Very Good Effort. Congratulation

With Regards

Arun Jindal
Executive Director
Society for Sustainable Development
Near Pandey Ka Kua, Hindaun Road
Karauli (Rajasthan) 322241 INDIA
phone: +91 7014021199
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Thank you Elizabeth for the warm welcome!
Also thanks for the great questions.

Regarding our funding, no, we are not funded for 10 years. We have initial start-up funding through 2022 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

The partners you mention above and listed on our website are the founding members of the organisation itself. These partners and BMGF formed a task force that helped build and create the overarching vision for FSM Alliance. This group met over the course of 2018 to develop the vision, mission, goals, and business plan for the organisation. 

Our sustainability model for the organisation will be based on building a paid membership platform. We are currently in the process of developing our membership program and what unique benefits we think we will be able to offer. (more to come on this later this year!)

We are headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands and have a physical office there. Once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, most staff will relocate to Rotterdam. We are looking forward to connecting with the many WASH organisations also based in the Netherlands. 

The official transition of the FSM Toolbox will happen at the end of May, where we will begin to address the issue you raise about the online repository and cross-sharing. We would of course want to make sharing information between the 2 platforms as easy as possible. 

Best,
Eva
(On behalf of FSMA)

Hi Eva,
Welcome and great to see you on board and join the team of forum moderators! I look forward to working with you and reading more from you on the forum in future.

About FSM Alliance, whenever a new player enters the arena, the first two questions I ask myself are: How is it funded? How long is it funded for?

I read on your website here:  fsm-alliance.org/our-goals/   that you are funded for 10 years, is that right?

We have set the following goals to be achievable over the next  10 Years

That's pretty awesome if you got funding guaranteed for 10 years. Someone has a long-term vision! I see you list six institutional partners: Eawag, SuSanA, PRG, BORDA, WRC and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Am I right to assume that BMGF gave the funding and the other partners are giving some in-kind contributions?

Your website didn't mention anything about a physical location. Does that mean you see yourself as a virtual organisation where staff members are located somewhere on the globe and work from home? Or are you physically housed somewhere in close connection with the office of another WASH sector player?

You have an online repository here:  www.fsmtoolbox.com/learn   How do you envisage this to interact with other libraries, such as the SuSanA library? Is everything in your online repository also available in the SuSanA library, or could a user search across the two places with one mouse click? Or maybe just the titles would be included in the SuSanA library and links would be provided? I am just thinking about a one-stop search engine (SuSanA library) instead of two. We have failed in the past to merge the SuSanA library with the SSWM library, not because of good will but because of practical IT aspects...

Curious,
Elisabeth

Moderator Introduction

Hello All,
I would like to introduce myself here as the moderator for the FSM topics. I am working with the FSM Alliance from this year, 2020. I will be supporting the SuSanA secretariat and Moderation group in topics that are related to faecal sludge management. My areas of  expertiese in the WASH lies in the reuse and upcycling of sanitation solution by-products (read more about me  here ). I have experience in research, content development and management and project management within the sector. 

I look forward to interacting with you all.

Best,

Eva

We are pleased to announce that the FSM Alliance  (FSMA) is collaborating with SuSanA on FSM related Knowledge Management and will be moderating FSM topics on the SuSanA forum going forth. We are eager to champion and promote the development of inclusive sanitation approaches, particularly faecal sludge management and non-sewered sanitation, to ensure human health and dignity, and the health of urban ecosystems. 

FSMA was formed to be a centralised platform for non-sewered approaches to sanitation. Our vision and mission are a world where all people, everywhere, enjoy equitable access to safely managed and dignified sanitation services, which recognises and treats human waste as a valued resource, improving health, reducing poverty and safeguarding the environment.

We look forward to engaging with SuSanA members on FSM related topics, to share knowledge, ideas and continue to support development of inclusive sanitation