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Brian Arbogast to Lead Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Program: Announcement by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
press release 206-709-3400 media@gatesfoundation.org
SEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that Brian Arbogast has been named director of the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene program. He will start work at the foundation on May 13, 2013.
“Brian has more than 20 years of experience leading teams around the world. He is well equipped to drive an innovative program that is helping bring sanitation services to people in developing countries,” said Chris Elias, president of Global Development at the foundation.
Arbogast was previously with Microsoft Corporation. Most recently, he concentrated in cleantech and international development to drive market solutions that address the world’s most pressing challenges. He served as a Senior Advisor with The Boston Consulting Group and as a board member of the Northwest Energy Angels. He is a founding board member of Progress Alliance of Washington. He has served on the board of Water1st International and as a senior advisor to Upaya Social Ventures.
Arbogast received his Bachelor of Mathematics in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and a Certificate in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute.
About The Water, Sanitation & Hygiene program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Water, Sanitation & Hygiene program focuses on the development of tools and technologies that can lead to radical and sustainable improvements in sanitation in the developing world. Although we support some clean water and hygiene projects, sanitation is our top priority because we have identified it as a neglected area in which we can spur significant change.
A sanitation facility in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, that was built by a public-private partnership to improve urban sanitation.
Because the innovations we support can be most immediately valuable in densely populated areas, our main focus is on urban sanitation and the public policies that can support new sanitation delivery models in cities. Our priorities include identifying and testing delivery models that governments and the private sector can use to extend quality service to all residents of a city, not just those in wealthier neighborhoods. Ultimately, improved sanitation will be a key to ensuring healthy, sustainable cities in the developing world, and the approaches that prove successful can then be adapted and extended to rural communities.
Our strategy to build global demand for better sanitation also includes efforts to end open defecation in rural areas and to implement improved measures for collecting waste, removing pathogens from waste streams, and recovering valuable resources and energy.” source / more…
About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
source : press release & foundation site. Photo is from Northwest Energy Angels site
2013 WASH Sustainability Forum March 11 – 12
This Forum will examine the role of collaboration, particularly with governments, in ensuring lasting WASH services. Bringing together a broad mix of stakeholders, the day’s conversation will provide a practical foundation for strengthening collaboration with governments and other development partners around the world. Further, this event will help to foster initial conversations around coordination, the 2013 theme for World Water Day
Aligned with the WASH Sustainability Charter, this forum is being hosted by The World Bank Group, UNICEF, Global Water Challenge, WASH Advocates, Aguaconsult, and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. There is no charge for this event.
Event details/more…
Background:
In 2010, over 40 organizations gathered at the first Sustainability Forum to discuss sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services at scale. The following year, nearly 100 stakeholders from over 50 organizations came together to develop a common set of sustainability principles, which became the WASH Sustainability Charter. The momentum continued to build with new sustainability initiatives, learning forums, webinars, and presentations at global conferences. Sustainability has become a common topic as organizational practices and programmatic work shift from individual projects to sustainable services.
In early 2012, individuals from a consortium of organizations (Aguaconsult, Global Water Challenge, IRC and WASH Advocates) came together to build on previous work around sustainability and create SustainableWASH.org as a dynamic hub of the sustainability conversation. more about..
Other pages of interest at SustainableWASH.org site:
Call for papers: The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy
The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy will bring together experts from academia, industry, non-governmental organizations, government and foundations to provide an interdisciplinary perspective spanning science, policy, practice and economics. We are now accepting abstracts for poster and verbal presentations.
The submission deadline is April 30, and may be submitted via the conference website.
The deadline for early decision is March 15, which is intended to assist people who will need to seek visas.
2013 Main Conference Themes
- Hygiene and behavioral change
- M&E: local, global, and human right perspectives
- Institutions, finance, and sustainability
- Sanitation and health
- Water supply and quality: from catchment to consumer and back
Abstract Submission Guidelines
- Title: 150 characters
- Authors: 300 characters
- Presenter: 100 characters
- Text: 5000 characters, including spaces
Important links for details:
- Call for Papers
- Sign Up to Submit an Abstract
- Submit or Edit an Abstract
- Presenter Guidelines
- Propose a Side Event
More About the Conference
Bringing together academic research with policy, practice and networking events
The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy, organized by The Water Institute at UNC, will consider drinking water supply, sanitation, hygiene and water resources in both the developing and developed worlds with a strong public health emphasis.
