Dear Pawan,

Thanks for highlighting the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge India here. I have been in contact with some of the Indian grantees and am trying to encourage them to post about progress here on the forum. It seems though that many of the six projects are really only starting now (even though it was all announced a year ago). The information that is available on the forum so far can be found via this link to the project database:

www.susana.org/en/resources/projects?search=birac

My second point is that whilst the above mentioned workshop focussed on urban sanitation in India, the BMGF does also fund a lot of projects in rural settings.

You can find them by going to the project database:

www.susana.org/en/resources/projects

then clicking on the green button which says "Filter..." and then filter by funding source BMGF and setting "rural". This gives you 25 projects:

www.susana.org/en/resources/projects?vbl...&vbl_22%5B612%5D=612

If you filter one more time by country India you get these 7 projects:

www.susana.org/en/resources/projects?vbl...&vbl_15%5B445%5D=445

I've copied them here, but go to the link above to have all the hyperlinks with more information for each project:

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Project: Integrated water and sanitation model for rural India
Organisation: Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives
Duration: 2013 - 2017
Details not available, see BMGF grant database


Project: Project Prasaadhan - Business model development for fecal sludge management in rural Bihar
Organisation: Population Services International
Duration: 2013 - 2015
Discussion on forum


Project: Supporting sustainable sanitation improvements in Bihar through supply-side strengthening (3SI)
Organisation: Population Services International
Duration: 2012 - 2017
Discussion on forum
Documents in library


Project: AG-WATSAN Nexus: Guiding pro-poor investments in the nexus among domestic water quality and quantity, sanitation and hygiene from the bottom-up
Organisation: ZEF (Center for Development Research), University of Bonn
Duration: 2012 - 2015
Discussion on forum
Documents in library
Project website


Project: Sanitation and hygiene initiative through community institutions of the poor in Uttar Pradesh, India
Organisation: Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust
Duration: 2012 - 2015
Details not available, see BMGF grant database


Project: Networking and action learning to support CLTS
Organisation: CLTS Knowledge Hub at Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Duration: 2012 - 2014
Documents in library
CLTS Knowledge Hub Website
BMGF grant database (brief information)


Project: Sustainable Service at Scale (S3): a multi-country learning project to improve rural water service delivery
Organisation: IRC
Duration: 2008 - 2015
Details not available, see BMGF grant database

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Admittedly, this is the minority given that there are in total 175 BMGF-funded projects, and 43 in India. But they have to decide on their priorities somehow...

By the way, the filter function in our project database is something we only completed recently. It is the same filter that can also be used in conjunction with the SuSanA library:
www.susana.org/library

Please try it out and give us your feedback (in a separate thread if needed).

Greetings,
Elisabeth

Dear Roshan

Thanks for uploading the report of the events held in Delhi.
Support of BMGF in the sectors of sanitation in India is well appreciated. In India, R&D on sustainable management of human excreta for non-sewered areas is almost lacking. One collaborative project –the RTTC- of BMGF with BIRAC, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, is expected to explore some innovative technologies in the field, provided progress of such sanctioned projects are properly monitored. I worked as TAG with BIRAC in selecting project proposals and Institutions.
BMGF is mainly focused in urban areas. Sanitation coverage in urban areas in India is much better in comparison to rural areas. However, in urban areas also, there are some serious problems like septage management. As on date, it is quite difficult to find any single town / city having system for septage management in India.
Rural India is almost unsewered, having full spectrum of problems and limitations in managing human excreta. There is ample chance of productively reuse of digested human excreta for agriculture purpose. Technology of leach pit toilet is being used everywhere irrespective of ground water level causing severe contamination. There is no guideline or even concept for septage management in rural areas.
It would be more fruitful if BMGF expends its program of sanitation in rural areas also. It would help improve health, environment and technical information to more population with comparatively less investment.
Regards
Pawan

Dear all,

We had a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Water Sanitation Hygiene (BMGF WSH) India Grantee & Partner Convening on March 24-26, 2015, in New Delhi, India.
Attached is the agenda and the workshop report.

If you are also working on sanitation in India you might find this useful.

The workshop had three main goals:

1. To give an overview of the foundation’s planned strategy for a deepened engagement in India’s urban sanitation, which includes supporting the work of state/national governments and work focused on Tamil Nadu, which will be developed as a “model state” for urban sanitation.

2. To learn from each other’s experiences in order to both improve our understanding of current challenges and opportunities and align our plans and strategies.

3. To get to know each other better and use existing synergies, collaborative potential, and project insights and experience for future endeavors. This Convening will spark the process of building new relationships.

Best,

Roshan


P.S. You can find an overview of all our sanitation grants in India by filtering the project database on the SuSanA website by country India and funding source BMGF:
www.susana.org/en/resources/projects