Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Shivani Malla of Oxfam in Nepal will improve the management of solid waste in Nepal using technology including geographic information systems (GIS) to map populations and optimize collection routes, mobile phone-based customer services, and digital monitoring for the public and private sectors. Solid waste management in the Birendranagar municipality in Nepal is becoming increasingly challenging as the population increases, and the private sector tasked with handling it has quite basic resources.

Casey Brown of the University of Massachusetts in the U.S. is building a water distribution network with digital platform to provide affordable access to safe drinking water for poor urban populations. Public water infrastructure in low- and middle-income areas is often poorly maintained and insufficient for rapidly growing cities. This has led to additional water being provided in tankers by private companies, which is expensive and the water quality is often poor.

Adequate water supply is a public health intervention aimed at preventing diarrhoeal diseases in relief operations. Children under the age of 5 years and other vulnerable populations are most at risk from preventable enteric infections, including diarrheal diseases, which are associated with environmental enteropathy and stunting. These are likely one of the major contributors to the overall morbidity and mortality rates during a humanitarian crisis [1,2].

Each year millions of people, most of them children, die from diseases associated withinadequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene. In 2015, 2.3 billion people still lacked even a basic sanitation service, and 892 million people still practiced open defecation. First developed by LIXIL's American Standard brand, the SATO series features a weighted flap under the seat that seals itself after use.

Approved TTS funding will enable Laguna Water to test and iterate design of two innovative toilets for urban informal communities in Laguna, Philippines, and refine a utility-driven business model for serving informal urban customers.

Sanivation is a Kenya-based social enterprise which deploys waste processing systems for non-sewered urban communities to cost-effectively manage, treats and converts fecal sludge into a reusable waste product, charcoal briquettes for which there is high demand in the region. In communities that require a full sanitation solution, Sanivation also provides services to cater to the entire value chain, including the installation of toilets in households.

Sanisol Association Peru ("X-runner") provides a sanitation alternative in low-resource communities. The business model - the feasibility of which was demonstrated under a Stars grant - is based on a sanitation subscription service. When a customer subscribes, X-runner installs a waterless toilet in the home and the customer then pays for weekly pick-up of solid waste that X-runner processes into nutrient-rich compost.

For 9 years now, Eau et Vie has been promoting pre-carious districts’ inclusion by the access to a drinking water system, to clean-up operations and by the com-munity mobilization. Eau et Vie contributes to improving populations’ living conditions on the base of social entrepreneurship and taking account of the slums’ spe-cific environment.This sanitation project is a pilot project developed as part of the global project of Eau et Vie in Bangladesh. Since 2011, Eau et vie has developed an efficient water network in Bhashantek, a slum of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

In Kenya, 95% of fecal sludge is disposed into the environment without treatment. The reason for this is quite simple: municipalities are unable to pay to treat human waste because they lack cost-effective options. To solve this problem, we work with partners (local governments and refugee camps) to implement and operate waste processing factories. These factories intake fecal sludge and biomass residues to produce charcoal briquettes, that outperform traditional charcoal and save 88 trees per ton of product sold.