Funding: Gates Foundation steps up water efforts with grants to improve sanitation and to twin cities in Africa and USA

Updated - Thursday 17 September 2009

A project to identify new methods of on-site sanitation in developing countries and another to twin cities in Africa and the United States are two new initiatives that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding.

A US$ 4.8 million (€ 3.3 million) grant to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine supports a three-year project to research and develop new concepts for on-site sanitation such as improving pit latrines, which are the only option for about 1.7 billion people without access to sewage systems. The London School will research how advances in biotechnology, using enzymes and micro-organisms to convert plant waste to biofuel, for example, might be applied to sanitation.

The African Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) is a three-year project funded by a US$ 7.5 million (€ 5.1 million) Gates Foundation grant. It addresses some of the sources of urban poverty through water, health, and sanitation projects developed collaboratively by U.S. and African sister city programmes. This includes involvement and support from the private sector, NGOs, and community-based organizations to provide sustained technical assistance and community development strategies. Sister Cities International and the Africa Global Sister Cities Foundation are running the programme. AUPAP is starting in seven Africa cities, with 20 more to follow in 2010.

The Gates Foundation’s programme on water, sanitation and hygiene is only about three years old but has grown to 19 grants so far totaling about US$ 160 million (€ 109 million).

Related news:

  • Performance assessment: urban water supply and sanitation in Gujarat and Maharashtra, India, Source Weekly, 11 May 2009
  • Ghana and Uganda to pilot new model to improve rural water services, Source Bulletin, Jun 2009

Web sites:

Contact:

  • Gemma Howe, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK, tel.: +44-20-79272802, gemma.howe@lshtm.ac.uk
  • Adam Kaplan, Sustainable Development Program Manager, Sister Cities International, USA, tel.: +1-202-3478630 Ext. 8634, akaplan@sister-cities.org

Source: Seattle Times, 24 Aug 2009 ; Sister Cities International, 09 Sep 2009

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