To support and accelerate the objectives of the Swachh Bharat Mission India, the Water
Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) along with Global Citizen India, the
Government of India, and the Government of Maharashtra, created a platform for listening
and learning during the Sanitation Action Summit held in Mumbai on 18 November 2016.

The summit brought together citizens from across India who are often silent and/or invisible
in the SBM conversations and programming—sanitation workers, adolescent girls and boys,
transgender persons, elderly persons, and persons with disabilities. In India, 44% of the 1.27
billion people still defecate in the open; the absence of safe and hygienic sanitation largely
affects the country’s most marginalised citizens.

The attached report summarizes the process and outcomes of the Action Summit. It describes
how it came about, and who came to listen, share and learn (page 4). It points to the
Summit’s impact, noting that the 300 participants were highly satisfied with the event,
gained greater understanding of the issues, and committed to future action (page 5). The
report offers summary highlights of the plenary and panel sessions, where notable Indian
and international speakers argued the case to Leave No One Behind in the Sustainable
Development Goals era (pages 6-7).

Most importantly, the report summarizes the challenges faced and opportunities present
for achieving equitable, safe sanitation and hygiene for all in India (pages 8-21). Inspiration
was a key theme of the day. Page 22 presents excerpts of feedback from sanitation
workers (“memorable experience”), adolescent girls and boys (“first opportunity to discuss
these issues”), transgender persons (“our voices can help create acceptance, unity and
togetherness”), and visually impaired girls (“an overwhelming experience”). The summit’s
sessions followed a “Speakers Corners” model with breakout sessions bringing out the
different represented voices to share their issues, experiences and ideas for progress.
To bring together separate conversations by different constituencies, different stakeholders
who never meet, to come together to share their individual aspirations and goals for a clean
India, to understand that these actually shared aspirations the same goals, the same vision
and the same dreams and then to work together to really bridge that gap, bridge this divide
for joint action to achieve this shared vision of a clean India.

The representatives of marginalised groups spoke with each other. They also spoke with
facilitators, government officials, private sector representatives and the media—this was a
first for most of them! All of them had key “takeaways” and recommendations for moving
forward to a clean India for everyone. These are on pages 23-27.
An event like the Sanitation Action Summit involves many individual actors and coordinating
partners. These and other key highlights are presented on page 28-29.

The Sanitation Action Summit was a milestone in the Leave No One Behind process, by
bringing together policymakers, representatives from marginalized communities, and global
citizens to share experiences and identify solutions that help enable a truly open defecation
free India by 2019. WSSCC and its partners will continue to seek to build voice and agency
through a dialogue on sanitation and hygiene so that the disempowered and stigmatized
know their rights and their roles and can work together constructively with policymakers
and practitioners to achieve Swachh Bharat.

Please find attached a Summary Report from the Summit. There is also a short film here , a twitter report of the Summit here , and photos from the Summit can be accessed via Dropbox here . All documentation, including the report, is available on the WSSCC website here.