fact Sheet
Video
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, +1-206-709-3400, media at gatesfoundation.org
Tags: Africa, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, July 19, Kigali, Rwanda