The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy is accompanied by several exciting events before and after the conference. Don’t miss the opportunity to network with and learn from the unique array of national and international professionals!
Save the Date!
- The 2013 Conference will run from October 14th through the 18th.
Location:
William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
all content for this page comes from directly conference web pages
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- Water Research Foundation Issues Call For Nominations For Its Two Award Programs (wateronline.com)
TEDxAmsterdamWomen Anjali Sarker – Toilet+ overcoming my childhood fear TEDX event
A great presentation by Anjali Sarker of Toilet Plus on their strategy and reasoning for introducing toilets that work based on financial technical sustainable and social criteria. Toilet Plus is in the early phase of it plan.
” DEFECATION! DISEASE! DEATH! In Bangladesh, each year 69000 children die from diarrhea largely because of unhygienic sanitation. 68% of the villagers use unhygienic pit latrines or defecate openly. Though both govt and NGOs are trying to solve this problem, their efforts largely fail because poor villagers- 1)simply lack motivation to change their sanitation behavior or 2)can’t afford the shift to safe sanitation.
TOILET+ /Toilet Plus introduced as A HYGIENIC AND AFFORDABLE SANITATION SOLUTION. It’s a urine diverting dry toilet and is structurally similar to Ecosan. It can recycle 100% waste to produce organic fertilizer and is flood resistant. Toilet+ ($110 value) is made affordable to the villagers through microcredit from partner MFI.
Toilet+ OFFER COLLECTIVE PROFIT & RESPONSIBILITY. Households form cooperatives,apply for microcredit, and become collectively responsible to repay the total monthly installments to MFI. Member households get toilets from Toilet+ and Toilet+ get paid by MFI. Members sell waste (human and other bio-waste) to Toilet+ and Toilet+ convert waste into organic fertilizer for selling to agro firms. By selling waste, a cooperative gets $70 a month (75% of the collective installments) and each household pays only $1.3 out of pocket to repay the collective monthly installments. Members create strong peer pressure on one another to use toilet so that they can repay collective loan easily.
THE MODEL TURNS TO A SELF-SCALABLE AND SELF-SUSTAINABLE SANITATION CHAIN. Cooperatives will continue to earn revenue from sale of waste after repaying the microcredit in 2.25 years. Understanding the high profitability of financing toilets, enthusiastic cooperative members will start lending non-users to purchase Toilet+ just like MFIs. Users will use peer pressure to make other non-users purchase and use Toilet+ with cooperative financing. Thus cooperative will grow and members will earn more revenue from sale of waste from their financed toilets.
Toilet+ IGNITES THE SPARK, COMMUNITY MAKES IT A REVOLUTION. 1)The more a family uses Toilet+, the more it earns 2)Many Cooperatives will finance others’ toilets as a profitable business and thus expand the size of the cooperative. 3)Fewer fatal diseases, cleaner environment, and more income will improve the living standard of community permanently. “
source for quoted content Dell Social Innovation Challenge- Toilets (changed to third person)
About Anjali Sarker from DELL site
Toilet Plus site:
Related articles
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Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) is the central body to monitor and supervise microfinance operations of non-governmental organizations of the Republic of Bangladesh.
