Dear Trevor

Thank you for the quick update. I agree basically with Heinz-Peter and you that the SuSanA vision document V1.2 February 2008 (www.susana.org/images/documents/04-meeti...-2-february-2008.pdf) is still valid.
However I think it may requires to be revisited in terms of the general and specific objectives (page 2) in order to adapt it in order to take in account the new roadmap for the next five years and the current challenges in the sector.

What is your point of view and how could this be done, once a roadmap was drafted and agreed on?

Best regards

Dorothee

Quick update

This version of the mission statement is included in the draft SuSanA roadmap:

“SuSanA is an open international network with members who are dedicated to researching and developing viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia, with the aim to promote innovation and best practices in policy, programming and implementation.”

With respect to the SuSanA vision document V1.2 February 2008, after a lot of discussion in both the large Core Group and Key Stakeholder meeting in Eschborn on 19th April 2013 as well as the smaller group at the workshop on 25th June in Willisau, the vision document is seen to still be valid and there are no plans to alter it.

As Heinz-Peter rightfully points out, there is a need to undertake a process to refresh a number of the working groups. This will be discussed with the current working group leads to begin with.

Kind regards
Trevor

I agree with Jonathan and Elisabeth. In our vision statement from February 2008 it is defined:

"The overall goal of the SuSanA is to contribute to the achievement of the MDGs by promoting sanitation systems which are taking into consideration all aspects of sustainability."

and

"SuSanA is not a new organisation, but rather a loose network of organisations working along the same lines, and open to others who want to join and be active in the promotion of sustainable sanitation systems. The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance invites other international, regional and local organisations to join the network, contribute ideas, and to become active members in the thematic working groups. Feedback for the advancement of the joint road map is certainly appreciated, as it is work in progress that will be continuously updated, and will include all joint activities leading towards an increased implementation of sustainable sanitation systems."

Is this not enough to describe SuSanA's mission and roadmap for the next 5-years?

The thematic working groups need to be updated. Today, technology, policy, experience and knowledge is further developed than in 2007/2008. Policy makers (Governmental / State-owned organisations) are still underrepresented in SuSanA, same as the Southern American region.

I wish us further success and good luck, Heinz-Peter

Dear all

I would like to draw your attention to the currently ongoing discussion on the future of SuSanA: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/10-by-...xt-5-years-of-susana

Particularly, there is a survey to collect your inputs to the SuSanA roadmap for the next five years.
The mission statement and the future roles of SuSanA, as well as the topics to focus on are also part of the survey.
I invite you all to take 5 minutes and grab this chance to give your feedback here: www.surveymonkey.com/s/SuSanA-strategy-development

Kind regards Dorothee

Dear Trevor,

Thanks a lot for guiding us through this process and for having contacted the core group members one by one and then putting everything together in the forum! Very painstaking work and very useful.

Looking over the thread, I like Jonathan's suggestion a lot - it is plain language and easy to understand without unnecessary jargon and pretentious wording. Belinda is right to point out that the English needs to be kept simple and "translatable". Sometimes, when you try to translate into French, Spanish or German you realise that you don't know what the English words really mean...

Let me just repeat Jonathan's suggestion here:
SuSanA is an informal, INTERNATIONAL network WITH MEMBERS WHO ARE dedicated to researching and DEVELOPING viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia, with the aim to PROMOTE INNOVATION and best practiceS in POLICY, PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION.

Dear Steven Mwaniki,

You are right to ask where is SuSanA's vision before we talk about a mission?
Well, SuSanA does have a really important vision document for sustainable sanitation. This is the founding document of SuSanA - the one that all SuSanA partners have agreed to when they joined. So important that we translated it into several languages. Please see here:
www.susana.org/lang-en/sustainable-sanit.../267-vision-document

We also formulated a goal and objectives for SuSanA (could these be translated into a vision?), see here:
www.susana.org/lang-en/sustainable-sanit...ctives-of-the-susana

This is what is says there:
++++++++++++

The overall goal of the SuSanA is to contribute to the achievement of the MDGs by promoting sanitation systems which take into consideration all aspects of sustainability.

The MDGs and the UN's "International Year of Sanitation 2008" are highly appreciated by the "Sustainable Sanitation Alliance" as they have helped push sanitation high up in the political agenda. The main focus of the work of the "Sustainable Sanitation Alliance" will be to promote the implementation of sustainable sanitation systems in large scale water and sanitation programmes, in line with the strategies proposed e.g. by WHO, UNDP-PEP, UNSGAB and UNESCO.

General objectives of the SuSanA are therefore:

1. to raise awareness around the globe of what sustainable sanitation approaches are and to promote them massively;
2. to highlight how important sustainable sanitation systems are as a precondition to achieve a whole series of MDGs (e.g. to reduce child mortality, to promote gender equity and empower women, to ensure environmental sustainability, to improve livelihood, and to reduce poverty);
3. to show how sustainable sanitation projects should be planned with the participation of all stakeholders at an early stage, how they should respond to the initiative and preferences of the users, and that this has to go hand in hand with hygiene promotion and capacity building activities for sustainable water and wastewater management.

