Dear friends,

Water For People is a global non-profit dedicated to providing access to improved water and sanitation systems and services to nine countries. Water For People empowers local governments, community members, and service providers to invest in the long-term solutions and systems that are right for them. This means listening to them and establishing trust from the very beginning. We want every community, household, school, and clinic to have lasting access to safe water and sanitation for generations to come – we call this model Everyone Forever.

Water For People supports a market system development model also known as "Sanitation as a Business" (SAAB) through which they collaborate with key partners such as local governments and civil society organizations to push forward the private sector as the main driver of sanitation services at a reasonable cost and with household buy-in.

We have established the concept of the 'SaniHub,' which works through test-bed partners to study/ idea test the whole faecal sludge management value chain which includes a system of capture, emptying, transport, treatment and reuse. The successful innovations coming out of Sanihub would then be taken to scale through collaborations and partnerships. Whether it is the sewer drains in large cities or safety tanks in smaller towns or the leaching pits in the rural areas, the need for Faecal Sludge/ waste management (FSM) has emerged as a challenge. As more of the toilet population gains access to toilets and instances of open defecation decreases, the need for FSM becomes significant for the safe and environment friendly disposal of human waste.

We are pleased to invite you to participate in a technical session on ‘Making sanitation environmentally sustainable: faecal sludge management’ on the 19th April, 2018. This is part of the 2018 BoP Global Network Summit that will focus on strategies to effectively reach the Base of the Pyramid on the theme Beyond Environmental Degradation: Toward BoP Circular Economy Strategies.

At the session, we will constitute a working group on the issue to take suggest critical action points of FSM for advancing the circular economy strategy. Whether it is the sewer drains in large cities or safety tanks in smaller towns or the leaching pits in the rural areas, the need for FSM is a major challenge. As more of the toilet population gains access to toilets and instances of open defecation decreases, the need for FSM becomes significant for the safe and environment friendly disposal of human waste. In the small towns and rural areas, the cleaning of the leaching pits, transportation, treatment, and disposal of waste needs to be addressed through environment friendly systems which are sustainable. Questions around sustainability and capacity need to be answered.
We expect about 50 speakers and participants from the government, private sector, NGOs and other experts to attend the session. The three themes we are addressing at FSM in the urban sanitation context, capacity building of ULBs, and financing for FSM. The last will be taken up during the group discussion following presentations.

We hope you will agree to come and share your experiences. I request you to kindly send in a line of confirmation. More information and the link for registration is available here: www.bopglobalnetwork.net/summit18/.

Regards,
Nitya Jacob