- A Business Model That Will Blow Your Mind & 10 Ways You Can Improve Yours (fireflycoaching.com)
- Canadian-made toilet aims to lay waste to sanitation diseases (ctvnews.ca)
- Toilet Apartheid (counterpunch.org)
- Renewed research call for low-cost sanitation technologies in Bangladesh [deadline18 Feb 2013] (sanitationupdates.wordpress.com)
- UN deputy chief urges action on water rights (sfgate.com)
- ICDDRB – Update on WASH and hygiene practices (sanitationupdates.wordpress.com)
- April Rinne, Where Is Microfinance Most Powerfully Linked with Sustainable Agriculture, Renewable Energy, Water and Sanitation to End Poverty and Mitigate Climate Change? (slideshare.net)
- Farmers in Nepal Use Urine to Boost Crop Yields (scientificamerican.com)
36th WEDC International Conference – Call for papers and other contributions – Sanitation and Hygiene
Call for papers and other contributions for the conference titled:
Sanitation and Hygiene Services in an Uncertain Environment
Location: Egerton University, Nakuru, Kenya
Deadline for initial submissions: 15 February 2013
The 36th WEDC International Conference welcomes contributions on any aspect of WASH in low- and middle-income countries, from policies
for community water resources management to practical evaluation of hand-washing promotion. The conference is for anybody working with the development and emergency WASH sectors, from policy to practice, including field officers, project managers, utility planners, researchers, scientists, engineers, social scientists, trainers, knowledge managers and advocacy campaigners. Organizations represented may be national or international NGOs, local or national governments, consultants, contractors, UN and other multilateral organizations, universities, resource centres, regulators or equipment suppliers. From the big global issues, to local challenges, this is a forum for sharing current knowledge and debating future options.
Download the Call for Papers Details here:http://www.wedcconference.co.uk/docs/36th_Conference_Call.pdf
Submit your paper or poster through My WEDC:https://wedc-knowledge.lboro.ac.uk/
Conference overview
36th WEDC International Conference is a comprehensive learning event, which provides continued professional development for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector professionals.
Registration Starts on Sunday June 30 2013 with paper presentations starting July 1
A three-day conference programme initially facilitates the sharing of current knowledge and experiences, through presentations and debate of peer-reviewed content. July 1st – 3rd
This is followed by a two-day capacity development programme, comprising quality-assured workshops designed to develop skills and knowledge in hot topic areas, which have been jointly identified with sector stakeholders. July 4th – 5th
For full details visit:http://www.wedcconference.co.uk/
The Water, Engineering and Development Centre WELDC is one of the world’s leading education and research institutes for developing knowledge and capacity in water and sanitation for sustainable development and emergency relief. more….
source for all details: call for papers pdf , http://wedc.lboro.ac.uk/about/about.html and http://cede.lboro.ac.uk/node/188
(no original information from washlink)
Call For Abstracts: Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale 2013
The Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale. is currently accepting abstracts for presentation at the conference, and August 31 is the first abstract deadline.
Global Health & Innovation Conference 2013
Presented by Unite For Sight, 10th Annual Conference
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Saturday, April 13 – Sunday, April 14, 2013
http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference
“A Meeting of Minds”–CNN
The Global Health & Innovation Conference is the world’s largest global health conference and social entrepreneurship conference. This must-attend, thought-leading conference annually convenes 2,200 leaders, changemakers, students, and professionals from all fields of global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship. Register during July to secure the lowest registration rate.
Interested in presenting at the conference? Submit an abstract for consideration. The first abstract deadline is August 31.
Keynote Addresses
- Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute, Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
- Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Director of Health, Millennium Village Project, Earth Institute, Columbia University
- More speakers to be announced
Design Thinking Speakers
- Robert HJ Miros, CEO, 3rd Stone Design Inc.
- Andrew Zolli, Curator, Pop!Tech
- More speakers to be announced
Education Initiatives in Global Health Speakers
- “The ‘New’ World Health: Building a Field Across Disciplines and Sectors,” Sue Goldie, Director, Harvard Global Health Institute
- “Global Health, Education, and Development: Exploring the Critical Linkages,” Brian Heuser, Assistant Professor of the Practice of International Education Policy, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University; Affiliated Faculty, Vanderbilt Institute of Global Health (VIGH)