Specific objectives of the SuSanA are:

1. to collect and compile information, which will assist decision makers (including the civil society) to assess different sanitation systems and technologies with regard to the full range of sustainability criteria so that informed decisions can be taken;
2. to demonstrate how sanitation systems, which produce soil conditioner, fertiliser, biogas, energy, and irrigation water, can contribute to reaching the MDGs beyond sanitation, and consequently present a change of paradigm from purely disposal oriented to more reuse oriented sanitation;
3. to collect and present examples of "smart practice" in sanitation for the "International Year of Sanitation 2008 " and beyond;
4. to identify and describe the mechanisms to up-scale implementation of more sustainable sanitation systems including appropriate financing instruments for pro-poor sanitation provision;
5. to develop global and regional visions of how sustainable approaches can contribute to reach the sanitation MDG and to promote them in the IYS 2008 and beyond.

+++++++++

So as you can see we have a clear vision for sustainable sanitation but not a clear vision for SuSanA! That's because SuSanA started out small and we were never that interested in "navel gazing", i.e. looking at ourselves as an organisation until now... But now that SuSanA is big and strong, some members have felt that we must have a mission as SuSanA (and maybe even become a real "organisation" one day?). I think we are close to a nice mission statement which will help us (see above). Do we also need a vision statement for SuSanA now? Not sure.

What do others think?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear All

Since this Mission Statement debate began a few months ago, I always felt that there was something amiss and what should have been discussed was "Policy Guidelines for the SuSanA forum" which is a discussion of a larger scope and meaning than the Mission Statement.

What is meant here is that somebody somewhere failed to take note that we jumped the gun.What precedes any mission is a vision.And one can't go on a mission without a purpose or in other-words, objectives of the mission.

Does anyone else picture what I see? Do I have any support?

Best regards

S.Mwaniki

Posted with consent from Leif:

Dear Trevor,
sorry for not replying to your last email, i forgot this in our ongoing trouble of moving houses.
Yes, I agree with the mission statement personally. It will be a longer process to find out an official KIT statement.
Kind regards,
Leif

Project Management Agency Karlsruhe
Water Technology and Waste Management (PTKA-WTE)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Dr. Leif Wolf
Program Manager

Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1
Building 416
76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen

Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.

Posted with consent from Elke

Dear Trevor!

Thanks for following up the process. I have no further comments to the mission statement. I see my own and EcoSan Club's perspective represented.

Kind regards,
Elke

DDIin Elke Müllegger
EcoSan Club KG | Austria

Wiener Strasse 2 | 3426 Muckendorf an der Donau

Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.

Posted with consent from Saidi

Hi Trevor,
I broadly agree with the Mission. I would add ‘markets’ to between …….made up of

---

practitioners. It would then read;

“SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of ‘markets’, practitioners, policy makers and academia.”

This would add strengths to the importance of application and functioning of markets to sustainable sanitation.

Kind Regards,
Saidi Bukenya
Business Development Manager
Captiva Communications
1 Cooper Road, Kisementi
P.O. Box 11605 Kampala; Uganda

Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.

I also agree with the content of the mission statement from a personal and from BOKU's view. I leave the final wording to native english speakers.
Guenter

Dear all,

Overall, I like it but the reference to "integrated policy templates" did strike me as needing rewording to something that put more emphasis on implementation.

Therefore, I would suggest something like :

SuSanA is an informal, INTERNATIONAL network WITH MEMBERS WHO ARE dedicated to researching and DEVELOPING viable and sustainable sanitation solutions. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia, with the aim to PROMOTE INNOVATION and best practiceS in POLICY, PROGRAMMING AND IMPLEMENTATION.

best regards,

Jonathan

Dr. Jonathan Parkinson
Programmes Manager

email : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Telephone: + 44 20 300 48528
Mobile: + 44 770 220 2646

twitter.com/#!/jparkinson_IWA

International Water Association
Alliance House, 12 Caxton Street
London SW1H 0QS, UK

www.iwahq.org

Conference on Decentralised Wastewater Management in Asia – Meeting Urban Sanitation Challenges at Scale
Nagpur, November 20-23 November
iwadewats-nagpur.com

Company registered in England No. 3597005
Registered Charity (England) No. 1076690

Posted with consent from Darren:

From my perspective, I am comfortable with the way in which Susana’s mission statement is captured. I am not sure what an integrated policy template is – perhaps more comprehensible to talk about policy engagement…?

I am not sure I can give the perspective of Plan International as it is a Federation; there is currently no centralized WASH lead from which we might gather an institution wide opinion. Clearly, Plan as a whole needs to connect better and make more use of platforms and networks which bring best practice to the sector. In that sense, Plan sees value in its membership of bodies like Susana.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Darren

…
Darren Saywell, PhD
WASH/CLTS Technical Director
Plan International USA

Kind regards
Trevor

Note this reply is answering the question:
"Do you agree with the collated SuSanA mission statement?"

And is referring to the following version of the mission statement:

SuSanA is an informal network dedicated to researching and promoting viable and sustainable sanitation solutions, while helping the development of best practice and integrated policy templates. It links on the ground experiences with an engaged community made up of practitioners, policy makers and academia.