BRAC/Bangladesh – Innovation in sustainable sanitation | Source
Innovation Components
Innovative activities have been undertaken to develop a sustainable and scalable model of operation that delivers cost-effective sanitation services and technology. BRAC WASH is looking into new horizons and focusing on innovation and developing learning tools to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its activities. Thus, the programme has taken on several different projects in this regard. 
QIS
In order to focus on collecting hard evidence on the real impact that BRAC WASH has been having on the lives of millions of people, BRAC and IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre have jointly developed and applied the Qualitative Information System (QIS) to measure the progress achieved in terms of outcomes. QIS quantifies qualitative process indicators, such as participation and inclusiveness, and outcome indicators, such as behavioural change, with the help of progressive scales (‘ladders’). Each step on the ladder has a short description, called a mini-scenario, which describes the situation for a particular score. Further information on QIS is available here.
Sensemaker®
Sensemaker® is a software that allows an alternative approach to quantifying the qualitative. Stories are collected from the field regarding a specific topic, for example, members of the Village WASH Committee (VWC) are asked to relate stories about their experience working for the committee, and beneficiaries of the BRAC WASH programme are asked to share stories about changing behaviours resulting from the use of latrines. Once it is written, the story is analysed by the researcher and the subject together through a series of triads. The information is then entered into the software and analysed. Further information on Sensemaker® is available here.
Life Cycle Cost Approach
Life Cycle Cost Approach (LCCA) is a way for BRAC WASH to analyse expenditures, service delivery, and the outcomes achieved as a result. It allows for a financial sustainability check by providing a detailed overview of unit cost expenditures. LCCA helps to improve targeting of future investments by assessing past performance. Moreover, it is a way to monitor the services delivered over time, thus resulting in a better value for money.
Reuse of faecal waste as organic fertiliser
All over Bangladesh, wastes are being dumped unsystematically whenever the pit latrines are filling up. BRAC WASH has thus taken on this second generation challenge in order to avert a probable environmental issue resulting from it. A team from BRAC WASH has been exploring various ways to solve this matter. The most reasonable solution is the reuse of the pit content as organic fertiliser. The study has covered seven climatic zones of Bangladesh, and field trials have been conducted with vegetables and rice paddy to see if it is suitable for human consumption. Recent lab results show that the nutrient content of the organic fertiliser used to grow the crops are meeting the food safety requirements. Currently, the team is still working on meeting the WHO guidelines for the pathogenic content of the fertiliser.
The key objective of this project is to identify and develop micro-entrepreneurship skills for the marketing of organic fertiliser from human faecal waste as a business model. To develop the compost business model, the project conducted market analysis survey to develop the entrepreneurial skills of people in rural areas to sell compost to local farmers. This project aims to ensure proper waste management which leads to meet the Millennium Development Goal of environmental sustainability.
Action Research
To further contribute to innovation in the WASH sector, and the Bangladesh WASH sector in particular, the BRAC WASH programme is undertaking action research on long outstanding issues such as low-cost sanitation for areas with high water tables, water technologies for areas with saline intrusion, safe and final disposal of human waste, sanitation supply chain management, and male hygiene promotion. To further contribute to innovation in the WASH sector, and the Bangladesh WASH sector in particular, the BRAC WASH programme is undertaking action research on long outstanding issues such as low-cost sanitation for areas with high water tables, water technologies for areas with saline intrusion, safe and final disposal of human waste, sanitation supply chain management, and hygiene promotion for men.
Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) seeks a world-class research team to design and implement a research project in Dhaka (Bangladesh) around the effectiveness of large-scale sanitation promotion strategies to improve usage and maintenance of existing communal toilet facilities in low-income urban communities. 
Call published: Tuesday 16 July 2013
Deadline for EOI submission: Tuesday 6 August 2013
Budget: GBP 220,000
Implementation period: Late 2013 – end 2015.
The Call is available for download from the WSUP website.
Simpa Innovates With Pay-As-You-Go Solar in India | Source: Sustainable Business 2013
India-based Simpa Networks is using a pay-as-you-go method to make solar energy affordable to people living in rural areas in that country.
After making a small down payment for a high quality solar home system, customers pre-pay based on actual energy use through their cell phone. Each small payment contributes to the final purchase price.
The Asian Development Bank announced it would make a $2 million equity investment in Simpa, which will extend the service to more than 60,000 households by 2015. 
“In our launch market, India, as in most developing country markets, the low income consumer can actually afford a small solar home system if only they could pay for such a system over time, in small, irregular, and user-defined increments. That is, if the pricing model matched the pricing model they are already using for kerosene, candles, batteries, and phone charging,” explains Simpa.
“We transform an energy expenditure into an asset purchase. We offer customers the opportunity for ownership of their energy resource and break their dependence on expensive, unhealthy, and inefficient sources of light and electricity,” says Simpa.