- Christian Kraeker, MD, FRCPC DTM&H MSc, Department of Internal Medicine, McMaster University
- Amy Lockwood, Deputy Director, Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford University
- “Delight, Dismay, and Determination in Global Health,” Eldryd Parry, Founder, Tropical Health and Education Trust
- More speakers to be announced
Environment, Energy, and Agriculture Speakers
- “Asset-Based Financing for Smallholder Farmers,” Tony Kalm, Managing Director, One Acre Fund
- More speakers to be announced
Film, Photography, Art & Global Health Speakers
- “Using Visual Methods to Investigate Urban Health Disparities,” Carolyn Cannuscio, ScD, Core Investigator, VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, Philadelphia VA Medical Center; Assistant Professor, Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
- “Patient Empowerment: How the Visually Impaired Can Become Better Advocates for Themselves…And for Their Service Providers,” Joseph Lovett, Producer/Director, Going Blind
- “Designing Social Change Programs: Lessons from the Field,” Bob McKinnon, President GALEWiLL Design; Director, the GALEWiLL Center for Opportunity & Progress
- More speakers to be announced
Healthcare Delivery Models and Impact Measurement
- Juan-Carlos Alegre, Director, Monitoring and Evaluation, Management Sciences for Health
- Peter Bourne, Senior Research Fellow, Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; Chair, Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC)
- Michael Brennan, American Academy of Ophthalmology Past President; Ophthalmologist, Alamance Eye Center
- James Clarke, MD, Ophthalmologist and Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana; Unite For Sight Ghana Medical Director
- “Disruptive Innovation in Healthcare/Wellness for the Base of the Pyramid,” Al Hammond, Co-Founder and Chairman of Healthpoint Services; Director of Health for All, Ashoka
- Ali Lutz, Haiti Special Projects Manager, Partners In Health
- Chuck Slaughter, President and Founder, Living Goods
- More speakers to be announced
Health Policy & Advocacy
- “Trading in Global Health: The Politics of Innovation,” Tahir Amin, Co-Founder and Director of Intellectual Property, I-MAK
- “Is There the Courage to Change the Nation’s Diet?” Kelly Brownell, Professor of Psychology, Epidemiology and Public Health; Director, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Yale University
- More speakers to be announced
Infectious Disease Speakers
- “Social Entrepreneurship in Health and its Potential Role in HIV/AIDS Treatment for Maternal Newborn Health in East Africa,” Georgia Sambunaris, Senior Advisor, Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and the Environment, USAID
- More speakers to be announced
Maternal and Child Health Speakers
- “Improving Maternal and Child Health: A Look at Community Level Interventions that Save Lives,” Koki Agarwal, Director MCHIP, JHPIEGO
- “State of the World’s Children: A Tragedy in the Making,” Jane Aronson, MD, CEO, Founder, Worldwide Orphans Foundation; Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Cornell Weill Medical College and Columbia University
- “The Role of Nutritious Products to Combat Stunting as One of the Key Long-Term Strategies,” Martin Bloem, Global Coordinator, WFP UNAIDS
- “The Global Landscape of Cross-border Reproductive Care: Twenty Key Findings for the New Millennium,” Marcia Inhorn, MPH, PhD, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs; Editor, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Council on Middle East Studies, Yale University
- “Friends of Low-Cost IVF: Empowering Infertile Women Globally,” Pasquale Patrizio, Professor of Obestrics and Gynecology, Yale School of Medicine; Director, Yale Fertility Center
- More speakers to be announced
Non-Communicable Diseases Speakers
- “Association of Sexual Violence, Human Rights Violations, and Mental Health Outcomes in Liberia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Kirsten Johnson, MD, MPH, Director, Humanitarian Studies Initiative, McGill University; Affiliated Faculty, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University
- Felicia Knaul, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School; Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative
- “Innovative Partnership for Vision Research Integration: Leveraging Existing Health and Development Platforms for the Eye Diseases,” John Prakash, PhD, MBA, Associate Director, International Programs, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health
- “Ensuring Right to Sight by Eliminating Needless Blindness through Public Private Community Participation Model,” Sarang Samal, Founder, Kalinga Eye Hospital, NYSASDRI, India; Unite For Sight Partner
- “Tropical Dermatology: Role in Global Health,” Aisha Sethi, Assistant Professor, Dermatology and Infectious Diseases, Associate Residency Program Director, Section of Dermatology, University of Chicago
- More speakers to be announced
Organization Management Speakers
- “Transforming Health Systems Through Innovation,” Rifat Atun, Professor of International Health Management, Imperial College London
- More speakers to be announced
Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation Speakers
