Brian Arbogast, Director of Water Sanitation and Hygiene at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said the purpose of launching the fund is to speed up sanitation innovation in Asia.
“I’m very proud to announce that Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be contributing 15 million dollars to this fund and ADB will be contributing an additional 28 million dollars to accelerate innovation and find new ways to deliver sanitation services, that are fantastic for the end user that solve the problems and avoid all the sickness…”

The trust fund will support identificaiton, testing and pilot implementation of innovative sanitation solutions-new policies, business models and technologies-to increase support for non-networked sanitation projects.

The projects will be in piloting innovations in waste disposal of urban and peri-urban areas and sludge treatment, providing additional grant funds for innovations in waste and wastewater management projects, supporting sluge treatment policies and innovations in project delivery mechanisms.

Amy Leung, Director of Urban Development and Water Division Southeast Asia Department of ADB said this project is a very important part of ADB overall strategy in the water sector.

“One of the key areas we want to work with our member countries is to expand sanitation and waste water treatment in the Asia-Pacific region which is very much behind the Millennium Development Goal and also an area that will not only just damage the health, but also causing a lot of cost to the environment of the Asia-Pacific countries.”

It is estimated that there are still 1.7 billion people without access to improved sanitation and 780 million people still practicing open defecation. It is hoped that the five year fund will help more people to have access to improved sanitation.
(Source CRI, Chen Xuefei)http://english.cri.cn/6966/2013/09/04/53s785949.htm