To do this, Simpa developed Progressive PurchaseTM technology that can turn their solar system on or off as people make payments. The technology combines product-embedded hardware and cloud-based software.
A simple paper test strip could save lives by helping millions find clean sources of drinking water | Source: Giacom, July 2, 2013
SUMMARY: A team will first test the invention in Lahore, Pakistan, where it is estimated that more than 60 percent of the water is contaminated. 
There are 2.5 billion people in the world who live without basic sanitation, opening them up to nasty parasites, bacterial infections and viruses that cause millions of deaths a year. Many of these deaths could be prevented with access to clean drinking water; a resource more than 1 billion people live without.
Two teams led by chemist Vincent Rotello of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst want to reduce those deaths and help the billions more who fall ill from contaminated water every year with a simple, affordable strip of paper that can detect bacteria in drinking water. It could reduce the need for expensive equipment, making it easier to gauge water safety in areas of the world that previously could not afford testing.
A U.S. based team will work on scaling techniques to print the strips, while a Pakistan-based team will test them in Lahore — the largest city in Pakistan’s Punjab region. More than 60 percent of the water sources there are estimated to be contaminated.
3 Innovative Ways to Manage Rural Water Supply | Source: World Bank: The Water Blog, June 25, 2013
With 70% of the world’s extreme poor living in rural areas, and improved water access still lacking for close to 768 million people around the world, investing in safe and sustainable drinking water for rural populations is important to our goal of eradicating extreme poverty within our generation.
When compared to urban water supply, rural areas present a different set of challenges:
Often, the cost per capita of constructing water systems is higher in rural than in urban areas, due to a smaller population which is scattered over a large area. This, in turn, leads to high operating costs, to be recovered by fewer users.
Most importantly, there may not always be an obvious institution to take the responsibility of managing and operating the system after construction. This institutional vacuum leads to poor collection of water fees, and ultimately to poor operation and maintenance of the rural water systems.
Keeping rural water systems working is perhaps even more important than building them. Leaving it up to the community to manage complex rural water systems has often been used to remedy the institutional challenge of operating and maintaining rural water systems, albeit with mitigated results. While there are no silver institutional bullets, three approaches from recent World Bank projects used innovative concepts to establish sustainable rural water supply:
More than a Drop in the Bucket: Decentralized Membrane-Based Drinking Water Refill Stations in Southeast Asia | Source: Environmental Science & Technology, May 31, 2013
Abstract: Decentralized membrane-based water treatment and refill stations represent a viable and growing business model in Southeast Asia, which rely upon the purchase of water from refill stations by consumers. This feature article discusses these water treatment and refill stations, including the appropriateness of the technology, the suitability of the business models employed, and the long-term environmental and operational sustainability of these systems. We also provide an outlook for the sector, highlighting key technical challenges that need to be addressed in order to improve the capacity of these systems, such that they can become an effective and financially viable solution to the clean water crisis.
Maura O’Neill, USAID – A Partnership to Improve Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene | Source: Huffington Post, May 24, 2013 |
The statistics around water, sanitation, and hygiene are daunting. 2.5 billion people worldwide still lack access to improved sanitation. Contaminated food and water cause up to 1.5 million deaths from diarrheal disease among children under five every year. Seventy percent of available freshwater resources worldwide are used for agriculture, often through inefficient and environmentally unsustainable means.
Maura O'Neill, Chief Innovation Officer, USAID
The good news is that the solutions to these challenges are changing. Innovators, governments, and donors are coming together to find new approaches that could dramatically change this water-scarce landscape. In 2011, USAID launched one such partnership between our Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) program and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The WASH for Life Partnership identifies and rigorously tests new WASH technologies and delivery models, then scales and replicates those that are proven successful.
This week, we are excited to announce the seven projects supported by the WASH for Life Partnership and the innovative work these projects are doing around the world.
DIV selects grants in three stages. The Stage One phase is for piloting new ideas. There are four WASH For live grants in Stage One. Bear Valley Ventures is testing new anti-microbial hand cleaning products for urban families In India who have constricted access to water. In Vietnam, WaterSHED is introducing and testing HappyTap to see whether an affordable, conveniently located, and aesthetically appealing product can encourage consistent and proper handwashing. IDEO.org aims to empower Ghanaian communities with mobile phones tools that can upload instances of open defecation onto an open-source map to raise support for improved sanitation. Finally, RAND Corporation, is testing mobile-based financing options to make water filters more accessible to poor Kenyan communities.
USAID & Gates Foundation Announce 7 New Innovation Ventures (DIV) Grantees | Source: USAID, May 22, 2013 |
WASHINGTON, D.C. -Yesterday, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced seven new winners in the Agency’s open competition for development ideas. These projects are co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures WASH for Life Partnership – an initiative to support DIV grantees improving water, sanitation, and hygiene in developing countries. These seven grantees are testing new and cost-effective solutions to water challenges around the world. 