- “Controlled Trials as Program Evaluation: Not Just for Researchers Anymore,” Paul Bolton, Associate Scientist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- “Low Grade Inflammation and Glaucoma,” James Tsai, MD, Robert R. Young Professor and Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Yale University School of Medicine; Chief of Ophthalmology, Yale-New Haven Hospital
- More speakers to be announced
Philanthropy and Investment Speakers
- Natalia Oberti Noguera, Founder and CEO, Pipeline Fellowship
- “Impact Investing in Healthcare for Low-Income Communities,” Keely Stevenson, CEO, Bamboo Finance USA
- More speakers to be announced
Social Enterprise Speakers
- “Transparency as a Brand Culture,” Kyle Berner, Creator, Feelgoodz LLC
- “Lessons Learned From Doing Social Enterprise Start Ups,” Jeffrey Church, Founder, Nika Water
- “The Fig Food Movement: From Tikkun Olam to the Whole Foods Shelf,” Joel Henry, President and Founder, Fig Food Company, LLC
- “Separating Consumer Products From Profit: Using a Non-Profit Model in a For-Profit Industry,” Krista Lampe, CORE Foods Chief of Operations and Co-Founder
- Ken Lee, Co-founder and Co-owner, Lotus Foods
- “Building from the Inside Out: Co-opertives as an Egalitarian, Democratic, Grassroots, Free-Market Development Strategy,” Rodney North, The Answer Man – Information for the Public and Media, Equal Exchange Coop
- Frederick Schilling, Co-Creator, Big Tree Farms
- “Improving Our Economy and Our Health with Real Food,” Noha Waibsnaider, Founder and CEO, Peeled Snacks
- Joe Whinney, Founder and CEO, Theo Chocolate, Inc.
- More speakers to be announced
Social Entrepreneurship Speakers
- “From Start-Up to Scale-Up: The Path to Becoming Industry Leaders in Reducing Indoor Air Pollution,” Ron Bills, Chairman and CEO, Envirofit International
- “Can Good Products Drive Out Bad? Experimental Evidence from Local Markets for Antimalarial Medicine in Uganda,” David Yanagizawa-Drott, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
- “Post Conflict Nations: A Framework for Change in the Era of Total Global Competition – The Case Study of Rwanda,” Michael Fairbanks, Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- “Collaborative Interdependence: Building Better Partnerships Across Sectors,” Ted London, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, William Davidson Institute and Faculty, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
- ” The Low Take-up of Welfare Improving Products Among Poor Consumers: Lessons from Randomized Controlled Trials in Bangladesh, India and Malawi,” A. Mushfiq Morabak, Associate Professor of Economics, Yale University School of Management
- Tim Zak, Associate Teaching Professor; Director, Institute for Social Innovation, H. John Heinz III College, Carnegie Mellon University
- More speakers to be announced
Social Media & Marketing Speakers
- Charlotte Cole, Senior Vice President, Global Education, Sesame Workshop
- “Integrated Impact: Aligning Internal Resources and Engaging External Stakeholders to Make a Difference,” Scott Henderson, Managing Director, CauseShift
- “Marketing Strategies for Non-Profit and For-Benefit Organizations,” Naomi Hirabayashi, Director of Marketing, Do Something
- “The Animated Activist,” Firdaus Kharas, Chairman, Chocolate Moose Media and Global Shift
- More speakers to be announced
Surgery & Global Health Speakers
- “Three Years of Championing the Fight Against Needless Cataract Blindness in Ghana: Experiences and Challenges at Save The Nation’s Sight Clinic,” Thomas Baah, MD, Ophthalmologist and Director, Save The Nation’s Sight Clinic, Ghana
- “Evolution of Conceptual Approaches for NGO Intervention,” Scott Corlew, ReSurge
- Michael Gyasi, Ophthalmologist, North Western Eye Centre, Ghana; Unite For Sight Partner
- “Glaucoma Care in West Africa: Challenges and Opportunities,” Leon Herndon, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology Duke Glaucoma Service
- “Implementation of Surgical Services in Low and Middle Income Countries,” Selwyn Rogers, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
- More speakers to be announced
Technology in Global Health Speakers
- “Comparative Effectiveness Evaluations of Health Care Technology in Low to Middle Income Countries,” Rajesh Balkrishnan, PhD, Associate Director for Research and Education, University of Michigan Center for Global Health
- “Health Information Systems: Design Thinking in the Context of Quality Improvement,” Leo Anthony Celi, MD, MS, MPH, Executive Director, Sana, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT; Research Director, Laboratory of Computational Physiology, MIT; Staff Intensivist, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
- “Building Sustainable Health Technology for the Developing World,” Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Founder, African Institution of Technology
- “Remote Biosensing in Resource-Limited Settings,” Jessica Haberer, MD, MS, Research Scientist, Harvard Institute for Global Health; Assistant in Health Decision Sciences, Massachusetts General Hospital; Instructor, Harvard Medical School
- “Using mHealth, eHealth and iHealth in PMTCT and OVC Programs,” Bobby Jefferson, Senior Informatics Advisor, Futures Group
- “Bridging the Communication Gap with Speaking Books,” Brian Julius, Owner, Books of Hope
- Paul Meyer, Chairman and President, Voxiva, Inc.
