Dear Carol,
Thanks for these insights. Always interesting to know how the sanitation topic has developed within large organisations... Seems like we are on a fairly good track now.
About the Gates funded projects there is a separate thread here in case you want to discuss it further (3 pages of discussion):
forum.susana.org/139-information-about-b...-challenges?start=24

Regards,
Elisabeth

Quick note: I mention USAID in 2001, because that's the last time I was in the USAID office. At that time, Camp Dresser McKee (CDM---big pipe engineering firm) had the USAID WASH contract. The topic of composting toilets got a chuckle there. VIP latrines were the most promoted system at the time, it seemed. Uno Winblad, writing about this topic since the 1970s, complained about this.
Around that time, USAID published a "lessons learned" report on what had gone wrong with some of their WASH projects. It was enlightening.
Since then, the Gates Foundation has mostly raised the profile of toilets as something that tech billionaires might fund, boosting their glamour. The Gates toilet work has not been perceived as entirely helpful. That's a whole other topic!
(Interestingly, I and likely others wrote to Gates Found 10 years ago to suggest that toilets might be a more effective health intervention for children than vaccines. So we were at first very happy to see Gates go in this direction a few years ago.)
Excreta management has come a long way in the public awareness thanks to a variety of agents. My favorite is Team Sweden.

Hi Elisabeth - I can jump in here to answer. USAID has joined other international development banks DFID, and Asian Development Bank and multinational corporations Kimberly-Clark, Unilever, Firmenich and LIXIL on the Steering Committee of the Toilet Board Coalition. This is a three year commitment and involves financial support to the running of the Toilet Accelerator.

Thank you,
Alexandra Knezovich
Program Manager, Toilet Board Coalition

Hi Carol,
Yes, good news indeed (2001 is a long time ago! ). It seems that USAID and many other donors have become much more interested in sanitation which is great. I think the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has also helped to increase awareness in the U.S. and worldwide.

Thanks for pointing out that toilet serves as an abbreviation for more. I must say I always cringe a bit when I see "toilet" used in that context (same for "World Toilet Day") but I guess it is more catchy than "Sanitation Board Coalition" or "World Sanitation Day", so I guess I better get used to it. But it's good to remind ourselves and others regularly what toilet stands of in that context (i.e. sanitation, or if you prefer excreta management (and also greywater management, no?)).


To Dan Campbell or Cheryl Hicks:

Could you please explain more exactly what the multi-year partnership between the Toilet Board Coalition and USAID entails in practice? E.g. is money flowing from USAID to TBC for specific activities?

The podcast transcript said this but I couldn't find an answer to my question:

GWR: Okay, great. Well, as mentioned at the top of the podcast, the Toilet Board Coalition and USAID have launched a multi-year partnership. How do you see the Coalition and USAID working together to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ sanitation target?

CH: We are really excited about this new partnership with USAID because of USAID’s large scope, and breadth of the work it’s doing on the ground in these very difficult contexts of the countries and communities where we need to deliver sanitation. And so, they bring that expertise to us, and where the partnership works really well is that we then bring private sector engagement, and so the partnership is really about developing this together in a public-private partnership. So that’s really the role that we’re looking for USAID to play, particularly through their operations in-country and the vast knowledge of the work that SMEs and governments are already doing in these communities and linking them to our project. The credibility and force of USAID we think will help us to accelerate the business of sanitation and achieve our joint goal faster of universal access to sanitation by 2030.

Regards,
Elisabeth

That's good news. USAID wasn't always interested in this topic (circa 2001 or so). Of course ultimately it's about "excreta management" with the term, "toilet," serving as an abbreviation for that. Because not all toilets save lives. I've seen many that flush to drinking water supplies.

USAID Announces Partnership with Toilet Board Coalition - November 28, 2016

Public-private partnerships have significant potential to accelerate progress toward the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’ sanitation target. An exciting new Global Development Alliance between USAID and the Toilet Board Coalition promises to strengthen efforts to reach the 2.4 billion worldwide still without adequate sanitation.

To fuel continued global sanitation improvements and generate sustainable livelihood opportunities, USAID is proud to announce a three-year Global Development Alliance with the Toilet Board Coalition.

Launched in 2014, the Toilet Board Coalition is a public-private partnership that brings together some of the world’s most dynamic companies, multilaterals, NGOs, and business minds. It serves as an accelerator to incubate and scale-up innovative technologies and services.


See: medium.com/usaid-global-waters/world-toi...c38f48994#.51z3ndtph