The Dispensers for Safe Water Program – DIV is supporting a solution that will bring treated drinking water to more than 5 million people, all for approximately $.50 per person per year. This award is the first DIV project to transition into widespread implementation. The Dispensers for Safe Water program by Innovations for Poverty Action is not only proven to significantly improve households’ long-term adoption of treated water, but also keeps their water clean for up to 72 hours to prevent recontamination.
RAND Corporation – Capitalizing on the proliferation of mobile phones, RAND is testing how to make water filters more affordable to lower income groups through mobile payments in Kenya.
Sanergy – Sanergy is building 700 toilets, collecting human waste from these toilets, and converting it into high-quality organic fertilizer for sale to commercial farmers. Through this grant, Sanergy will provide hygienic sanitation to 70,000 residents in the slums of Kenya.
IDEO.org – Taking a more digital approach to sanitation solutions, IDEO.org is using open-source mapping and mobile phones to provide community members with the tools and resources they need to raise support for improved sanitation in Ghana.
WaterSHED – Using a market-based approach to improving hygiene, WaterSHED will test how the commercial introduction of an attractive yet affordable handwashing product (the “HappyTap”) in Vietnam can encourage consistent and proper hand-washing at critical times.
Bear Valley Ventures Ltd. – Bear Valley Ventures Ltd. is developing and testing innovative anti-microbial hand cleaning products for use by families in poor urban communities who use outside sanitation facilities and often have constrained access to water. The project will develop all the elements of a social business in preparation for test market.
KickStart International – KickStart’s “MoneyMaker” irrigation pumps are proven to move people out of poverty quickly, cost-effectively and sustainably. This grantee will now test different models of financing services to make their pumps even more accessible to farmers. Around 800,000 rural farming families (or around 4 million people) in Kenya alone could benefit from using the shallow water irrigation pumps to grow more crops, increase their income, and lift themselves out of poverty.
Mobile and Web Apps Tackle Sanitation Challenges | Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation, May 9, 2013
Mobile phone and web applications that enable people to talk to local policymakers and allow children to learn through games have won a competition for technological innovations that address sanitation problems in developing countries.
One in three people today have no toilet and the global economic losses due to lack of access to sanitation amount to US$260 billion a year, according to the World Bank.
The three winners of the World Bank’s Sanitation App Challenge were announced on Friday (19 April) during the 2013 Spring Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, United States. Representatives from each team were invited to the event and are now on a week-long tour of Silicon Valley, California.
The three apps — mSchool, SunClean and Taarifa — were chosen from ten finalists announced last month (22 March). The winners were chosen by a combination of public votes and scrutiny by a group of tech experts and World Bank members.
One judge, Jesse Shapiro, thewater, sanitation and hygiene adviser of the US Agency for International Development, tells SciDev.Net that each app was assessed on its originality, quality of user interface, technical feasibility, economic viability, how it tackles an identified problem and the team effort involved in its development.
“A lot of the apps that came out of this initiative were about accessing information and were based on the idea of transparency and the public providing information to decision-makers,” says Shapiro.
One of the winners, mSchool, works along those lines. This text-messaging tool from Senegal allows students, parents and teachers to report sanitation breakdowns and repairs required in schools.
“We set up mSchool as a platform for monitoring [sanitation] conditions in schools,” says Daniel Annerose, CEO of Manobi, the Senegal-based IT firm that developed the app.
“It’s a system that can teach children to defend their basic rights and services,” he says.
Another of the winning apps, called Taarifa, allows people in developing nations to link up with their local government, and is already in use in Uganda.
It is an open-source app that allows communities to report and address local sanitation issues by collecting and visualising information, and enables public officials to respond.
One of its developers, Florian Rathgeber, a computational scientist at Imperial College London, United Kingdom, tells SciDev.Net: “The idea was to provide a platform which one could use, especially from mobile devices, to report infrastructural issues and to get feedback on how they were processed and dealt with.”
The last of the winners, SunClean, was developed by students at the University of Indonesia. It uses games to teach children about waste disposal and hand-washing.
Jaehyang So, manager of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program that developed and funded the competition, says that they did not expect an entry that featured a game about sanitation.
“But we thought it had a very strong messaging purpose and captured a part of life that is so common to everybody,” she adds.
The app contest was an offshoot of the two-day Sanitation Hackathon events held simultaneously in 40 cities around the world last December. During these, programmers worked intensively with subject matter experts to find innovative solutions to local sanitation challenges.
“Each of these hackathon events was very local to the cities. We wanted to create a global, virtual community and the App Challenge allowed us to do that,” says So.