- “The Social Nature of Digital Disease Detection,” Robert Munro, CEO, Ibidon; Graduate Fellow, Stanford University
- “Can mHealth Bridge the Gap Between the Haves and Have Nots?” John Piette, Associate Director for Global Health Communications, Center for Global Health, University of Michigan
- More speakers to be announced
Water and Sanitation Speakers
- “Re-Imagining Reporting Live: Lessons on Transparency When It’s All Out There,” Ned Breslin, Chief Executive Officer, Water For People
- More speakers to be announced
“Advice From The Experts” Panels
- “Careers in Social Entrepreneurship: Advice From The Experts”
- “Careers in Global Health: Advice From The Experts”
- More panels to be announced
Interactive Workshops
- “Camp for Orphans: Building Independence and Leadership Skills in At-Risk Youth,”Jane Aronson, MD, CEO, Founder, Worldwide Orphans Foundation; Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Cornell Weill Medical College and Columbia University
- “Youth Programming in Developing Countries: All About Training!”Jane Aronson, MD, CEO, Founder, Worldwide Orphans Foundation; Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Cornell Weill Medical College and Columbia University
- “Scaling Your Social Venture: Becoming an Impact Entrepreneur,” Paul Bloom, Ph.D., Faculty Director, Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE), Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
- “The Practicalities of Where, When, and How to Implement Controlled Trials as Program Evaluation,”Paul Bolton, Associate Scientist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- “The Coming Wave of Social Entrepreneurship,” Jeffrey Church, Founder, Nika Water
- “Meeting Global Public Challenges through the Private Sector,”Michael Fairbanks, Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- “From Concept to Reality: Exploring Methods to Bring Products to Scale in Developing Markets,” Elizabeth Johansen, Director of Product Development, Design that Matters
- More workshops to be announced
Related articles
- Yale honors Ethiopian minister of health at global conference (ethiopeaceforum.wordpress.com)
- World Bank debate on paying for AIDS (blogs.nature.com)
e-Learning course on Governance in Urban Sanitation
e-Learning course on Governance in Urban Sanitation
Course Background
In 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Millennium Development Goals that challenged the global community to reduce poverty and increase the health and well-being of all peoples. Two years later, the World Summit on Sustainable Development added access to basic sanitation as a centerpiece of sustainable development strategy and set a series of actions to achieve the global sanitation target – halving the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by the year 2015.
Yet, nearly 40% of the world’s population still lacks adequate sanitation. Indeed, developing access to sanitation services poses technical, institutional, financial and also social and cultural challenges. Major obstacles relate to governance deficiencies, especially the lack of adequate institutional framework. Other hindrances include the weak priority given to sanitation and the insufficiency of substantial investment in the sector. Besides investment, sustainable solutions should also adequately address the other dimensions, especially institutional and financial aspects. It is thus essential to implement sustainable institutional arrangements ensuring the setting up of a political anchor for the sanitation sector as well as responsiveness to the demand, transparency and accountability to users, financial sustainability, and the involvement of all the actors in their area of expertise.
On the basis of these needs, UNITAR’s Local Development Programme has developed and proposes the e-learning course Governance in Urban Sanitation.
Course Goal
The goal of the course is to enhance the capacity of local decision-makers and sanitation professionals to make the most enlightened decisions and investments in the area of urban sanitation. It provides analytical tools to understand the financial and institutional framework of the sanitation sector, taking into account the needs of urban poor communities.
The course consists of 4 modules:
- Module 1 – Introduction to Sanitation
- Module 2 – Economics, Pricing and Financing of the Sanitation Sector
- Module 3 – Institutional Aspects of the Sanitation Sector
- Module 4 – Sanitation and Poverty
Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, participants should be able to:
Identify the benefits of sanitation;
Analyze costs and financing of sanitation services;
Identify suitable institutional arrangements and evaluate service provider options, benefits and limits;
Integrate accountability when structuring relationships;
Make communities and microfinance organizations partners in extending sanitation services to the poor;
Assess specific situations and recommend financial and institutional strategies at the local level towards urban sanitation improvement.
Methodology
Learning activities are based on sound adult learning pedagogical principles. They are distributed in such a way to ensure the achievement of the learning objectives in a flexible manner: learning materials can indeed be consulted in a non-linear way so as to provide participants with a high degree of flexibility in choosing both the learning pace that is the most adequate to them. Thus, participants are responsible for their own learning throughout the course. All learning activities are moderated by high level sanitation experts.
Learning materials include the following elements:
- Basic reading materials (compulsory) intended to understand the basic concepts and principles of modules’ subject-matter;
- Advanced reading materials (optional) for participants willing to learn more about the topic;
- External links to relevant, publications, reports and websites;
- Glossaries of terms and of acronyms as supportive learning tools;
- A community discussion board (forum) will allow participants to discuss topics initiated by the course moderator and to post questions, comments or new discussions.
The learning time is estimated to be about 5 hours per week. This includes study time (about 3 hours/week) and participation in collaborative activities (about 2 hours/week). Time dedicated to assessment activities is not taken into account in this estimation.
Course Completion & Certification
Successful completion of the course requires participants to achieve a minimum total score of 70% and entitles to a certificate of completion. A certificate of participation will be issued to participants who took all the mandatory exercises but achieved a score inferior to 70%.
Assessment Activities
The assessment activities are organized as follows:
- A self-assessment quiz which enables participants to analyze their level of knowledge before and during the course, making them able to decide how to approach the learning materials and which parts to focus on. This exercise is not graded and can be taken as many times as desired.
- 4 tests, corresponding to each one of the 4 course modules, aim at evaluating participants’ comprehension of the course content. The 4 tests altogether account for 40% of the final grade.
- A case study where participants can apply their knowledge practically. The basis of the case study scenario takes as a basis the concrete situation participants’ municipality/region faces with regards to sanitation. The case study accounts for 40% of the final grade.
- An innovative peer-to-peer review exercise providing an ideal breeding ground for knowledge and experience sharing. Participants evaluate and discuss each other’s case study in the framework of specific group forums. Ultimately, the moderator will provide comments and grade to each participant related to his/her review of another participant’s case study and subsequent discussions with fellow-participants. The peer-to-peer review accounts for 20% of the final grade.
Conditions of participation
The course is open to decision-makers from local governments as well as representatives of service providers (national governments, private sector, NGOs) and international organizations involved in the sanitation sector worldwide. It is advisable to have prior basic knowledge of urban sanitation and/or urban environmental issues. Participants should also have access to a computer with a reliable Internet connection.
Fee and Registration
Course fee is USD 400 per participant. Deadline for registration is 9 April 2010, or when the course is fully subscribed.
Contact
For further information, contact Mr. Nicolas Plouviez at sanitation@unitar.org.
WHO Technical Notes for Emergencies prepared by WEDC
from WEDC The Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) at Loughborough University
“Please be advised that the latest version of the WHO Technical Notes for Emergencies prepared by WEDC…”
http://wedc.lboro.ac.uk/knowledge/notes_emergencies.html
Titles include:
Please click below to view pdfs of the World Health Organization Technical Notes for Emergencies.
- Cleaning and disinfecting wells
- Cleaning and disinfecting boreholes
- Cleaning and disinfecting water storage tanks and tankers
- Rehabilitating small-scale piped water distribution systems
- Emergency treatment of drinking water at the point of use
- Rehabilitating water treatment works after an emergency
- Solid waste management in emergencies
- Disposal of dead bodies
- How much water is needed
- Hygiene promotion in emergencies
- Measuring chlorine levels in water supplies
- Delivering safe water by tanker
- Planning for excreta disposal in emergencies
- Technical options for excreta disposal
- Cleaning wells after seawater flooding
water sanitation new
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